Same here, but I won't have it any other way. The violence reaches out to us, and we feel that we ourselves had been violated.
This makes me think back to my first viewing, since I had made it a point to know as little as possible about the story beforehand. Not only was my heart throbbing with the love story and the beauty of these two men and the beauty of the land...but so many other emotions were brought out in such a raw way -- the shock of FNIT (shock that they were showing this in a "mainstream" movie, not shock for myself), the yucky-potential-danger from Aguirre, the crap Jack had to put up with from LD...and the sickening tire-iron scene. I felt put through a wringer, that's for sure. So real, so like life, a full range of circumstances and feelings.
For a long time, one of my least favorite scenes was Ennis bitching at Alma for going to work. It was the first moment that I didn't like him as a person -- or I mean, I sure wouldn't marry some jerk like that!
But as to the tire-iron scene, I really did think that was just Ennis's vision inside his head, his worst fear. I didn't think it was real.
Of course, since then, the entire story has taken on so much more meaning. And I totally agree that every moment was necessary. (Except I still wonder about the phone call Aguirre gets in the trailer when E and J are there -- I've never really gotten why they would bother with that.)
kathy