2015-02-05: This is Not the Way to Get Healthy

[BloodHenge]

I could tell Seth was about to say something stupid as soon as I saw the words "at least". The last thing someone in a crappy situation wants (aside from it getting worse) is to hear someone better off explain something they ought to be thankful for. I think Jordan adequately explained the rest of my thoughts on the matter.

[lyze]

To clarify, I find the overuse of the word 'trigger' to be insulting to people who suffer real, diagnosable, actual psychological problems due to traumatic events or neurological chemical imbalances. Everyone has things they get upset about, have fear of, are uncomfortable with. To trivialize someone with PTSD, like in the example given of a Vietnam vet who has flashbacks when walking by a tv depicting scenes of battle, by comparing them with someone who finds the use of the word 'upset' as degrading to women triggering is the most....well...fucktarded thing the internet has bred. Yes, I hold the internet responsible because I think before the anonymity and ability to find ass patting echo chambers like tumblr with minimal effort became universally available, a person revealing to their friends and neighbors the sight of raw meat is 'triggering' would have been at best asked politely to get out of the kitchen or at worse, slapped in the face with an uncooked steak and told to grow up. Again, I'm not talking about people with real disorders, I'm talking about people that treat disabilities that reduce the quality of life in people who actually have them as some sort of fun sticker they can proudly wear to increase their special snowflake rating.

This whole uprising of coddling people being taken with such seriousness is unhealthy to society. If something causes you fear or anxiety the healthy response is to confront it, try to minimize it, try to find a way to cope and work around it, not to have an unrealistic expectation that the entire rest of the world needs to adjust to accommodate you. Its impossible! There are just over 7 BILLION people on the planet! How can we possibly metaphorically bubblewrap the entirety of existence to make sure not a single one of those people is 'triggered' by exposure to lord knows only what? Where does personal responsibility come in?

I have a fear of caterpillars. An irrational, cringe inducing, cold chills fear of them. And I find that stupid. I mean, it's a very real phobia to me. If I see one I recoil mentally and try to keep at least an arms length away. If one touches me I'm likely to fly into a flailing panic to get it off. Spring time sets me on a paranoid edge if I have to go into areas with plants and I will constantly look all around, including up, for any (I have to look up because we have tent caterpillars and those little bastards love to suddenly rappel down from trees en masse when I'm walking under it). My friends find my behavior amusing. Hell, I find it amusing subjectively. Objectively, they need to STFU. I don't know why I'm so afraid of them. They're just so alien to me. They're faceless, squirmy, silent, robotic, goo filled abominations. They've got too many limbs. They look incomplete. Some of them are covered with poisonous barbs which burn like fire if they touch them. But I recognize it as something that is an internal problem to me and I don't expect other people to accommodate my concerns. Can you imagine if I'm coming to visit you at your house and before I get there I call and say, "Hey look, I need you to do something for me. I'm triggered by caterpillars so I'm going to need you to go outside and look all around your yard and if you see any, you need to put a bucket or something over them so I don't potentially see them. But don't label the buckets with 'caterpillar within' cause then I'll know what's in there and that'll be triggering too." Yet the internet has encourage people to think that it is wholly exceptable, in fact, your right, to have some random webcomic which is set in a fantasy medieval world setting have to put warnings all over it saying 'blood, violence, aggressive dialog, sharp pointy things' etc. Or have a news website reporting on real world issue have to put warnings of 'violence, strife, racism, blahblahblah' before every story.

Shit. I'm rambling. My point is, we need to start telling people if something bothers you that much, just don't go looking for it. If you come across it by accident, just close your eyes, count to ten and regain your center and just walk away. You're adults, you have to deal with your problems the best way you can. You can't expect everyone to be like mom and dad to you and hide the scary things from you as if you were a child. It's not healthy.

[taltamir]

"Triggers" are a real thing. However, the original and more accurate use of the term refers to a symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). So for example, a Vietnam War veteran who's been diagnosed with PTSD may suffer memory flashbacks, nausea, headache, among other psychiatric or physiological symptoms when he passes by a TV screen showing a battle scene (set in 'Nam or otherwise). And--still within this original, psychiatric context--a trigger can be something less obvious to non-PTSD sufferers; for example, a sexual assault survivor might experience such symptoms from the smell of fresh bread, if such a smell was present during her trauma.

The problem is that many people online, especially in fanfic and broader fandom circles, have distorted the "trigger" concept way beyond its proper clinical meaning. First, in such circles, "that's triggering to me" has become a hyperbole for "that makes me feel upset | disturbed | offended." Example: I'm Jewish, and I readily admit that hearing someone call out "Hey, k*ke!" is offensive and a bit upsetting to me. But it's in no way triggering. I don't get an acute onset of physiological or psychiatric symptoms from hearing it. If, in contrast, another Jewish person survives a brutal, sustained assault by white supremacists who shouted "k*ke throughout, and that person developed PTSD as a result, hearing that slur might well be genuinely triggering and bring about such symptoms.

Second, the original "trigger" concept wasn't intended as some sort of I.D. card giving even genuine trauma survivors automatic access to a life free of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting or touching anything remotely linked to their trauma, ever again, to say less of non-trauma survivors. Granted, it's long-established practice for TV networks to air a "viewer discretion advised" disclaimer before and during a program that features common, broad potential triggers like brutal violence. That's common courtesy and common sense, and reasonable for potentially affected viewers to expect. What's less fair to demand is that a fanfic (or any other entertainment work) bear "trigger warnings" for things that go well beyond what the creator could reasonably expect would be triggering. So to use one of my examples above, a trigger warning for "rape" (or, if that would be a plot spoiler, maybe "brutal violence") would be a reasonable expectation; a trigger warning for "fresh bread," less so.

This is why trigger warnings are so mind numbingly stupid. Since literally anything get be a trigger for a PTSD episode.