TRIGGER WARNING: Trigger Warnings

The BBQ Pit
21

I think it’s excusable for the website, though, because they’re not a professional therapist, they’re not with the patient, and generally they don’t know their head from their ass. Processing your anxieties sounds great if there’s somebody who knows what they’re doing with you to help you out.

If I’m writing about a triggering topic (I don’t have any blog or anything right now) and it’s appropriate for the context I’d much rather warn readers than risk my website unhinging somebody. It’s not ideal, but, as somebody who doesn’t know dick about psychology, it’s better that I leave that to the professionals.

22

Ahh, that makes more sense. Thank you.

23

You’re welcome. The idea behind it is that you’d only do it if it was unusually graphic. Which is to say, maybe the story seems like it’s just about the rescue, but midway through the article there’s a particularly graphic description of the room they were kept in and the abuse they endured. Now, there’s a lot of places that have gone (in my opinion) waaaay overboard and put TRIGGER WARNINGS on every link. Including one blog I’ve seen where (I’m not kidding) a link to a NYTimes article discussing Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign had “TRIGGER WARNING: Fat Hatred”. But you know what? It isn’t my blog, and maybe her readers appreciate that. I think it’s a bit silly, so I don’t read that blog anymore.

I do think overuse in some places has watered down the effectiveness, at least for me, but I also think it’s a big internet with room for everyone.

24

As you noted could be the case in the part I snipped out, it was just one longish sentence in the midst of an otherwise not-graphic discussion about the death penalty, and I tend to speed-read in chunks. The poster in question just dropped that steaming turd of a description in for pure shock value, as if someone would say “whoa hey, people can be brutal sociopaths? I had no idea! Death penalty all the way!”

And it wasn’t a full-on PTSD flashback, though god knows back in college it could have happened. More like the vague desire to pour bleach into my brain through my eyes, to go scrub down my body with pumice to get that feeling off, and feeling generally icky and unsettled for a little while.

25

It can mean that. As is self cutting triggers or anorexia triggers. The OP was about PTSD triggers, which trigger flash backs of trauma.

26

People who are so emotionally sensitive that the mere mention of certain words or topics can set them off, should probably be limiting their access to the internet until therapy or proper medications are applied that allow them to once again engage the real world.

Because the internet and social media are full of disturbing words and ideas. And there are a greater number people, let’s call them assholes, in the electronic world than you will ever meet in meat space, I mean the real world.

You can Google it if you don’t believe me. :wink:

27

I did a search on “trigger warning” and only found eight threads in the past month (including this one). I think you’re maybe a bit over-sensitive to this. And, as has been said above, how does “Trigger warning: Contains graphic violence” provide a better warning than “Contains graphic violence”?

28

Why isn’t lolcatz on that list?

29

Grin! And don’t even start about the pepper!

Gotta agree. I’m terribly arachnophobic, and pictures of spiders give me the wobbling horrors… But what? I’m gonna ask all of civilized society to stop, just to protect little old me? Fuck no. Some things, we just have to suck up. Other people’s freedom is not to be infringed upon, even for my self-defense.

On the other hand, I do write to Time magazine, fairly regularly, asking them to self-censor regarding pictures of dead bodies. But that’s a “free market” issue.

30

I don’t think the OP was complaining about “trigger warning” alerts on the Straight Dope boards specifically, just about their overuse in some other places on the interwebs.

31

Oh man, you can sign my name to those too if you like. It’s not a “trigger” issue for me (like some other posters, I hadn’t realized before reading this thread that triggers are a thing), but I feel that including actual people’s recently dead bodies in what is essentially journalistic spectacle is just exploitative and wrong.

[/hijack]

32

I thought it was some retarded new law that gun grabbers were proposing that required triggers to have warnings on them.

NSFW and “warning, pdf” are useful to a large population of users but some people seem to need to live in a big plastic bubble.

edited because “warning[colon]pdf” comes out looking like “warning:pdf”

33

The freedom to not type “Warning: spiders!”?
And because I can: Warning:pdf

34

Actually, there’s a rule about that one…

35

[QUOTE=miss elizabeth]
Also, I agree with Olives that avoiding things that upset you isn’t healthy long term. But at the same time, I don’t think it’s up to me to say how someone else needs to manage their trauma. I don’t know how recently it occurred, or if something in their life just dredged up a lot of garbage, or if they are having just a monstrous day.
[/QUOTE]

I think there is a balance we need to strike. I’m not judging a person for having triggers, and I totally understand there are situations where Now Is Not the Time. But I can’t expect other people to manage my trauma for me. In the case of unusually graphic or disturbing descriptions or images, I think a warning of some kind is totally appropriate, especially when it’s way out of left field. Even on days when I’m not feeling sensitive, I really don’t want to see dead bodies while I eat my waffles.

In the interest of full disclosure, I once had a terribly embarrassing experience back in undergrad when I went to see a play performed by my friends - Eve Ensler’s ‘‘Floating Rhoda.’’ Now I probably should not have been surprised but there was one scene that really upset me and I had to leave the theater. I don’t know why it hit me like that, but I locked myself in the bathroom and just bawled for like 10 minutes. I was absolutely mortified when I came out and discovered people could hear me and everyone knew why I was upset. The producers of the play were waiting for me to come out and apologizing that there wasn’t a trigger warning. And I was kind of pissed with my friends for not warning me. The following year’s performance I fired off an e-mail respectfully requesting that they include a warning in their publicity e-mail.

But that was a long time ago, and I don’t know how I would deal with something like that now. I don’t think I would put the onus on other people to warn me the way I did back then. I have much more confidence in my ability to handle myself.

The thing is, I think it is really taken to an unhealthy extreme, particularly on sites that are supposed to help victims of trauma. I’ve had some really bad experiences on message boards that are supposed to be supportive environments. One I remember there was this long list of trigger words people weren’t allowed to say. Words. One of the words was ‘‘mother.’’

The list linked to in the OP is freaking ridiculous. Spiders? Slimy things? Swearing?

I understand your point, but for me it’s not a practical issue, it’s a psychological one. It may not be a terrible burden to place on other people, but it seems to me a mentally unhealthy one.

36

Oh yeah, I didn’t mean here. I think the Dope’s “Please use descriptive thread titles” is both necessary and sufficient. I’ve fled one forum that was composed of refugees from Mothering.com, and am now avoiding feminist blogs because of the ridiculous overuse of this label. The Dope is cool. :cool:

When it’s one topic, it does seem silly, but when you’re expected to post trigger warnings about everything from rape to slimy things (as **olives **said), it gets so you feel like you’re walking on eggshells and interacting with people who can’t handle anything, and it’s annoying.

On the aforementioned mothers’ board, there were a lot of cool people, but I posted a thread asking “Am I just being mental about ?” and had a contingent pile on me for trivializing/usurping/degrading mentally ill people. When I included in my response that they need not plead “the plight of the loonies” to me, as I am one myself, I got called a cunt. Some places just get ridiculous with their own brand of political correctness, far beyond the common courtesy of alerting people if you’re going to link to something dark and disturbing.

37

How soon before TRIGGER WARNING is attacked and pre-warnings demanded because the mere sight of those two words causes some people to have panic attacks?

38

Well, not all of our freedoms are profound. I also defend the right to eat Fritos and jelly, or to listen to Boccherini, both of which can be dismaying to some people.

(Never actually met a Boccherini-phobe, but they might exist…)

39

I can imagine. What I was reacting to, though, was the idea that having to read trigger warnings is somehow oppressive. If one were prevented from posting content sans warnings, then I can understand the argument about bubble wrapping the world. If it’s just that you have to read it, I’m less sympathetic. Unless you explain that you suffer from Trigger Warning Syndrome in which case I won’t post anything without a trigger warning warning.

40

There were a lot of posts saying the same basic thing, but I’m going to reply to this one.

I think having trigger warnings is how people “limit their access to the internet”. That’s the whole point; you can click through if you want, but if this topic upsets you, maybe you shouldn’t. It’s supposed to be an empowering thing for survivors.

Now, I totally get that there are places that have a fuck ton of trigger warnings. As I said, there was a blog I used to enjoy that got so lousy with them I quit reading (there were other similar problems there as well). I guess I just feel like the internet is a big place, and if survivors want to create a little corner where everything is bubble-wrapped, well… I can’t begrudge them that. They obviously are in a lot of pain, and I don’t think it’s funny to mock it. There are people, LOTS of people, who were raped yesterday. Or hit by someone they loved. Or who’s spouse was murdered. Or any number of horrific things that happens all the time. And today maybe they’re venturing out into the world, slowly, through their computer. If they find a site with other people who can support them, and they use trigger warnings, what harm does it do to me, really? I can look at literally millions of sites with an endless array of content. And if one day that survivor looks around at the online community with all the trigger warnings and realizes they are healthy enough mentally that they don’t need them anymore, then hooray! They’ll move on, and a new survivor will come in who does need a lot of coddling.

I guess I just feel like, when we complain about trigger warnings, we’re mocking people in so much pain that they can’t even read the internet. I mean, jeez, really? I think they have enough on their plate.

I don’t want to see trigger warnings everywhere. But in the safe spaces and survivor communities where they’re used, I won’t begrudge people trying to maintain mental health. It’s fragile, and sometimes it has to be treated gently. If you’re mentally healthy, just be thankful for that.

ETA: it’s like people are saying “If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen!” except they ARE staying out of the kitchen! They just want a sign on the door that says “KITCHEN: HOT INSIDE” and then they won’t go in.