News Trigger Warnings Becoming A Fad?

[EveHarrington]

<that moment when you realize someone has you on ignore>

Not again. Sigh.

 

[Neverthesame]

I just wanted to add one little thing.

The word association with "trigger" itself, as a word.

In order to be useful as a warning, you have to associate this word with a specific event.

It doesn't matter what the topic behind the *trigger warning* is really about, I need to think of what would "trigger" me.

The potentially triggering media could be about clowns, rape, war, penguins, etc, ect. It really doesn't matter. The use of the word itself as a warning, is going to lend me to think, "something in this block of text, is possibly going to remind me of something really, really horrible I experienced. What would that be?... oh yeah, extricating mangled children from cars".

Suddenly the article about penguins, which would have been nothing worse than boring, has got me thinking I might need a paper bag to breathe into for a bit.

I honestly believe that learning grounding exercises and other coping mechanisms, is far more valuable to the reader/listener/viewer than some arbitrary warning system.

Having these kinds of skills and practicing them, means not only that I will be better able to cope with topics that are painful, but also that not if, but when in my day to day life, I encounter a "trigger" (still really hate this word). I'll be able to apply these skills and better cope with the times when life throws something terrible at me out of the blue.

Ok. So it's wasn't such a little thing. Gah, I'm turning into a windbag again....

 

[joeylittle]

I’m not sure why you fall back to the mpaa. Cultural norms are an important aspect of psychology, sociology, and anthropology, probably other fields I’m too tired to dredge up. But it’s a thing. That’s been studied. A lot. I have to research cultural norms, ancient and modern, nearly every day of my life. Maybe that is why understanding this comes easily to me? Who knows. But you don’t need the mpaa to tell you what is disturbing and what is not.

No, I agree - you're totally right. And I can safely say that I don't know this area of study nearly as well as you do. I appreciate what you are writing about. My area of study is in fiction, and I think it's reasonable to say that people handle fiction differently (not necessarily better, just differently) than they do fact. Fiction has a veil that operates between the material and the reader/consumer - it's a story, it's not real, and that allows the reader/consumer to get some distancing mentally while still receiving the story. Some people are still too close to the context of the story to separate the way others do, but that's more to do with the frame on the fiction than the content itself. An easy example - there's an awful lot of violence in the Harry Potter series - but it's so clearly a story realm that it operates without much difficulty.

Nonetheless, once again, an outlier is being used as an example. Can you really tell me you would discuss something like rape, secure in your knowledge that no one in that class will be negatively affected by it? Knowing that statistically multiple people in that class have likely been sexually abused. Maybe some can handle it, maybe some can barely admit what happened to themselves.

Yes, because I have. Again - I'm dealing with storytelling, and the entire human condition is open to being represented. Fiction often allows the reader/consumer to experience empathy for people in situations that they themselves haven't experienced - it also allows people the freedom to see themselves in it, with some security that the person in the story is not 'real' - and that can allow people to release pent up emotion, or recognize something similar in their own lives, see their experience in metaphor...lots of really useful things. Now, in my area people understand that they are going to encounter the breadth of human experience as part of the content - and so, trigger warnings are not as important as the individual's own awareness and ability to navigate/communicate about stressors. That doesn't mean I'm not also sensitive to their situation, or that I don't learn from them, too. But if I start assuming that the big basic hard things - like rape, like death, like violence, like discrimination - are all going to be minefields, it's going to be hard to actually do the teaching.

Maybe I’m missing something. But I can’t help but wonder if this is just a generational issue. “Those damn millennials are too sensitive.” From what I’ve seen, mostly younger people want to use trigger warnings.

I know what you mean - personally, I don't think of it as too sensitive at all; I think that there are individuals who want to act for the good of the 'silent majority', only they are making too many assumptions about who the silent majority is, or what they want. I was sexually assaulted when I was pretty young, and I knew a lot about getting beaten. I also hadn't gotten help or talked to anyone, and was in denial about the eternity of what happened to me. So for me, it was actually my only source of validation. A Clockwork Orange, The Accused, horror films like Last House on the Left, The Shining...and even things like The Wizard of Oz - I could start to understand that violence is a thing that happens to humans, for apparently no good reason, and sometimes, it was incredibly perverse.

It didn't get me help, but it did let me cry. Sometimes, I cried too hard. But then again, it was complicated, because it was also comforting. Now, I'm not anything but a sample set of one, so I don't want to even try to say that my life is a standard for all lives. But that is sort of the point, isn't it? That nobody knows my experience, and that things that are hard, terrifying, unexpected - aren't necessarily bad, especially when they are not being physically re-enacted and imposed on someone.

I don't think warnings are inappropriate. But conflating warnings with triggers, specifically, is such a big door to open. I'd rather we educate more about the thing itself, and do that carefully but thoroughly, rather than restrict access to ways of talking about it that are inherently...buffered, I guess, is the word I want. Talk about child sexual abuse so that people know it exists and it's criminal and if it's happening to you, you can get help and you won't be turned away. But don't say we can't talk about CSA in a law class covering criminal rape. It's well intentioned but misguided.

I honestly believe that learning grounding exercises and other coping mechanisms, is far more valuable to the reader/listener/viewer than some arbitrary warning system.

I agree.

Not always. I got (a suggestion only....i say that as I've usung this example a bit...don't want to hurt their feelings, it's just an example) asked to put a trigger warning on a post.

Yeah, that's just someone not knowing the culture here as opposed to other sites that cover the same content. I kept wondering where the trigger warnings were, when I first joined - not to protect me, more like 'gosh, they are all over everywhere else, kind of shocking that they aren't here...right?' - and then reading the rationale, that if a site like this used trigger warnings literally everything would need a trigger warning...so let's just assume anything and everything might push some button, and start understanding how to encounter this stuff. You aren't the first or last person who gets that suggestion. People impose trigger warnings on themselves here, too - and we encourage them to know that they don't have to be afraid of other people's safety, here. That also encourages a culture of silence around difficult subjects, which isn't helpful.

So, @mudbug - if you see this - none of it as meant as a rebuttal, or a way of saying that you are wrong in what you are pointing out. It's just a different lens, and a different viewpoint that arises from it.

(Plus, just the whole thing that if we equate being upset with being triggered, the concept of 'trigger' becomes devalued/meaningless, because it's actually meant to apply to a medical/psychiatric issue. Sort of like people saying they can't eat gluten when really, they are just trying a trendy diet - vs people who get really sick if they eat gluten. Restaurants encounter too many 'I can't eat gluten...I'm ordering the pizza' people, and they stop taking the 'is this gluten free?' inquiries as seriously. At least the word 'allergic' has regained some of it's true meaning)

 

[Ronin]

Sort of like people saying they can't eat gluten when really, they are just trying a trendy diet - vs people who get really sick if they eat gluten.

I'm so borrowing this one for explaining stressed / content dislike vs. trigger though.
Granted, probably will also have to explain metabolic disorders and digestion while doing it... but hey :D That parallel is brilliant.

(Hoping that the word for that is parallel, English fails me a bit, by now.)

 

[Suzetig]

Can you really tell me you would discuss something like rape, secure in your knowledge that no one in that class will be negatively affected by it? Knowing that statistically multiple people in that class have likely been sexually abused.

I can and do. I train people to work with abused children and adult survivors of abuse. The nature of my work means there's a very high chance that participants will have experienced physical abuse, sexual abuse, trauma and neglect. I couldn't attach a warning to every thing that might possibly trigger a reaction - in fact I see part of my role to test out how folk deal with distressing material because if they can't cope in a training setting they're not likely to cope in practice with vulnerable people.

Folk know coming to training about, for example, child trafficking, that we aren't going to be discussing how good life is. I expect them to set and manage their own boundaries and to ask me for support if they need it. It's the same here - people posting in a specialist site for PTSD must have some awareness that trauma is, well, traumatic and that people looking for support with their experience of trauma will talk about trauma. They have a responsibility to set and manage their own boundaries and either take a break or ask for support.

It's not my responsibility to take care of adults who have agency over what they do or don't do, what they read or don't read. I have enough of a time managing my own triggers to be anticipating what may or may not challenge someone else.

Believe me, it's not that I don't have empathy - being triggered is horrible and I'd always want to support someone to find a way through but it's disempowering to assume someone will be triggered or that they come here to be looked after or protected from that.

 

[Silver.]

It's not my responsibility to take care of adults who have agency over what they do or don't do, what they read or don't read. I have enough of a time managing my own triggers to be anticipating what may or may not challenge someone else.

^^
Yes!!

 

[Nessa7]

I guess my point is, I don't think trigger warnings should be overused so students can get out of doing things, but I do see their importance as WARNINGS to prepare students to fortify themselves mentally in order to confront things that are much more difficult for them to confront than the average student. There is literally nothing wrong with that..

Your post jostled a memory of one of the few times that anyone mentioned a trigger warning when I was in college. In this class, students were able to choose their own topics for a paper, and most of us had no idea what our classmates were doing. We never discussed our papers in class, so we only knew what to expect if we happened to have talked to one of our classmates about what their paper was on. I can't remember how long the presentations took, but I would guess at least four hours with a short break. Before their turn to present, one of the papers were given a trigger warning for content. People were given the option to step out of the room until that presentation was done.

The paper was a defense of bombing abortion clinics. There aren't many real life scenarios where people would be expected to sit quietly for half an hour while a trusted peer read an academic paper justifying your murder. You were expected to applaud after it was over, and there was only time for one or maaaaybe two questions.

 

[Ronin]

Honestly I'd question the ethicalness and integrity of the teacher for even posing that task to students.

Defense of bombing of anything I'd assume crosses the line and just isn't one of those 'interesting academic questions'.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

Honestly I'd question the ethicalness and integrity of the teacher for even posing that task to students.

Right!?! "Ok, lets defend someone bombing ____ (fill in the blank)" should never be something a teacher to give or allow someone to do.

I question that person that would justify that too. "It's ok to bomb abortion clinics and kill people because I am against abortion... which is killing people"???

------

I heard someone say "trigger" outside of PTSD at work for the first time last night.

"Customers trigger me when they say [these words]".

I just let it go but that was the first i heard it used outside of this site.

 

[Nessa7]

Honestly I'd question the ethicalness and integrity of the teacher for even posing that task to students....

The student picked the topic. The professor did permit them to write and present the paper, but it was a capstone paper for a degree in political science, so there were no restrictions on what topics could be chosen. We were supposed to pick something that we were passionate about and may be interested in studying on a graduate level. The student was a smart guy, and he was able to put together a paper that fulfilled the requirements (even if it was really messed up).

I think he could have made the argument that other students may feel threatend, but this student already knew most of our routines and personal information, so it's not like we would be better off not knowing that a member of our class thought we should be killed.

 

[Ronin]

Ohh, I see. Thank you for that clarification @Nessa7.

 

[Nessa7]

No problem, @Ronin.

I do want to add that we were given the option in a way that no one felt any pressure to stay or like their safety was in question based on their choice. No one had to explain why they left. You couldn't guess who was pro-choice or pro-life based on it. If he was going to act on his beliefs, his paper wouldn't be the reason that anyone was hurt. I don't want to give the impression that the professor put our physical safety in jeopardy. The professor had definitely considered that possibility when he gave the warning.