Are people abusing the concept of a trigger?

[Olas]

As someone with GAD (generalized anxiety disorder) I definitely have triggers that I'm sensitive to, but I don't think the world should have to tiptoe around me and my issues, and likewise I don't want to have to tiptoe around everyone else's. Our issues are our own, and we should deal with them ourselves, or with professional help, but not expect the whole world to bend itself to accommodate us.

That being said, if you strongly suspect that something you're going to say will set off someone's triggers, it's nice to give a trigger warning. You don't HAVE to, and you're not a dick if you don't, especially if you don't realize it might be a trigger, but it's still something good to do, and a brief trigger warning doesn't really cause any harm.

 

[J Tyran]

Never read anything by Amanda Marcotte then?

No, I have not. Further, you originally said many feminists are espousing these beliefs, whereas, while I don't know her and guess I probably ought not to assume, Amanda Marcotte strikes me as one person.

Then there is Zerlina "We should automatically believe rape accusations" Maxwell.

That is not quite what the article you linked says. It says belief should be the default until an investigation is conducted, and that she is describing a moral proscription rather than a legal one. I do not think she is saying what you seem to believe she's saying.

Two quick and obvious examples, I wasn't writing a thesis and merely provide a pair of sources. Generally and as you prove here it isn't worth going to much effort as forum goers will typically scoff and dismiss any efforts you go to, like you're doing so forgive me if I wont go to any effort to link every time a radical feminist (note I'm not saying feminists) has said something egregious about how rape accusations should be handled (I mean all you have to do is go to Tumblr for a while to see that).

You obviously didn't understand the second article either automatically believing any accusations of any crime out of morality rather than legality is exactly whats wrong with it, morals should never have anything to do with due process.

Ever.

Facts, witness statements and physical evidence are the only things that matter. Otherwise innocent people will get punished for things they didn't do and when it can be proven the prosecution bungled a case guilty people can walk away scot free. Even having the investigators going on the assumption of "lets prove this person is guilty" rather than "lets find out whos guilty" or "lets see if this person is guilty" can be dangerous and can skew investigations or lead to the ignoring of other suspects, some of the worst miscarriages of justice have been caused by a biased or assumptive investigation.

Thats exactly what happened with the Duke lacrosse players, the DNA evidence not fitting into the investigation was ignored and almost suppressed because the prosecutors where initially unwilling to believe it as it did not match their wish to press the case.

 

[JimB]

Two quick and obvious examples, I wasn't writing a thesis and merely provide a pair of sources.

I really don't get why people seem to think it's okay to spread misinformation when it's not a college thesis. Why does everyone always specify college theses as the only time it's not okay to misattribute or misrepresent what someone said?

Generally, and as you prove here, it isn't worth going to much effort as forum goers will typically scoff and dismiss any efforts you go to.

I did neither of those things. I told you I disagree with your reading of one of the two texts you provided. Disagreeing with you is not dismissing you, and I really don't know why you'd think otherwise.

Forgive me if I won't go to any effort to link every time a radical feminist (note I'm not saying feminists) has said something egregious about how rape accusations should be handled.

I'm not asking you to do that, either. I asked you to prove that the thing you said, the thing you said without any prompting from anyone else, the bit about how many radical feminists want accusations to be equivalent to criminal convictions, is actually true. If you refuse to do so, then I suppose I will offer forgiveness to the degree you feel forgiveness is required, but I'm not especially interested in blame or condemnation. I will just continue to be unconvinced by the things you claim are true.

You obviously didn't understand the second article either. Automatically believing any accusations of any crime out of morality rather than legality is exactly what's wrong with it; morals should never have anything to do with due process.

I feel you are not expressing yourself very well here. Both the article's author and I have already said that moral responses should be distinct from legal responses, so exactly what is your complaint here?

Facts, witness statements and physical evidence are the only things that matter.

Uh...yeah, that's why the article went out of its way to say it was not suggesting any changes be made to the legal system. You seem to be arguing against a stance no one has taken to try to prevent an outcome everyone involved, including your supposed enemies, wish to avoid.

Even having the investigators going on the assumption of "let's prove this person is guilty" rather than "let's find out who's guilty" or "let's see if this person is guilty" can be dangerous and can skew investigations or lead to the ignoring of other suspects, some of the worst miscarriages of justice have been caused by a biased or assumptive investigation.

True, but since the article's author never suggested that is how investigators ought to approach crimes and explicitly said she wants the contrary, I am confused as to why you bring it up.

Look, I'm not out to get you, man. I don't want to start changing laws to make rape accusations unimpeachable. I don't get why you're being so defensive about this. You said a thing I have never heard and have no experience of is true; I asked you to back it up; you provided me with examples I do not find convincing. That's it. I'm not willfully dismissing you in order to further my agenda of forcibly castrating all men or anything. So with that in mind, is there any way we could approach this discussion more calmly?

 

[J Tyran]

is there any way we could approach this discussion more calmly?

There was a discussion? Must have missed that part, sorry.

 

[Farseer Lolotea]

Yeh that seems about roight actually. I don't like the Escapist much right now either, the amount of SJW and feminism threads have been spiralling out of controls for so damn long. *sigh* I'm not cut out for these threads, I can't joke around without people taking me super seriously. But these buzzword/super srs threads are like 90% of what this site is and I get bored when I don't have much to post. I'll just go back to just leaving these threads be again, they just aren't fun y'know?

A decent rule of thumb is to look at the content of such a thread first. When you see people responding on the topic of "triggers" in the exact way they've been responding, consider that your light-hearted jest, which looks rather like the exact sort of ranty thing others are ranting about, might not be taken as such. It's a "know your audience" sort of principle.

I do get the concept of what a trigger is, I just can't fully believe the sheer volume of people crying it legitimately. Looking around a bit maybe there's a lot of The Boy Who Cried Trigger going on a lot? Cuz I always thought it was only used by people looking for maximum attention whoring and easy mode argument cop outs. I'm not insulting anyone who legit has a real problem just to clarify.

There are people crying wolf. The issue is that people have become dismissive of the concept overall, which is sort of repeated a lot in this thread and I've seen worse on less moderated sites.

But one of the primary issues is, at least with "the boy who cried wolf," the lesson is about ruining your own credibility. The issue in this instance is that one person cries wolf and another is discounted. I've already mentioned my feelings on self-diagnoses and using real conditions as excuses on the internet (aspergers is used for both, for example), but that doesn't mean everyone you meet who speaks of these things is full of it. Also, we can't actually tell the difference between someone with a real condition, someone who has self-diagnosed themselves, and someone who is just using it as an excuse to be a jackass.

I do suffer from PTSD. I actually hate using the term because of a different association. I associate it with combat veterans, and I don't tend to think of my experiences as being "equal" to that. I avoid a lot of the terminology, even though the "flashbacks" I suffer are indistinguishable from a soldier's except in terms of actual content. And I'm not particularly enamoured with the concept of a "trigger warning" in the first place. Not personally, anyway.

But the idea, as someone described better than I would, is not particularly to shut down conversation but rather to give people who have suffered through these things and might have PTSD, or another anxiety disorder, a chance to choose how to deal with this. And people do deal with things differently. Avoidance is generally unhealthy, but it's very often a bad idea for people to just be immersed in the situations that cause panic (though I'm told there are therapies that work that way, I don't know if they help anyone). But people do react differently and can take different levels of...well, anything. It's not even just trauma-related anxiety.

The concept of a trigger warning and some use--even on Tumblr--is/can be merited. It gets overused. There are people who cry wolf, people who don't understand what it's like to really be in such a situation, and oh yeah. There's another party worth mentioning. There are supporters who can either be legitimately zealous or be the so-called "Social Justice Warriors" and both can end up trampling on the folks they're "helping." Of course, you can't readily tell the legit from the jerks there, either, and people have every bit as much a tendency to lump everyone into the "jerk" category rather than give the benefit of the doubt, or evaluate based on circumstances. Because if snark is the primary language of the internet, cynicism is a close runner-up.

And honestly, a lot of people seem to balk at the concept of "not being a dick." A trigger warning, or even just a content warning at all, only requires a slight bit of forethought, yet there are people balking at it in any context.

Pretty much this.

And, to be quite honest? Yeah, I've seen more people??and this includes Tumblr bloggers??conflating triggers with "being offended" as a dismissal tactic. (As in, the whole stunt of claiming that one is "triggered" by being called on their crap.) As others have already pointed out: it's more-or-less the equivalent of the film rating system or a warning label. (Unless, of course, one is going to argue that those are unnecessary and for wimps?)

 

[JimB]

Is there any way we could approach this discussion more calmly?

There was a discussion? Must have missed that part, sorry.

Or you could make a snide comment calling me a liar, though I wish you would have just been honest enough to say "no."

 

[Hammartroll]

What if Mahmood having his apartment vandalized emotionally affected him in a harmful way? Not very thought full of the SJWs, and by that I mean they just don't think very thoroughly in general.

 

[J Tyran]

Is there any way we could approach this discussion more calmly?

There was a discussion? Must have missed that part, sorry.

Or you could make a snide comment calling me a liar, though I wish you would have just been honest enough to say "no."

Sorry if I have no desire to get into a "nice fest" with you, you don't get to nitpick over individual words, throw around accusations of "defensiveness" and argue over semantics and then say "hey lets discuss this calmly".

I was never wound up to begin with, you seemed to have little interest in discussion and now you throw around accusations of "lying"? Funny that, the comment may or may not have been "snide" but I don't think the word "liar" means what you think it means.

 

[JimB]

You don't get to nitpick over individual words, throw around accusations of "defensiveness," and argue over semantics, and then say, "Hey, let's discuss this calmly."

When you accuse someone of saying something she explicitly did not say, and then dismiss people pointing that verifiable fact out as "nitpicking" or "semantics," I really don't know what conclusion I am to draw other than that you are being defensive. If you would care to explain yourself, go ahead.

 

[Mechamorph]

I believe the concept of "triggers" is not unlike the treatment of Asperger's Syndrome. There are real sufferers of Asperger's out there, duly diagnosed and treated by professional psychologists and, if necessary, psychiatrists. And then there are those people who claim the title as a justification for all sorts of bad behaviour. Triggers are the same; if you have been through a truly harrowing, traumatic experience it is not unusual for physical reminders to be rather upsetting. PTSD has had many, many names from Combat Fatigue to Shell Shock and its pretty well documented if not understood. For such individuals we avoid triggers out of consideration and compassion, it is not something you can force out of people. I did see some responses asking what is the difference between demanding that others respect self-proclaimed "triggers" and others stating that it is up to the individual to do so. That ultimately it is about forcing your will on others. This is patently fallacious. It is akin to wanting to shoot someone and someone wanting you not to shoot them. Asking not to be forcibly subject to all of other people's idiosyncrasies outside the boundaries of good sense and common human decency is something that I believe most of us can agree on.

As for the given examples, this is ludicrous to a hilarious degree. If aspiring lawyers can refuse to learn rape law than should police officers ask to be excused from arresting members of their own race because they find it racist? Should soldiers avoid weapon training or doctors decline studying surgery because it offends their sensibilities? If you signed on the dotted line for a particular profession, you are not allowed to choose to avoid the parts you find unpleasant or distasteful.

On a related note, is it not unproductive to admit to triggers on the internet? I would believe that is not so much feeding a troll but rather closer to smothering yourself in Worcestershire sauce and declaring open season.

 

[Mechamorph]

What if Mahmood having his apartment vandalized emotionally affected him in a harmful way? Not very thought full of the SJWs, and by that I mean they just don't think very thoroughly in general.

I would contend that, rather sadly, it is *their* own feelings that matter and you are correct that they appear to not give a toss about anyone else's. Not that this is a new thing mind you, humanity has often justified atrocity through some given insult even if the atrocity largely outweighs the insult given.

 

[Polarity27]

It's amazing to me that certain people live with so much privilege that they believe they can dictate the terms of what unpleasant life experiences they will have.

And here I was assuming that often life was unfair, or cruel, or just down right nasty, and a test of someones character was how they dealt with this fact. How stupid of me. All I needed to do was create a list of things that I didn't want to see/hear/read/think about and problem solved!

But anyone with sense does that to some degree. You've never looked at a headline or a post title and decided to nope the heck out of there, for any reason? Yes, bad shit will happen and you can't tell it not to, but at the same time, you also can't give your attention to every single thing on the internet, on the news, in your community, etc. Attention is finite, and it's a health-promoting practice (really, it is) to self-limit, for instance, how much time you spend watching/reading negative news stories.

I object to "trigger warnings" as such, but support "content warnings". It gets around this entire debate about what's a trigger, does this rise to the level of a trigger, triggers don't exist, triggers are misused, etc. and simply acknowledges that there is some content that people would rather not engage with for whatever reason. I'm not talking about "content includes octopus semen" or something else absurdly specific, but thinking about some of the themes of a piece of media and noting it is a thoughtful thing. Optional, but nice to have on things that are upsetting and stressful for a lot of people. You don't need to be triggered by rape debates to have reason to want to avoid them. Television news has been at least somewhat aware of this for years-- is it that controversial to have a "this story contains graphic images" warning ahead of a news story?

(Also, triggers are often *incredibly* specific things. A certain smell that's reminiscent of your abusive father's cologne. The song that was playing when you were raped. The pattern and colors of the wallpaper in the house where you were molested. The movie you were watching when you got the call your sister had been murdered. The exact curve on Rt. 8 where you got into the accident that nearly killed you. Things you couldn't warn for even if you wanted to.)

 

[Karadalis]

Some "People" actually claimed to have gottend PTSD from twitter comments...


You know the same PTSD that war veterans got because they had to live through the horrors of war.


Ofcourse triggers are fucking abused by the special snowflakes of tumblr. They wouldnt know a real trigger if it jumped into their faces naked ass first.

Its a fad nothing more.

We had punks, we had surfer/skater/metall/hippy etc culture. This is just another of those... but unlike the others this one is less amusing and more headache inducing.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

"semantics,"

OMG! You're anti-semantic!

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

A few days ago I was talking to an old mate whoo suffers from pretty severe PTSD (he was a combat engineer with the Australian Army and his first active deployment in Eastt Timor had him crawliing through mass graves to check for traps).

His opinion on the whole matter is this:

"Life won't pad the hard corners for you, so you either harden up or you get away from the shit that sets you off. People whho claim 'triggers' and 'trauma' and whatever the fuck else just to corner others into shutting up are cunts... BUT the people who let them get away with it or keep going to places where those sorts of fucks hang are idiots. Life's too short to care about what a bunch of cunts don't want you to say, just go find somewhere else to say it."

 

[hentropy]

To start off, yes, some people take it too far. People take everything too far for all sorts of reasons. Some people hate trigger and content warnings so much that they just want to do away with them entirely, or any of use of them regardless of how appropriate they are gains a certain amount of undeserved hate.

When I watch Adult Swim at night I'm reminded constantly that some of the content being shown might be offensive to some viewers. I have not once felt those were unnecessary, because some content is over-the-top.

For me, I just can't watch real or very realistic instances of bullying. 98% of media depictions of bullying don't fall in the category, but there were some attempts by well-intentioned people to show what bullying is actually like. Documentaries I can avoid, but I found myself unable to watch certain 30 second commercials. I would leave the room or change the channel temporarily just to avoid them. So when I'm watching Rick & Morty and the "King Jellybean" scene comes up, I can see how people who have gone through such experiences (rape) might be teleported back to their own experiences, if it's sufficiently realistic enough. It's not just a matter of breaking down in a sobbing mess- all the feelings ranging from helplessness to rage come back to hit you like a freight train and the things you saw back then "flash back" in front of your eyes. The depictions of Vietnam flashbacks and the like aren't exaggerations in most cases. And you can't just talk that out with a psychologist to get rid of it or "harden up". Such experiences and depictions of them force you to disconnect yourself from your emotions just to cope and that's honestly not healthy.

Should there be content warnings for the bullying ads? I'm not really asking for them, as those ads probably do a lot of good and putting a trigger warning on them probably wouldn't have stopped me from watching them once. Still, because of those experiences I can identify with those who have been through much more traumatic experiences such as rape or have witnesses instances of extreme violence, gore, and death.

So yeah, being warned about content that talks explicitly about certain topics or shows them is a nice courtesy to people who don't need to be reminded of the reality as they have lived it themselves. Naturally, some people will take it to an extreme and go apeshit when someone types "rape" without a trigger warning, or demands trigger warnings for every mundane thing. So yeah, trigger and content warnings can and should be used under certain circumstances. We can't take the stance that just because something useful has been misusesd means we should stop using it.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

A few days ago I was talking to an old mate whoo suffers from pretty severe PTSD (he was a combat engineer with the Australian Army and his first active deployment in Eastt Timor had him crawliing through mass graves to check for traps).

His opinion on the whole matter is this:

"Life won't pad the hard corners for you, so you either harden up or you get away from the shit that sets you off. People whho claim 'triggers' and 'trauma' and whatever the fuck else just to corner others into shutting up are cunts... BUT the people who let them get away with it or keep going to places where those sorts of fucks hang are idiots. Life's too short to care about what a bunch of cunts don't want you to say, just go find somewhere else to say it."

I like your mate. he's a nice mate.


slightly on topic:

Came across this video, and of course the top comment on it (99% most likely a troll) is about trigger warnings COMBINED with feminism, and even though it's a troll, it gave quite the bit of momentum to a shit war in the comments over being overly sensitive/PC brigade and trigger warnings.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Of course it is. That was inevitable once you combine the three necessary ingredients:
1) Awareness (people learned that they have a right to be offended)
2) Attention (it makes people feel special; no matter how fleeting or mundane or fucking stupid)
3) Internet Hate Machine (Speaks for itself)

Being the Internet, this became another case of "Give an inch, take a mile."

There's plenty of shit in this world that offends me, yet somehow, I don't see fit to lean on some catchphrase to invoke special privileges or treatment. Namely because: Unless my offense has legal or serious ethical imperative (beyond what I merely claim), it doesn't give me any special privilege.

Also, there's a difference between being offended by something, and demanding nobody bring that something up, ever.

So my rule is this: Anyone that acts (or claims) to have a right to be "offended" by *potentially anything* must also accept that everyone else has right to say/show/do something "potentially offensive".

What's that? Some people have legitimate psychosis that merits triggers?
Then they need to get help and/or stay off the internet (or at least, the "problematic" parts of the internet for them).
That's called being responsible; by not foisting your problems on total strangers.

 

[Arctic Werewolf]

I'm probably one of the few people who saw honest "trigger warnings" before they were coopted for brainwashing purposes. It was on a forum for very depressed people (I'm fine, btw). If your thread contained content about suicidal ideation, you put "trigger warning" in the title so depressed people who come to the depression forum to talk about depression would be aware of content that might make them think about suicide. There were testimonies there that would make your hair stand on end and your blood run cold.

That was... shit, like eight years ago or something. I've never seen a use of "trigger warnings" that wasn't aggressively crass and exploitative since that one website. Not once. In, like, eight years. As a witness of the original good intentions of the "trigger warnings", I am sickened to see how the cynical coopt the term and exploit serious problems for their own ends.

[EDIT]:

As others have already pointed out: it's more-or-less the equivalent of the film rating system or a warning label. (Unless, of course, one is going to argue that those are unnecessary and for wimps?)

I get what you're saying, but I don't agree. I think there is a non-trivial difference between a content warning for stuff people just don't like and a trigger warning.

I think there is another issue. I don't object to age ratings and content warnings that are already in standard use in the U.S. (generally). But I recognize they come at the cost of a very real chilling effect. This isn't an obscure issue, it defines what kind of films and TV shows you see. So how far do we want to take this? Because I'm a fan of stuff like Pink Floyd, Kubrick films, and Frank Herbert novels. Not terribly unconventional, but the potential "trigger warnings" would go out the door and down the street. All my favorite stuff would create a full blown trigger-warning-super-panic if it was released today. I can just picture it- "Triggering Warning! Billions of people killed in horrible war gleefully compared to Hitler! Trigger Warning, hysteria, Patriarchy!" You may laugh, but like I said, the content warnings we already enjoy define what you watch- and what you don't.

Things are too restrictive as it is, in my opinion. We don't need The Illiad to be preceded by 10,000 pages of trigger warnings.

(Also, triggers are often *incredibly* specific things. A certain smell that's reminiscent of your abusive father's cologne. The song that was playing when you were raped. The pattern and colors of the wallpaper in the house where you were molested. The movie you were watching when you got the call your sister had been murdered. The exact curve on Rt. 8 where you got into the accident that nearly killed you. Things you couldn't warn for even if you wanted to.)

"Coco Mademoiselle: A Fragrance by Chanel" TRIGGER WARNING: COCO MADEMOISELLE