Trigger warnings, safety and illusions

241 thoughts on Trigger warnings, safety and illusions

1. Wow, I really dislike this piece. I get what she’s trying to say, and she very briefly gives lip service to the fact that there are people who genuinely benefit from trigger warnings, but on the whole it seems to be dismissive of how helpful trigger warnings can be.

   Honestly what it kept reminding me of are the people who get offended when asked not to tell, for example, rape jokes. Because they say “society can’t coddle people” or “you can’t avoid being upset by things” or “you can’t censor life”. All of which are true but that’s not what asking people not to tell rape jokes is about at it’s core: it’s asking people to have empathy and appreciation for the feelings of others and to maybe moderate what they say in order to avoid HURTING people. Because really, is your need to tell a rape joke more important than causing emotional harm to another person? Is adding a trigger warning, something which isn’t all that difficult, so onerous a burden to put on someone if it means that someone won’t face a panic attack?

   SHe’s right that you can’t avoid harm, that you can’t completely avoid triggers, and that life can’t be “safe” all the time. That’s not what I’m asking for when I ask for trigger warnings.

   I won’t even touch the “trigger warnings will make people not get treatment to deal with triggers” bit.

   1. thank you for this comment. i am also especially bothered by the idea that trigger warnings keep people from seeking treatment. i appreciate trigger warnings, and i have also been in treatment for PTSD for over a decade. these things have nothing to do with each other.

   2. I totally agree. This article really rubbed me up the wrong way. As much as I can understand the feeling of all safety being illusory, or just being scared of everything and then doing what you want, I felt belittled, patronised, and kinda angry about this piece.

      And especially the censorship line, which is almost worse to me than the people crying censorship about rape jokes. That’s because a trigger warning isn’t stopping you from saying anything at all. It’s not even politely requesting you don’t say something. You can write anything and slap a trigger warning on the front and that doesn’t make the yuck disappear. This is in no way, shape, or form censorship.

2. Wow, that article is just…not good.

   For starters, it takes the slippery slope argument and makes sweet, sweet love to it for entire paragraphs. So, do we only think the slippery slope is a fallacy when Republicans are spouting it? Because the idea that basic warnings like warning for rape, graphic violence, etc., will turn into a free-for-all is patently ridiculous, especially considering the simple truth that bloggers, in the end, have near-absolute control over their content and whether or not they heed to these mysterious hordes of people with unreasonable trigger requirements.

   And then on top of that, there’s the commonly-held and incredibly offensive idea that survivors, if provided with trigger warnings, will buy into some illusory sense of safety, that obviously, enlightened (tougher, better, stronger) people know is false.

   That argument is completely wrong. Survivors have to live in a world that is saturated with unwarned-for depictions of triggery stuff. I pretty much avoid all literary fiction I can’t find detailed summaries for, or that isn’t vetted by a friend who knows me well, because literary fiction writers think that throwing in a rape or molestation plotline is a ticket to Deepness. I know what to avoid, I know where not to go; I’m not an idiot. Being molested and raped didn’t actually rob me of my ability to think critically, and it’s insulting and shockingly misogynistic to act like it does.

   People with triggers, people with PTSD – we are people managing an illness. Trigger warnings are a tool we can use to manage our own boundaries and avoid things that will bother us unnecessarily. There’s an incredibly distasteful thread running through that article, an implication that the author is tougher and more knowledgeable than the people who demand trigger warnings, and to be honest, I’m completely disgusted by it. I am not in feminist spaces to play Tougher Than Thou when it comes to how I deal with my traumatic experiences.

   Essentially, the truth is this: there is no shame in requesting trigger warnings, despite what bloggers like that person want to imply. I’m honestly shocked that Feministe posted an article that, at its core, calls survivors who request trigger warnings babies who can’t handle reality. That demonstrates kind of a stunning lack of empathy.

   1. Essentially, the truth is this: there is no shame in requesting trigger warnings, despite what bloggers like that person want to imply. I’m honestly shocked that Feministe posted an article that, at its core, calls survivors who request trigger warnings babies who can’t handle reality. That demonstrates kind of a stunning lack of empathy.

      But that’s not what she said, if you read the whole article. It’s the exact opposite of what she said.

      And we do use trigger warnings, so obviously we support their use.

      1. I know she acknowledges that trigger warnings can be helpful, but the bulk of the post is shaming. If you write an entire post about how people who use trigger warnings run the risk of not seeking treatment, confusing where safe spaces are, being overly demanding, etc., with the heavy implication that people who use warnings need to just toughen up, tacking on “that being said, they’re obviously not for me and some people see the benefit from them” only goes so far.

         1. Exactly. Two sentences at the end don’t come close to making up for the overhwhelming import of what precedes them.

            Especially given that the writer can’t resist tacking on another “And yet . . .” at the end.

      2. “maybe trigger warnings allow people to avoid learning how to deal with triggers, getting help….That said, there is value in learning, where possible, how to deal with and respond to the triggers that cut you open, the triggers that put you back in terrible places, that remind you of painful history.”

         That implies to me quite clearly that people who like trigger warnings are NOT ‘learning, where possible, how to deal…’. That they are avoiding their problems, they are not as strong as the writer. It couldn’t possibly be that different people cope with trauma differently. That different people enjoy reading different things. That some people even use trigger warnings as a way to find some material and ease themself into thinking about painful things. No, if you’re not doing it the way the writer does, then you’re not doing it at all.

   2. Thanks for adding to this from your personal experience, Elena. Your comments are really instructive and important.

      1. Thank you for this. 🙂 I appreciated your comments as well.

   3. Because the idea that basic warnings like warning for rape, graphic violence, etc., will turn into a free-for-all is patently ridiculous

      I just want to mention, as a datum, that recent posts here have been prefaced with trigger warnings for “sexual content” (when a post merely mentions an occurance of consensual sex), and “shame” (i.e. the normal adult emotion one experiences after acting wrongly).

      1. While I think there’s such a thing as a somewhat silly TW, does it do any harm for one to be there? I’m wondering why it matters to you that those TWs were in place.

         1. I think including consensual sex in a list of things that are hurtful is always a problem.

         2. I see more than a mere difference in semantics between calling something like that a trigger warning and calling it a content note. Some people would just rather not read about sex; it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s “hurtful” for them to do so.

         3. See, now? Even core commenters can differ sometimes.

         4. I think including consensual sex in a list of things that are hurtful is always a problem.

            I feel like this maybe shows why this disagreement about trigger warnings is happening. To my mind trigger warnings aren’t always about things which are objectively bad or hurtful. Sometimes they’re just about things that maybe might be painful for us to read right now. I do think Donna’s right that content note might be a better thing to call something like that, though.

         5. Yup, calling it a content note instead totally makes sense to me and is even preferable in many cases.

         6. I’m wondering why it matters to you that those TWs were in place.

            I brought it up because you claimed that the idea of a slippery slope was “patently ridiculous”, yet here we are already at the bottom of it.

            Asking “does it do any harm” seems rather beside the point when it has no good reason to be there in the first place (at least if people use trigger warnings for their stated purpose). On the other hand, issuing advance warning before you literally merely mention: “I’ve done things I’m ashamed of” outdoes the worst stereotypes of feminism-as-self-parody.

            People who don’t want to read about that sort of thing are free not to read it, just as they might any other article. The entire point of a trigger warning, as I understand it, is that some things, e.g. reminders of trauma, are so physiologically upsetting that it becomes worthwhile to figure out what not to read before you start reading it. Unless the mere mention of “shame” induces a panic attack, why not just close the tab like the rest of us?

            I think it’s worth asking: “how did we get to this point?” My best guess about the causal mechanism is that the term “shaming” has been incorporated into feminist parlance, broadly speaking, as a kind of shorthand for the various social pressures exerted on women who act contrary to conventional sexual expectations, let’s say. It’s quite well-established ’round these parts that this sort of shaming is bad, and perhaps even traumatic. When the word “shame” becomes such a shibboleth, perhaps it’s possible to lose sight of the original meaning of the term, which is just “embarrassment and remorse for one’s wrong-doing”, which is a perfectly normal and even important human emotion.

            That’s the sort of thing that makes me wonder whether issuing that sort of trigger warning, is less about actually trying to help people than signaling one’s in-group status.

3. Brilliant piece, I refuse to use trigger warnings, the term has become overused, and as a counselor, I always see them as meaningless. My triggers vary from week to week, mood to mood, learning to deal with them has been vital to living with things that have happened to me.

   I fear the use of the term means people think there is no alternative to distress, so rather than moving forward they remain trapped by their experiences.

   As I have said several times blogging, if anything I say causes you distress or upset then consider turning to a counselor, trusted friend, minister, whoever can support you. By encouraging avoidance no one is helped, and people may actually be hindered in their recovery. Imagine if instead of trigger warnings people put contact information for support groups/ police/ health services?

   1. You’re assuming people who ask for trigger warnings aren’t in treatment, though. To get over my triggers, I was in treatment, but I still have one or two fairly large ones, and I use trigger warnings to control my exposure to them.

      To be blunt, I don’t understand how you think someone who experienced physical or mental abuse beyond their control benefits from not being given the choice to avoid material that will cause them to relive that trauma.

      1. You’re assuming people who ask for trigger warnings aren’t in treatment, though. To get over my triggers, I was in treatment, but I still have one or two fairly large ones, and I use trigger warnings to control my exposure to them.

         To be blunt, I don’t understand how you think someone who experienced physical or mental abuse beyond their control benefits from not being given the choice to avoid material that will cause them to relive that trauma.

         I agree that trigger warnings are good and necessary — which is why I use them in my posts. I think they’re useful for the exact same reasons you outline. I just also think that there are some major limitations, and that they do put the responsibility for foreseeing triggers onto the writer. I think that it’s reasonable for certain communities to have certain standards, like how the feminist blog community basically agrees on TWs for sexual assault; I think it’s limiting and often unreasonable to expect writers to come up with TWs for every possible thing that could be triggering to their audience. I think at some point, we have to recognize that even the internet is the “real world,” and we cannot always be protected.

         1. I have seen very few people argue that they have the right to be protected from every little thing on the internet – far fewer than the people I’ve seen argue that people make that demand. In the end, unless you are actively pushing back against a significant number of people who are demanding unreasonable levels of “protection”, I think the argument you and the OP of the article are making is based in, well, an odd form of ableism that assumes survivors who want warnings will inevitably demand more and more protection.

            Again – this is very dependent on the slippery slope.

         2. I think it’s limiting and often unreasonable to expect writers to come up with TWs for every possible thing that could be triggering to their audience.

            Okay, straw man. I’m sure some people ask for this because there will always be “some people” who do anything, but show me how this attitude is somehow endemic. Because I’ve not run into myself yet, and I’ve been involved in these discussions for close to a decade.

            1. Okay, straw man. I’m sure some people ask for this because there will always be “some people” who do anything, but show me how this attitude is somehow endemic. Because I’ve not run into myself yet, and I’ve been involved in these discussions for close to a decade.

               Fair enough. I suppose it depends on what you consider “reasonable.” I personally think that sometimes, the call for trigger warnings get a little silly, even as I realize that trigger warnings can be really helpful and that people have all sorts of triggers and it’s not up to me to determine what’s a valid trigger and what’s not.

         3. Fair enough. I suppose it depends on what you consider “reasonable.” I personally think that sometimes, the call for trigger warnings get a little silly, even as I realize that trigger warnings can be really helpful and that people have all sorts of triggers and it’s not up to me to determine what’s a valid trigger and what’s not.

            I think we can all agree that posts making fun of silly hats deserve major trigger warnings.

         4. I just also think that there are some major limitations, and that they do put the responsibility for foreseeing triggers onto the writer. I think that it’s reasonable for certain communities to have certain standards, like how the feminist blog community basically agrees on TWs for sexual assault; I think it’s limiting and often unreasonable to expect writers to come up with TWs for every possible thing that could be triggering to their audience. I think at some point, we have to recognize that even the internet is the “real world,” and we cannot always be protected.

            I agree with this. I also want to add that as the expectation that trigger warnings/content notes will be used as a matter of course has grown, there is a tendency to talk about the writer/reader relationship *without* the use of trigger warnings as a perpetrator/victim relationship. And while I’m all for giving people a heads up on content within reason, I’m not cool with labeling a relationship where someone writes something that someone else voluntarily reads as an abusive or coercive relationship. Because it’s just not.

      2. Because avoudance does not lead to mental health, if something posted by a stranger on the internet “triggers” you then avoidance will not lead to a better outcome.

         Confronting our demons hurts, but avoiding them leads to generations of hurt. Along with the author I do not demand people stop using them, anyone is free to write what they want, however thinking they protect people is wrong on so many levels.

         1. Because avoudance does not lead to mental health, if something posted by a stranger on the internet “triggers” you then avoidance will not lead to a better outcome.

            But surely there’s a difference between complete avoidance and avoiding triggers on the internet while dealing with them in a formal, therapeutic environment?

         2. Powering through can help to an extent. But none of us are superhuman. None of us have infinite spoons, and those of us who need trigger warnings the most may have less of a buffer in the first place.

            If I exhaust my emotional and mental reserves dealing with some arsehole IRL, or coping with a real life environment or scenario that I know will push me to my limit, it does me absolutely no good to have my freshly raw nerves hit again when I’m trying to build up reserves for the next day’s fighting.

      3. Because avoidance does not lead to mental health, if something posted by a stranger on the internet “triggers” you then avoidance will not lead to a better outcome.

         Confronting our demons hurts, but avoiding them leads to generations of hurt. Along with the author I do not demand people stop using them, anyone is free to write what they want, however thinking they protect people is wrong on so many levels.

         1. Actually, “avoidance” is perfectly mentally healthy. *Pathological* avoidance could become a problem, but no mental health professional would advocate never avoiding traumatic triggers. Even exposure therapies, whether gradual or flooding, are done under controlled and monitored circumstances with plenty of additional support. And exposure therapies, while they do have a decent success rate, aren’t universally helpful.

            Healthy, autonomous avoidance of aversive situations is in fact what some professionals would advocate for clients, if that is what that patient needs. Like not putting oneself unnecessarily in emotionally painful situations so that one has more energy to deal with the unavoidable situations.

         2. I’m not convinced of this. Television and Web media are loaded with rubbish that is manipulative, exploitative, or just plain abusive. There’s no therapeutic reason for needing to read every single thing that hits our cognitive inbox. Understanding when to change the channel, walk away, or not click through on that link is a useful metacognitive skill for those of us inclined to obsessively scratch that itch in ways that are harmful.

            And here is the other side of the story. Linked text is a form of communication, and I don’t see the value in obfuscating the linked content. If you refer me to another page, I want your honest assessment of what that page is about. If you hit my RSS or Google+ inbox with a lede, that lede should tell me something about the article. Mystery-meat links and ledes are bad writing.

         3. Who are you to say what will or will not lead to any one person’s mental health? While powering through and confronting your demons might work for you, that doesn’t mean it’s good for everyone–and a lot of people who aren’t just taking on their demons head-on are acting with the support of a mental health professional who’s helping them through their trauma.

            Not using trigger warnings because hey, it’s better for everyone if they just confront their demons is incredibly patronizing and intrusive. That’s not a decision you get to make for someone else.

   2. Hi, I’m a psychologist, and I disagree with your post. Your attitude seems to be that what’s good for you is good for everyone, which, as a counsellor, you should recognise the uniqueness of each persons lived experience.

      It should be in the reader’s hands whether they choose to avoid or engage in something potentially triggering, which is why I support the use of trigger warnings. Not because all triggering content can be predicted by the writer, but because having a trigger warning allows the reader to make that choice based on what’s best for them at the time. Perhaps they will want to come back and read the article when they are in a different frame of mind?

      1. Thank you for this.

      2. Also a therapist and I agree. And as someone who often writes/talks about the field, I believe there is a reasonable balance between foreseeing the “big triggers” and being accused of assaulting my reader. The second one does happen, as Jill pointed out upstream.

   3. I don’t have very many ‘triggers’ but some days, I really do not need to read a piece on rape, or abuse, or republicans, or something… And having the ability to avoid it – because I had too many damn shit-ass things happen for me today to deal with reading about some shitty thing another person did – is nice. It’s not about avoiding getting help, it’s about protecting my psyche because I’ve been dealing with other deep emotional stuff. Sometimes, that stuff is in the title, but a non-obvious discussion of rape, of assault, etc, is nice to know ahead of time.

      Incidentally, my only real ‘trigger’ is something that isn’t normally in trigger warnings. I just stop reading the article. And that’s okay, I guess. Sometimes it’s okay, but sometimes it can ruin what was an otherwise good day. But I’ve also avoided reading things that I know will upset me on bad days – stuff that’s not ‘triggering’ in the sense that I’ll have flashbacks or whatever – and it’s a damn nice thing to be able to do. Sometimes, when I’m in a better mood, a better place to emotionally deal with it, I go back and read the articles!

      It’s like what someone else said – avoidance is healthy and normal, chronic avoidance is bad. Including trigger warnings isn’t someone else protecting me, it’s allowing me to protect myself. Just because I can’t avoid all bad things doesn’t mean I *have* to subject myself to bad things. How are trigger warnings any more presumptuous than saying getting rid of them will improve my mental health?

4. I disliked it very much as well, and am glad I wasn’t the only one. It is extremely condescending, and seems to miss the point of trigger warnings (or “content notes,” as they’re now called on Shakesville), almost entirely. She doesn’t like them? She’s free to ignore them.

   Of course safety is an illusion in the world at large. And of course there’s no perfect system for deciding what merits a trigger warning or what doesn’t. But, so what? It hardly follows that it’s impossible for particular places on the Internet to be safer than others, with respect to particular subjects.

   And this part:

   maybe trigger warnings allow people to avoid learning how to deal with triggers, getting help. . . . [T]here is value in learning, where possible, how to deal with and respond to the triggers that cut you open, the triggers that put you back in terrible places, that remind you of painful history.

   is nonsense. Does she really believe that people who prefer to have such warnings in places where they hang out on the Internet haven’t ever been triggered before? That they don’t already have to deal with triggers in a million other places, out of necessity? That they’re all just incapable of dealing with life, and that having a few places where such warnings or content notes are posted will prevent them from learning what they need to learn?

   1. By encouraging avoidance no one is helped, and people may actually be hindered in their recovery.

      And this, too, misses the point (as well as being entirely speculative). For example, I’m exposed to violent, hateful transphobic rhetoric all the time; it’s almost everywhere. I’m liable to see it when I open a magazine, go to a movie, read a book, turn on the TV, read a news story, and so on ad infinitum. Most of the time, I can’t avoid it. But if I happen to be reading a particular blog or website — usually, because I enjoy it! — and there’s a warning or content note that something like that is about to be quoted or discussed, then at least on that occasion, and in that place, and for that brief period of time, I can choose to avoid it.

      The entire notion that such warnings or content notes are somehow “bad” for people is little more than concern trolling.

      And the arguments that “we can’t avoid triggers everywhere, so we shouldn’t avoid them anywhere,” and “we can’t have enough warnings to help everyone always, so we shouldn’t make the effort to help anyone ever,” are equally pernicious.

      1. I totally agree. I like having choice. I like being able to say ‘not today. I’ve already had enough,’ or on the other hand, say ‘yes, I will do this. I have chosen to look at this thing, rather than having it thrust upon me.’

   2. Yeah, and Shakesville is basically an unreadable joke because of it.

      “Trigger warning for hostility to agency.”

      I mean what the actual fuck is that?

      1. Unreadable joke to some, safe space to others. And that is mentioned as something they are trying to cultivate as a community, a safe space. If you don’t need to heed those TW’s or CN’s then don’t. You are probably not the intended audience for the TW or CN.

         1. Shakesville isn’t unreadable as long as you’re very careful never to post there or take anything anyone says in the comments seriously.

      2. Social engineering. Discourages the people who don’t like that kind of thing from participating.

      3. If six words taken in sequence means something is “unreadable,” then your relationship with literacy is probably questionable.

         And that trigger warning is perfectly clear in its meaning. It indicates that the post will discuss attitudes or opinions that undermine the concept of agency.

         You know what makes something truly unreadable? Unnecessary and glib hyperbole coupled with a complete lack of empathy.

         1. I don’t know, I find that trigger warning fairly baffling. A lot of feminist dialogue online or off is jargon-intensive which is… a barrier, just as triggering content is a barrier.

      4. “Trigger warning for hostility to agency.”

         This is why we can’t have nice things.

   3. Yes, so much yes. Also, the OP ignores the possibility that some people may use trigger warnings, not simply as a means of pure avoidance, but occasionally as a way of preparing themselves to read something triggering in order to be able to deal with it in a healthier/self-controlled way. That TWs can be tools used in the process of coming to grips with the trauma, rather than simply fleeing from it.

      As Elena alluded to earlier, TW’s are really just tools (imperfect, but still useful) that thoughtful writers can provide to their readers in order to allow readers to manage their own boundaries. It’s not patronizing censorship; it’s a form of respect for the fact that readers are themselves individual people capable of making their own choices when given relevant information.

5. By encouraging avoidance no one is helped, and people may actually be hindered in their recovery. Imagine if instead of trigger warnings people put contact information for support groups/ police/ health services?

   they have a thing kind of like this on british tv when they’re like “if you’ve been affected by any of the issues raised in this programme contact blah blah”. though they also have a warning at the start of the show like “some may find this disturbing”. personally i think its maybe a good idea to put a warning if its some seriously horrible shit, but i do think its overused when its not needed.

6. Nope, I don’t buy it. I don’t equate “difficulty” with “futility”. And having spoken to or listened to many people with triggers over the years (particularly in fandom, where trigger warnings debates are a regular occurrence), I do believe that enough people derive sufficient benefit from such warnings to justify them and I have run into very few people who have found that trigger warnings lull them into a false sense of security (in fact it has sometimes been said that the warning itself can be a trigger of sorts, but this is still better than reading the article/story and getting the full-blown experience). As a blogger and former fan writer I have never found it particularly difficult to include warnings and I don’t put absurd pressure on myself to know to warn for *everything* and no one has ever asked me to be so ridiculously prescient – if specific issues come up, and an additional warning is requested, then it’s not much fuss to add one.

   I think this is a fine personal essay and certainly not offensive as other anti-warning articles I have read, but it does not jibe with story after story I have heard from other people with severe traumatic or mental disorder triggers, for whom trigger warnings *have* often saved them from real mental agony. So I don’t buy it. There’s nothing wrong with making the world a little easier even if it’s not making the world perfect.

   I’d like to offer this in counter-point, from a survivor (again, fandom-specific, but still relevant):

   Warning: Very explicit discussion of sexual assault and the nature, anatomy, cause & effect of triggers. Is itself triggery.

   Sexual Assault, Triggering, and Warnings: An Essay

   I began this post on the suggestion of a friend, who pointed out that people did not seem to understand that survivors (and not just survivors of sexual assault; the bare bones of what I’ve said, the helplessness you feel upon being triggered and the mental effects of the triggers itself, are often similar across the board) are not just asking for warnings to be saved a mild inconvenience or short-term disturbance. Additionally, survivors are not asking for extensive warnings on their rare and/or particularly specialized squicks. Survivors are asking that authors not hurt them even further by placing them in danger of being thrown back to such harmful mindsets. Survivors are asking that they be given a tool that helps them choose their fandom space and continue to heal, rather than have the same wounds reopened. And most importantly, survivors are asking for something that they did not have at the time of the assault(s): the power to say no. The power to not be made helpless and afraid.

7. Also, some people are under the impression that “trigger” means “makes me feel upset and unhappy”, which is like saying “allergy” means “I don’t like the taste and it gave me a mild stomachache”, and not “I could die”. I’m not saying people don’t use it that way, but people will also often claim to have an allergy as a way to justify not eating a food they don’t like, and that doesn’t mean actual allergies don’t seriously harm or kill people. Being “triggered” for many people means “reliving my trauma” or “returning to mental state which might kill me” in the case of suicidality or eating disorders. It is not a minor inconvenience or annoyance – it is brutal pain. As described in the quote above, trigger warnings aren’t a guarantee that this pain will be completely avoided, but they do give more autonomy to the person with the trigger – something their trauma and mental state have already often stripped them of repeatedly.

   (FWIW, I’m not a fan of policing other people’s triggers because frankly PWD are subject to enough of that already. I choose to err on the side of respecting people’s triggers because I’d rather be wrong that way then the other way.)

   I also want to point out, though I don’t know if it will make any difference, that given the nature of the subject matter, it is particularly difficult for people with traumatic triggers to participate in discussions exactly like this one even though the biggest consequences are for them. Something for all of us to keep in mind.

   1. I just want to ring all of this in bright red pen, and draw a big arrow pointing at the ring, with “THIS!” underneath it.

      This. very subject was discussed recently on a site I read, a site with a strong social justice bent. Someone had asked a particular blogger to TW for transphobia and drug use.

      Anyway, a guy decided to state (paraphrased) “Actually, I get really triggered by the term ‘Trigger warning’ so I’d appreciate it if [writer] didn’t use it”.

      I didn’t want to be a jerkface to him if he was genuine, but he has a history of redefining words to suit himself, so I said “That’s interesting, could you elaborate a little?”. His answer made me want to throw up. It’s paraphrased again, the original is even grosser.

      “The term makes me feel awkward. I feel like I can’t say whatever I want without someone reminding me of all this bad, depressing stuff that happens. I’m normal, most people are normal, we just want to have fun. We shouldn’t have to censor ourselves because a few overly fragile people once got called a name or something. There’s no such thing as ‘bad words’ once you’re not five. That’s how your tr***er warnings make me feel”.

      He feels awkward being reminded that hate crimes and traumatic events happeni. It harshes his vibe man. LOL look at his funny “tr***er” joke!

      It’s people like him who are the problem, not people who just want to read a blog without feeling like they’re falling into a hole.

   2. THIS. Thank you, Jadey.

   3. Yuuup. I made this exact point on a similar post a few months back. I don’t care if people want trigger warnings for things they don’t like.

      But don’t confuse that with BEING triggered which is a very specific spectrum of psychological responses that cannot be controlled by the individual to whom it’s happening.

      TW for comparison I’m about to make:
      many people have come to use the term “I’m triggered” in the same way that many people misuse the word “rape,” in this colloquial slang-y way that irritates me and demeans others.
      I’m not the word police, but know the basic definition of the word you’re using.

   4. Also, some people are under the impression that “trigger” means “makes me feel upset and unhappy”, which is like saying “allergy” means “I don’t like the taste and it gave me a mild stomachache”, and not “I could die”.

      That’s what I think it should mean, but the proliferation of trigger warnings actually dilutes that sense of urgency. This is one of the major problems I have with widespread uses of trigger warnings. The more common they are, the more in danger they are of becoming utterly invisible. How many of us really pay attention to the FBI warning at the beginning of video recordings, or feel genuinely informed by the ratings on movies or TV shows? Most of the time, stuff like that just fades into the info-clutter of our daily life because we see it so much.

      There are lots of things which make me routinely angry or upset. They are not triggers, however. That is, or is meant to be, a specific term concerning people suffering from PTSD, and however much I’m disturbed by pontificating assholes going on about “legitimate rape,” especially when they have the power to put that stupidity into law, my anger is not a PTSD incident. Thankfully, it’s not something I suffer from. Without putting some careful thought into when or where trigger warnings are appropriate, we really do risk obscuring the difference between serious psychological consequences and “This makes me uncomfortable.”

      1. I also think it’s a bit odd to put trigger warnings that are just as bad as the content being warned about, or that are obvious from the title. If an article is titled “Why Rape is Super Bad” do you really need to warn people that there will be discussion of rape? Do you need to say “Trigger warning for the word ‘rape’!” and thus do the exact thing you’re warning about in the warning?

   5. As I was reading this I kept thinking how some of the “coddling” arguments remind me of people not taking allergies seriously. I wondered if anyone else would mention this, so I’m glad you did, Jadey.

      I am fortunate enough to not have any life threatening allergies. But I have few friends and family members with life-threatening allergies who have had people try to “test” their allergies, to see if it’s rally that serious, and then are surprised when that person has anaphylaxis.
      Just because (general) you wouldn’t have a reaction to ______, doesn’t mean warnings are stupid and unnecessary. That goes for allergy warnings and trigger warnings.

8. I just had this conversation with my husband. I believe in trigger warnings, inasmuch as I benefit from them. I never before really understood the point of them, however, I recently experienced a traumatic incident & have so appreciated seeing them used around topics I cannot stomach. I’m not ordering people to use them. I think the whole basis of the trigger warning or content note is to encourage people to be thoughtful of how their words might affect other people. Obviously we can’t anticipate everything that could trigger anyone, but certainly some things are more obvious than others and if we happen to notice that, and then use a tw, it doesn’t hurt those who don’t like them and could very well help someone who does appreciate them.

9. I guess I was also convinced by the end of the piece, which reads:

   I do recognize that in some spaces, we have to err on the side of safety or the illusion thereof. Trigger warnings aren’t meant for those of us who don’t believe in them just like the Bible wasn’t written for atheists. Trigger warnings are designed for the people who need them, who need that safety.

   Those of us who do not believe should have little say in the matter. We can neither presume nor judge what others might feel the need to be protected from.

   I didn’t see her as being anti-trigger-warning. I saw her as recognizing the limitations of TWs. And I think there are a great many limitations, and that the reliance on them in feminist spaces can be not-great.

   1. Okay, I thought I read the article in full, but I did miss that actually.

      As I said initially, I think it’s a fine personal essay and a really interesting insight into one person’s perspective. But according that quoted statement, it is in no way meant to be nor will it function as an argument against trigger warnings, which is what other commenters in this thread have already suggested. Not being familiar with your stance on TW, Jill, I misinterpreted that as your purpose as well in linking it.

      But as long as no one is making the argument that there shouldn’t be trigger warnings, then I have no qualms whatsoever. I still think that the author’s own experience with trigger warnings is not a reasonable reflection of other survivors (which she seems to recognize as well), but I wouldn’t pretend that trigger warnings are perfect. Far from.

      I do think it’s really sad that there will probably be more commenters on this thread who will try to use this essay to justify not using trigger warnings.

   2. I didn’t really read this piece as anything apart from personal reflection on the writer’s experience of trigger warnings. And the parts of the article specifically looking at the personal experiences of the writer were fine.

      The problem I had was when there was generalisation – equating trigger warnings with censorship, implying that trigger warnings would let survivors not ever confront the things that trigger them, purporting to be able to say what all survivors should and should not do (‘bad survivor, avoiding your triggers! Bad!’).

10. Actually, this brings me back to the scent sensitivity thread. It’s not like asking for fragrance-free spaces (and trying to change corporate practices at the same time) provides any sort of guarantee against migraines, especially if someone happens to have a really obscure and idiosyncratic sensitivity, but is that a reason not to try? Same as developing peanut-free or gluten-free products. Would anyone argue that these kinds of provisions would encourage people not to manage their medical conditions? Once again, mental disorders are being treated as “fuzzy” and more like a sign of a personal failing that shouldn’t be “coddled”. (Which isn’t to say there aren’t people who don’t try to do that with allergies and such, but the acceptance of the legitimacy of helping people manage those conditions has come much farther.)

11. …[I]n some spaces, we have to err on the side of safety or the illusion thereof. Trigger warnings aren’t meant for those of us who don’t believe in them just like the Bible wasn’t written for atheists. Trigger warnings are designed for the people who need them, who need that safety.

    Those of us who do not believe should have little say in the matter. We can neither presume nor judge what others might feel the need to be protected from.

    One person’s trigger warning may be another’s “coddling” or “censorship,” but I think of trigger warnings as a courtesy that recognizes the breadth of one’s audience, one that respects wide-ranging personal experiences, histories, and sensibilities while allowing the reader to choose – to consent – whether or not to continue forward with the material.

12. I think trigger warnings are very helpful in letting me avoid more exposure to things that will make me feel bloody awful than I already get. Obviously, you can’t know everyone’s triggers, but that’s not really a good argument against using trigger warnings when you think someone might be triggered. Kind of like how in real life, you don’t tell people stories about something you know they find really disgusting or frightening without asking them if that’s okay first.

    So yeah, I thought it was really condescending article and I just don’t agree with her conclusion. And the idea of trigger warnings keeping people from getting help to deal with their triggers is laughable.

    1. Also, I’m recovering from an eating disorder. For me, avoidance from things that I find to be triggering primarily means not reading magazines, blogs, news and other things that talk about what I should eat and how I should exercise and why I should want to lose weight. Seeing how most women I know who don’t have any eating disorders still feel pretty bad about those exact things, I really don’t see why I would be more mentally healthy if I exposed myself to those messages more than necessary.

       1. So you choose what to read…why do you need a stranger telling you to avoid weight loss articles, surely that is condescending?

          1. Actually, what I need is people telling me something is a weight loss article so I can choose not to read it.

             You might be reading different things than I am, but I haven’t seen any trigger warnings that says that people who have experienced X shouldn’t read this article. What they do generally state is that X is being discussed within the article. Pretty big difference.

          2. Actually, what I need is people telling me something is a weight loss article so I can choose not to read it.

             You might be reading different things than I am, but I haven’t seen any trigger warnings that says that people who have experienced X shouldn’t read this article. What they do generally state is that X is being discussed within the article. Pretty big difference.

          3. But trigger warnings *aren’t* a stranger telling someone what to do! They are providing information to allow someone to make an autonomous decision! *pulls hair in frustration* Which is the same as what Alice described, except adapted to situations in which it is not immediately obvious that the potentially triggering content will be included. A women’s magazine will undoubtedly contain diet talk – someone’s blog post on a blog that covers a wide range of topics does not.

             That is all a trigger warning is: Information. Not an imperative. A trigger warning never *forced* anyone to do anything – it just gave them the opportunity to choose, like Alice has made choices that you apparently find reasonable.

    2. Also, I’m recovering from an eating disorder. For me, avoidance from things that I find to be triggering primarily means not reading magazines, blogs, news and other things that talk about what I should eat and how I should exercise and why I should want to lose weight. Seeing how most women I know who don’t have any eating disorders still feel pretty bad about those exact things, I really don’t see why I would be more mentally healthy if I exposed myself to those messages more than necessary.

13. I have to say I find a number of the comments on here disturbing. It is not healthy to be emotionally disturbed by something read on the interweb. That people say this happens and therefore is simply a fact of life amazes me, campaign for better mental health services, for better treatment of survivors, for acceptance of difference, defending a situation where people are hurt by what they read is not caring. That people are trying to portray themselves as somehow more empathetic because they prefer people to remain in a state of pain astounds me.

    1. I think that you are missing the point entirely. It is about being thoughtful of how one’s words might negatively affect others. That is all, being thoughtful of your audience. It is not about people “Prefering to remain in a state of pain”.

       1. That should be shown in your writing. It is like the baby on board hangers in cars. Very few people know these originated with babies being left in smashed cars after accidents, car seats were new and the rescue services did not know there was a child in the back seat. A firefighter produced the first sticker after a baby was found unharmed by the tow truck sent to remove the car hours after the accident.
          Trigger warnings have become the interweb equivalent, when every car carries them what point do they have?

          1. when every car carries them what point do they have?

             …um, the same point they had before? just because more cars have “baby on board” stickers doesn’t mean it’s suddenly less important to be able to find the baby should there be an accident. and just because more blogs are using content warnings doesn’t mean it’s less important to let people know what you’re going to be talking about.

          2. Note that this doesn’t actually seem to be correct:

             http://www.snopes.com/horrors/parental/babysign.asp

    2. It is not healthy to be emotionally disturbed by something read on the interweb.

       Well, technically it’s not “healthy” to be emotionally disturbed about anything, to the extent that emotional disturbance is a not a healthy state to be in. I’m not sure why you think something read online is worse than something read on paper, given the increasingly prevalence of Internet media.

       What I personally find disturbing is that you have so little regard for people with triggers who are trying to manage their condition, presumably while trying to alleviate it by other means if those are available to them. There is no basis for your or the OP’s claim that trigger warnings discourage people from seeking mental health treatment. In fact, people who have enough insight into their own triggers to be able to make use of warnings are probably already farther along the road to recovery. All you are doing is insulting people’s self-determination.

       1. And you are assuming I do not have triggers…easier to assume that than to believe some of us are survivors not victims.

          I do care, that;s why I post, the status quo does not help.

          1. You’re right and I apologize for that assumption, though I think that having triggers yourself does not exempt you from having internalized negative attitudes about people with triggers. I stand by my rebuttals on your beliefs about how mental health treatment works – perhaps trigger warnings would be ineffective for you, but I say again that there is no argument for this being generalizable to other people coping with trauma.

       2. It is not healthy to be emotionally disturbed by something read on the interweb.

          Yeah… to be fair, there are two responses to this:

          1. It actually is emotionally healthy to be disturbed by something disturbing. If you read a detailed post about something horrific, being disturbed is a normal, emotionally healthy reaction.

          2. Not everyone on the interwebs is “emotionally healthy.” Lack of current emotional health should not force one to remain in one’s room for the entirety of one’s life.

          1. But that is exactly my point, avoidance is the equivalent of remaining in your room. The blanket use of trigger warnings gives people the idea they are morally superior , the part of my original post everyone but one commentor has ignored is that I wished instead of trigger warnings people gave links to mental health service, the police, health services. As that commenter said this is standard in England.

             Dont read this it might upset you makes the writer feel better, If this upsets you contact these services actually does some good.

          2. Oh FFS… people need to be able to participate in spaces at their own pace and in their own time. I have been commenting on this blog, off and on, since 2006. In that space of time I have:

             -experienced sexual assault
             -dealt with abuse and alcoholism in my family
             -had negative experiences with sex work
             -been diagnosed with bipolar disorder
             -and figured out how to get treatment and how to use skills that keep all of the above from being permanently disabling.

             Recovery – as you well know – is a process. There is space between “staying in your own room” and being open to every possible experience, and that’s a space that’s important for survivors to be able to negotiate. One way that lets survivors stretch their legs, so to speak, is to warn adequately for disturbing material, so that on days when people feel strong, they can read it, and on days when they don’t, they can avoid it.

    3. Not to mention that trigger warnings specifically allow people to make choices which will help them avoid pain. Trauma isn’t something which can be made to go away in a simple fashion – it can take many years and for some people it will never go away entirely. But they can live their lives perfectly well and in otherwise good health, which can be aided by giving them the tools to avoid unnecessary exposure to relapsing events. Trauma doesn’t mean that every moment is unremittingly painful (although for some it can) – for many people it can mean going through their lives in a functional and resilient way, but with occasional (sometimes frequent) events of serious pain – avoiding even a few of these seems perfectly reasonable to me.

    4. Well, not all people are healthy.

    5. No one’s saying that staying in a state of pain is preferable, and of course we should try to improve mental health services and treatment of survivors. But those improvements aren’t here yet, and while we’re fighting for them we can also take small steps (such as trigger warnings) to ensure that survivors’ pain is minimized.

    6. It is not healthy to be emotionally disturbed by something read on the interweb.

       Like most such broad generalizations, this is simply not true. In addition to what Jadey points out, I would suggest that there are some things as to which being emotionally disturbed may well be the only healthy reaction to reading them, on the Internet or elsewhere. *Especially* if one happens to have a personal history, as a survivor or elsewhere, with respect to the particular subject matter. No matter how well, and for how long, one has learned to deal with that history. I recently read, in a collection of Victor Grossman pieces, a very detailed description of the Himmelstrasse at Sobibor. I don’t think I would have been human if I hadn’t been “emotionally disturbed” by that, even without my own personal issues and family history surrounding the subject. Not healthy? Nonsense.

       1. “as a survivor or otherwise.” Sorry.

       2. Yeah absolutely, this is very true. And the comment ‘it’s not healthy’ kind of gets my hackles up. I mean I guess it’s broadly true that PTSD is not ‘healthy’ but still…
          I’m not a survivor of any serious sexual assault, and don’t have any PTSD or tendency to anxiety. I never ‘pay attention’ to trigger warnings in that I never avoid reading anything because of a warning. But I do enjoy the heads-up that allows me to put myself in a certain frame of readiness as I read on. And the use of trigger warnings, content-notes and so on have been really educational for me. I feel like I have a lot more empathy for and understanding of the mental-health issues that make people need trigger warnings, simply as a result of consistently seeing the warnings. I feel like it has prompted me (almost unconsciously) to reflect on what it must be like to live with a mental illness that makes one vulnerable to triggers. And I think that awareness and compassion is very valuable in a social-justice context.

          1. A good point, and one that fits my experience as well. Seeing TWs/content notes for things that would not have occurred to me as potentially triggery certainly made me think about how people can be triggered by different things, and that their pain is as real as mine. And yes, we don’t have to avoid something with a TW, we can ignore it. It’s not censorship – the material is available. It’s just an additional piece of information.

    7. Didn’t you say you were a counselor above? Do you not understand how, for example, PTSD works?

    8. OK, so not only do you seem to be totally misunderstanding what TWs are and why they’re used, but you’re now apparently alleging that BoB stickers are pointless and overused as well.

       Yeah, no babies in my car, but like every other childless/childfree person I have tons of the stickers on my car, for the lulz.

       What point are you trying to make? Do you even know?

    9. Are you kidding me? A while back Feministe linked to a graphic discussion of rape from the point of view on rapists on Reddit. The stuff is inherently upsetting, and as someone who’s lived through sexual assault, it was difficult (though worthwhile) for me to work through it. But a while back I would not have been able to do it and not decompensate, and even now I have days where I’m not prepared for that.

       Trigger warnings for that kind of material – material which ought to be discussed in feminist spaces – saves me from having to remember painful shit I don’t want to remember on days when I don’t have the /time/ to deal with negative emotions, on days when I’m on this blog for light entertainment purposes!

    10. “That people are trying to portray themselves as somehow more empathetic because they prefer people to remain in a state of pain astounds me”

        Not including trigger warns seems to me to put people in a state of pain, rather than the other way around. I fail to see how reliving trauma will reduce one’s pain…

14. Gotta chime in with the not-liking-it-much voices. I mean…I do think some people take the concept of trigger warnings a bit far, and I’ve seen them used regarding topics that seemed a little silly. And so that can lead to the concept as a whole starting to seem silly or unnecessary.

    BUT…while it’s fine if some authors don’t want to use them, I don’t really get the point of getting up on a soapbox about I WILL NOT USE THEM AND HERE IS WHY AND THEY ARE DUMB AND YADDA YADDA. If other writers/bloggers/etc want to use them – if they, as I would expect, have done the same weighing of pros and cons that this author has done and come down on the other side as she – then what’s really the harm to anyone else? It’s not like they cause problems for people who don’t want them…but their absence can, potentially, cause discomfort at best for those who do want them. Especially if the content being warned about is not necessarily made explicit by a post title or article headline and might very reasonably catch someone totally off-guard. Even in the case of what I think are sillier ones, so what if I do? It just strikes me as…unnecessarily dismissive of someone else’s concerns simply because they’re not also *your* concerns.

    I mean, basically, if you don’t want to use them, you don’t have to, and if that means some folks won’t read your articles or blog, then okay. But in the same way that no one should be tut-tutted for not choosing to use them, I don’t think those who don’t should act like they’re coming from some more evolved and real place towards those who do use them. Yes, the whole world can be triggering. The world is scary and awful and messy. Most of it can’t be avoided. So what’s wrong with attempting a little avoidance when we can? What’s wrong with wanting a tiny escape from that awfulness?

    1. BUT…while it’s fine if some authors don’t want to use them, I don’t really get the point of getting up on a soapbox about I WILL NOT USE THEM AND HERE IS WHY AND THEY ARE DUMB AND YADDA YADDA. If other writers/bloggers/etc want to use them – if they, as I would expect, have done the same weighing of pros and cons that this author has done and come down on the other side as she – then what’s really the harm to anyone else?

       Totally agreed. And to be clear again, I do use trigger warnings and I do think that they’re really useful and necessary in certain (including feminist) communities. I just thought her points were interesting and valuable.

    2. BUT…while it’s fine if some authors don’t want to use them, I don’t really get the point of getting up on a soapbox about I WILL NOT USE THEM AND HERE IS WHY AND THEY ARE DUMB AND YADDA YADDA.

       It’s become common for people to admonish writers for not posting trigger warnings. This quickly becomes irritating and overbearing enough to provoke a response.

15. @ Elena sorry I have double posted and seemingly cannot reply. I think the separation of therapy and the real world will never help. Recovery must take place in all aspects of ones life. If someone chooses to read an article, ad I have never come across one where the first few lines or title do not indicate the content then there are reasons for that choice.

    Our subconscious mind often prompts us to confront those things that cause us pain, because the avoidance of them cause us more pain.

    To be called out for concern trolling by someone who goes on to list their oppression simply amuses me (not you but further up) . Are we to have a hierarchy of pain? Shall I disclose that pink blankets caused panic attacks for years? Should I have sued every shop who sold pink blankets or should I have realized this was something that needed to be confronted and dealt with?

    Sometimes the easy answer is to say there there it will all be ok. Sometimes we can show courage and real empathy and say yes it hurts, consider why, and how and use that pain.

    1. I have never come across one where the first few lines or title do not indicate the content then there are reasons for that choice.

       I have. So have most other people, I’ll bet. The first few lines or title may indicate the general direction or subject matter of a piece, but it’s hardly uncommon in anything but the simplest piece for something entirely new to be introduced later on without any adumbration whatsoever.

    2. But I don’t think we can confront pain all the time. It’s exhausting and demoralizing. Sometimes we need a break, and trigger warnings allow us to decide whether we’re prepared to deal with an article or story at this time or not.

       1. Exactly. As a survivor I have already had the experience of having absolutely no control over what happened to me, at least for a brief while. I am not going to voluntarily give up control because that’s how I’m supposed to “recover” right. I don’t have to be in recovery all the damn time.

          1. Exactly. As a survivor I have already had the experience of having absolutely no control over what happened to me, at least for a brief while. I am not going to voluntarily give up control because that’s how I’m supposed to “recover” right. I don’t have to be in recovery all the damn time.

             QFT.

    3. Your argument is based on the idea that having descriptive notes about the content of a link is about avoidance, rather than about control.

       My mailbox gets as many as 50 messages a day. My news aggregators feed me as many as 400 different links a day. For each and every one, I depend on the subject line and the lede to chose among three options: ignore, read now, or save for later.

       I don’t need to be a sexual abuse survivor 24/7 in dealing with my news environment. I can make a choice to approach an issue on my own terms. I certainly don’t avoid, because I watch survivor-advocacy groups online, but I do organize. And I depend on the referrer to give me a fair assessment of what I’m linking to.

    4. Jemima101, don’t you see, though, how what you have written here:

       I think the separation of therapy and the real world will never help. Recovery must take place in all aspects of ones life

       could be interpreted as “If you aren’t making enough of an effort at recovery, the rest of us don’t have to give you any extra consideration”?
       I’m sure that you know how much effort it is, trying to get emotionally healthy; not everybody has the energy to go as far towards it as you might like; possibly, even, people know where best to direct their energy, and facing triggering material on the internet without warning is not a good use of what energy they have. It is a case where “the perfect is the enemy of the good” may be applied.

    5. If someone chooses to read an article, ad I have never come across one where the first few lines or title do not indicate the content

       Really? Many people found this interview with Olympic swimmer and gold medalist Nancy Hogshead-Makar problematic — one phrase I heard used to describe it was “like a punch in the gut” — specifically because the first few lines (first few paragraphs) give absolutely no clue that about halfway through the interview she discusses having been violently raped.

16. 99% of the time, trigger warnings and content notes barely slow me down. They do not hinder my reading, even when they are many and complex. But one day, one very bad day, an article I was going to read had a content note for suicide, and I knew that it would not be emotionally okay for me to read that article.

    That is why I use content notes. Because they helped me once, because I never want to cause hurt to another person with my writing, even unintentionally, and because it is not my place to concern-troll the mental health of strangers on the internet.

17. I completely disagree with that article. I think what Melissa McEwan said about trigger warnings is spot-on:

    “We provide trigger warnings because they give survivors of various stripes the option to assess whether they’re in a state of mind to deal with triggering material before they stumble across it.”

18. I liked the piece. As Jill has pointed out in the comments, and as I thought was pretty clear from the article itself, the author isn’t arguing against the use of Trigger Warnings. She’s explaining why she, as a survivor who is triggered by many different things, doesn’t like trigger warnings or find them helpful, why she thinks they could even be harmful, and why she doesn’t personally use them in her writing. I think that’s a valuable perspective, even though I like trigger warnings.

    1. the author isn’t arguing against the use of Trigger Warnings. She’s explaining why she, as a survivor who is triggered by many different things, doesn’t like trigger warnings or find them helpful, why she thinks they could even be harmful, and why she doesn’t personally use them in her writing.

       i’m not being facetious — i honestly fail to see the distinction here.

       1. I think the distinction is that she’s not arguing that no one should use trigger warnings (which the first statement implies), she’s explaining why she personally doesn’t use trigger warnings.

          1. i might agree with you if it weren’t for this part:

             Writers cannot protect their readers for themselves nor should they be expected to.

             There is also this: maybe trigger warnings allow people to avoid learning how to deal with triggers, getting help.

             that reads to me as, perhaps, less neutral than just explaining why she doesn’t use them herself.

       2. From the piece:

          It is an impossible debate. There is too much history lurking beneath the skin of too many people. Few are willing to consider the possibility that trigger warnings might be ineffective, impractical and necessary for creating safe spaces all at once.

          Intellectually, I understand why trigger warnings are necessary for some people. I understand that painful experiences are all too often threatening to break the skin. Seeing or feeling yourself come apart is terrifying.

          I do recognize that in some spaces, we have to err on the side of safety or the illusion thereof. Trigger warnings aren’t meant for those of us who don’t believe in them just like the Bible wasn’t written for atheists. Trigger warnings are designed for the people who need them, who need that safety.

          Those of us who do not believe should have little say in the matter. We can neither presume nor judge what others might feel the need to be protected from.

          This writer, who is herself a survivor, experiences trigger warnings as patronizing, and as something that makes her feel less safe–and more constrained in her own writing–than in the absence of them. Honestly, it sounds to me from her article that she finds the warnings themselves somewhat triggering, because the way she healed from her trauma was to accept and embrace the idea that there’s no such thing as a safe space and no way to protect yourself from your triggers. But she also says that she knows that is “her failing,” that they may be imperfect but necessary ways to create safe spaces, and that people who do find them helpful should be listened to.

          I don’t find that particularly contradictory — she is expressing her own concerns about trigger warnings while still explicitly recognizing that others find value in them and may need them. But even if it isn’t perfectly reconcilable, I don’t think that’s reason to dismiss this article. She’s speaking from a place that’s obviously deeply personal and painful, not making an academic argument for or against a certain policy. I think this is a really beautiful, raw piece of writing, and I don’t think that survivors should be required to have fully processed and sanitized their feelings about their trauma before writing about the subject. A lot of people heal through writing, and a lot of people have subjects on which they’ll never be able to totally rationalize their perspective. Their perspectives are still valuable.*

          * Assuming they aren’t dismissing others’ experiences (which I really think this author explicitly and repeatedly showed she was not).

19. What I don’t like about this article is the assumption that the author knows better than any potential victims what is best for them. You don’t need trigger warnings? Good for you. That doesn’t give you the right (or the knowledge of other cases) to decide FOR somebody that, in YOUR opinion, avoidance is bad for them and thus, however they or their therapists may feel about it, you are correct and they should have to deal with it.
    A friend of mine’s child died of cancer a few years back, and regardless of what I personally feel might be the best way to approach recovery from something traumatic like this, I do not get to decide that he has to deal with it in the way that I deem best. I don’t bring it up “to make him face it” – we talk about it on his terms, when he chooses to. I do not know how he feels inside about the worst thing that’s ever happened to him and would never presume to take away his right to grieve how he needs to.

20. There is no standard for trigger warnings, no universal guidelines. Once you start, where do you stop? Does the mention of the word rape require a trigger warning or is the threshold an account of a rape? How graphic does an account of abuse need to be before meriting a warning? Are trigger warnings required anytime matters of difference are broached? What is graphic? Who makes these determinations?

    …You stop at things that aren’t triggering to people. You determine that by what people who suffer from triggers think. And if you can’t do that, then just give readers a general trigger warning. How is any of that difficult?

    Trigger warnings also, when used in excess, start to feel like censorship. They suggest that there are experiences or perspectives too inappropriate, too explicit, too bare to be voiced publicly. As a writer, I bristle when people say, “This should have had a trigger warning.” I think, “For what?”

    I do not understand the unspoken rules of trigger warnings. I cannot write the way I want to write and consider using trigger warnings. After a while, I would second guess myself, temper the intensity of what I have to say. I don’t want to do that. I don’t intend to ever do that.

    Are you kidding me? Giving people a chance to decide whether they want to read triggering material is not censorship. It doesn’t hinder your expression at all.

    This article just screams “nirvana fallacy” to me. It’s a joke.

    1. I don’t know, mxe354. As a writer, I can see how having to try to pre-emptively figure out every aspect of how a piece of mine might be triggering would be onerous and weigh heavily upon me, perhaps to the point of self-censorship. Pressuring a writer to write something isn’t really any better than pressuring her not to write something.

       As a reader, I can’t help but think of an essay written by Lester Bangs about being present at a Hell’s Angels gang rape. It still comes back to me in flashes, visceral flashes that nauseate me and make me stop dead in the middle of sex, sometimes. Because he was a good writer. And sure, I had no way of knowing that was how that essay was going to go when I started reading it, but it was clear within a page or two…and I kept on reading. And I’m not sure that was a conscious decision on my part.

       And I definitely avoid movies with rape scenes in them.

       So I find myself in two minds about trigger warnings, particularly ones like “hostility to agency,” which is not perfectly clear, no matter what anybody says–never in a hundred years could I have figured out what that meant. Meh. But I wouldn’t dismiss this article out of hand.

       1. never in a hundred years could I have figured out what that meant.

          I’ll concede that by itself it wouldn’t become clear until after one has read the piece it proceeds, but together with the other content notes that accompanied it, it wasn’t so difficult to figure out what it meant in a general sense. And, after all, it was only a content note, not a trigger warning:

          http://www.shakesville.com/2012/02/this-is-so-worst-thing-youre-going-to_29.html

          If the Lester Bangs piece had been accompanied by a content note saying “warning: graphic, violent rape description,” would you have still read it? Do you wish you hadn’t?

          Also, I’m not sure anyone here is suggesting that writers should be pressured or expected to provide such warnings or notes in general; if they don’t want to, they don’t have to, and certainly don’t have to guest post at Shakesville. But if they choose to do so, I’m completely unimpressed by the argument that they shouldn’t, because it’s a bad thing to do.

          1. Precedes, not proceeds. I think I’m getting old; this is happening a lot lately — typing “write” for “right” and “no” for “know,” that sort of thing.

          2. If the Lester Bangs piece had been accompanied by a content note saying “warning: graphic, violent rape description,” would you have still read it? Do you wish you hadn’t?

             I don’t know if I would still have read it. I honestly don’t know. I might not have, but I suspect I would have, because I love Bangs’s writing and usually his sensibility (it’s clear he understands how horrific this rape is; that’s part of the trauma of the piece–he doesn’t flatten it or caricature it), and having an unread essay by an author I love is too…I don’t know…wrong.

             I do wish I hadn’t read it. Absolutely. But if I hadn’t read it, I wouldn’t know what was in it, so I’d probably regret it and ruminate it and ultimately go back and read it. So there’s that. It’s kind of a no-win situation. For me.

             But if they choose to do so, I’m completely unimpressed by the argument that they shouldn’t, because it’s a bad thing to do.

             Me too. Writers who want to use TWs should.

          3. As a reader, I can’t help but think of an essay written by Lester Bangs about being present at a Hell’s Angels gang rape. It still comes back to me in flashes, visceral flashes that nauseate me and make me stop dead in the middle of sex, sometimes. Because he was a good writer. And sure, I had no way of knowing that was how that essay was going to go when I started reading it, but it was clear within a page or two…and I kept on reading. And I’m not sure that was a conscious decision on my part.

             Is this in one of the omnibus books? or was it an article you found on the net? I too am a big fan of Lester, and thought I’d read most all of his published stuff, so I’m wondering if I just blocked it out. The cover of his bio was shot outside my old building…Lester lived in a building next door (542 Sixth Ave was his address.)

          4. It was in the second omnibus book, near to the beginning, I’m pretty sure. It kicked me in the teeth because the first two or three pieces had been the usual deliriously whirling writing I love him for, and then…

       2. I don’t know, mxe354. As a writer, I can see how having to try to pre-emptively figure out every aspect of how a piece of mine might be triggering would be onerous and weigh heavily upon me, perhaps to the point of self-censorship. Pressuring a writer to write something isn’t really any better than pressuring her not to write something.

          Warnings generally are in place when you don’t censor something – after all, if there isn’t anything to warn against, then the warning is pretty much meaningless. So I don’t see how it could lead to self-censorship. I mean, it’s just a warning; it’s not an attempt to censor anything.

          As a reader, I can’t help but think of an essay written by Lester Bangs about being present at a Hell’s Angels gang rape. It still comes back to me in flashes, visceral flashes that nauseate me and make me stop dead in the middle of sex, sometimes. Because he was a good writer. And sure, I had no way of knowing that was how that essay was going to go when I started reading it, but it was clear within a page or two…and I kept on reading. And I’m not sure that was a conscious decision on my part.

          And I definitely avoid movies with rape scenes in them.

          Given what you’ve described, I personally think you made a clear decision because, even though you eventually got a good idea of what was going to happen in the story, you kept going. Perhaps if you were, say, emotionally distressed at the time of reading it, you would’ve avoided reading more of it. I could be wrong, though – I don’t mean to seem presumptuous here.

          So I find myself in two minds about trigger warnings, particularly ones like “hostility to agency,” which is not perfectly clear, no matter what anybody says–never in a hundred years could I have figured out what that meant. Meh. But I wouldn’t dismiss this article out of hand.

          I think “agency” here means the ability to decide to read triggering material. Not using trigger warnings could constitute a “hostility to agency” because it means that people who suffer from triggers aren’t given a chance to decide whether they are currently in an emotional state in which they can deal with triggering material.

          1. See my explanation above: in context, it meant hostility to the right of women to be provided with full information about trans-vaginal ultrasounds (including the use of a particular word to characterize mandated ultrasounds), as opposed to “everyone should keep quiet in the interests of public health, and not use words like that, because ultrasounds are a good thing in general.”

          2. Warnings generally are in place when you don’t censor something – after all, if there isn’t anything to warn against, then the warning is pretty much meaningless. So I don’t see how it could lead to self-censorship.

             It requires a level of self-consciousness that is readerly, not writerly, so for me, it would induce a second-guessing that would hamper writing, in the way that Yogi Berra said he couldn’t think and hit at the same time.

             Given what you’ve described, I personally think you made a clear decision because, even though you eventually got a good idea of what was going to happen in the story, you kept going. Perhaps if you were, say, emotionally distressed at the time of reading it, you would’ve avoided reading more of it. I could be wrong, though – I don’t mean to seem presumptuous here.

             I think you’re wrong. Reading the essay was indeed very emotionally distressing for me, and I think that you’re underestimating how immersive the experience of reading a gripping writer and being swept up in his prose is, at least for me–there was no way I wasn’t going to finish this essay once I’d started it. Bangs was an amazing writer.

          3. @ EG

             In my experience as a writer, I first write the piece and focus on that, rather than on content warnings.

             Then once the piece is written as part of my “editor” duties (which is a whole different mindset) I step back and think about whether I can identify anything that would reasonably act as a trigger for someone, or that might require a NSFW warning so as to avoid screwing someone over at work (something else I know many people despise). Then I add it – it doesn’t affect the writing of the piece at all.

             If I weren’t planning on using content warnings, then I would need to go back and re-write and edit the piece to remove the potentially problematic material, which is where it might be more difficult as a writer if I felt those elements were crucial. So I find content warnings freeing, rather than limiting. ymmv

          4. Yes I really agree with Jadey above, I don’t think there is any reason why including trigger warnings should hinder the writing process. I don’t think anyone is even suggesting that the potential need for trigger warnings should be on your mind whilst you are writing. I think the whole point is that once the piece is done you can have a think about any content-notes you may want to add. Agreed, this can be a tricky one. But I think it’s definitely a post writing process.

          5. I’m not sure it could work like that for me. My edit mindset is a technical one; I’m not sure I could regularly add content during it without incorporating an awareness of that content during the writing process. Maybe I could. Maybe not.

          6. I’m not sure it could work like that for me. My edit mindset is a technical one; I’m not sure I could regularly add content during it without incorporating an awareness of that content during the writing process. Maybe I could. Maybe not.

             In your case maybe a trigger warning that you haven’t deeply edited for trigger warnings would suffice. I know it sounds Catch-22ish, but it would have the proper effect right?

21. I find the number of times that Jill has had to repeat how valuable she finds trigger warnings to be a bit of a bummer. Are we ever going to start assuming good faith of the authors here? Comprehensively reading the posts/links/comments for content and context without assuming the most disagreeable interpretation? That’s certainly not the case with every commenter, and I’m also certainly guilty of the same myself sometimes, but geez louise folks.
    /derail

    1. Jill didn’t write the piece everyone’s talking about. I haven’t really noticed anyone questioning her good faith. The person who did write the piece is not an “author here.”

    2. In addition to what Donna said, keep in mind that with the new threading system comments are no longer posted in chronological order, so it’s not exactly that Jill has been repeating herself over and over so much as she responded to several different commenters at once after it became apparent that we didn’t know for certain what her stance was, and that clarified things (at least it did for me).

       1. I’m not so thick to not realize that the linked piece wasn’t written by Jill. What I said applied mostly to a number of comments above this one? And to the assumptions in those comments, that this post means that Jill thinks X, Y, and Z about trigger warnings?

          But yeah, I am still adjusting to the threaded comments. It came off as weirdly repetitive after-the-fact to read Jill repeating basically the same point to a bunch of people.

          But hey! Look at all the awesome comments that have come in since mine!
          /runs off to read moar comments

22. I rather liked the piece, both as a discussion of trigger warnings and as a piece of art.

    I am somewhat mixed on the concept of trigger warnings in general–personally, I like to avoid deliberately upsetting people and appreciate it when other people extend the same courtesy. At the same time, I detest the comment/content issues at Shakesville to the point that I stopped reading it. I’ve just never seen a good place to draw the line.

    1. I found Roxane Gay’s essay moving, and it resonated with me too. As for trigger warnings in general, they don’t help me at all. But then, I’m not dealing with trauma. I think trigger warnings are extremely valuable. I do use trigger warnings when I comment. It is just that trigger warnings about disordered eating tend to be incredibly hard for me to resist, so I will read things I might not have without the trigger warning.

       Trigger Warning: I’m going to talk about my experience with disordered eating.

       For me, not eating was not something that was mainly triggered by social attitudes. It was more like an addiction than anything else. I found the feeling of emptiness and the pain in my stomach from not eating pleasurable. I still do, if I have to skip a meal. Not eating felt better than when I had eaten. Yes, I had and have major issues with body image. I view myself as fat and not pretty. My actual looks and weight are almost irrelevant. The problem for me is that restricting what I eat is an addictive behavior. It never got severe enough that other people noticed, because I was never dangerously underweight. I was skipping meals not starving. It took me years to establish healthy patterns of eating and I still want to (and do) relapse sometimes. Trigger warnings about topics about eating do nothing to stop this. If anything, they guarantee I will read the article. I will not be able to stop myself.

       The interlocking issue here is that the only way I got my disordered eating behaviors under control is by making sure that I never fast for long periods of time and by accepting that I am fat and ugly, and that it is fine to be fat and ugly. But I don’t look fat and ugly to most people. If I admit my coping mechanisms, some people view it as body shaming others. I’m white, allegedly attractive and have always been within a “normal” weight.

       So, I’ve found it better to avoid spaces that are trying to create a safe space to talk about fat shaming or anything else that deals with eating patterns. I will slip back into addictive behavior from reading them, and I will hurt other people if I comment about what is happening in my head.

23. I like the way Trigger Warnings are done on Feministe, and I disagree with the linked article. Just because you can never have a static set of rules that works for everyone, doesn’t mean it’s pointless to try and help some people. We don’t need need TW’s for every article that uses the word “Crazy,” but it’s not pointless to put them on posts about traumatic events.

24. @EG

    It requires a level of self-consciousness that is readerly, not writerly, so for me, it would induce a second-guessing that would hamper writing, in the way that Yogi Berra said he couldn’t think and hit at the same time.

    All right, I can see your point; that could lead to some unwanted rewriting. However, I think that writers can avoid that by writing everything first and then putting up the trigger warning. And if there are too many things that could be regarded as triggering, they can instead use a trigger warning that is as general as possible.

    For instance, if you start with some warning for your story like “Trigger warning for rape, sexual harassment, and intense violence” and then realize that your story also has depictions of, say, emotional and physical abuse, then in order to simplify the list, you can instead write “Trigger warning for various depictions of abuse”. Just an idea.

    I think you’re wrong. Reading the essay was indeed very emotionally distressing for me, and I think that you’re underestimating how immersive the experience of reading a gripping writer and being swept up in his prose is, at least for me–there was no way I wasn’t going to finish this essay once I’d started it. Bangs was an amazing writer.

    I forgot about that; I’ve experienced a similar feeling while reading one of Joyce Carol Oates’ stories. By the way, what’s the title of Bangs’ essay? I might check it out.

    @Donna L
    Ah, my bad. I need to work a bit on my reading comprehension. >_>

    1. By the way, what’s the title of Bangs’ essay? I might check it out.

       Honestly, I don’t want to go check. The idea of accidentally reading some of it again is too upsetting. How about this? I’ll give you the title of the collection it’s in. It’s near the beginning. The collection is called…hmm. That’s weird. Both of my Lester Bangs books have disappeared. Ok, well the one this distressing essay is in is Main Lines, Blood Feasts, and Bad Taste. But the best and first collection of his work is Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung.

25. Wait, how is this any better than that Susannah Breslin article belittling the concept of trigger warnings? And how is Jill’s hatred of Roiphe’s article, and love of this one, at all consistent?

    The Feministe post I’m referring to: http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2010/04/14/trigger-warning-insufferable-dingbat-ahoy/

    1. Well, from Breslin’s article:

       After some in-depth research (like, half an hour, maybe?), I was able to conclude that, for whatever reason, the feminists are all over their TRIGGER WARNINGS, applying them like a Southern cook applies Pam cooking spray to an overused nonstick frying pan. It’s almost impressive, really. I guess the idea is that blog posts are TOTALLY SCARY, and if you are EASILY UPSET, if you see a TRIGGER WARNING coming, you can look away REALLY FAST, or click elsewhere, so you won’t, you know, FREAK THE FUCK OUT.

       And then from Breslin’s follow-up article:

       Perhaps most significantly, trigger warnings crystallize everything that is wrong with the current state of the feminist movement, if it can be called that. These days, feminism isn’t a movement at all, really, but a collection of blogs obsessed with the pop culture it claims to be victimized by, a forum for women who promote themselves as victims of a patriarchy that no longer exists, a pretend movement that contains within it no forward movement at all, only a fetal-like desire to curl up on itself, muttering Women’s Studies jargon, and handing out trigger warnings like party favors at a girl’s-only slumber party.

       The so-called feminist movement and trigger warnings are a great deal alike. They no longer exist in reality. They are the stuff of make-believe.

       I don’t know about you, but I see a pretty enormous difference between that and what Roxanne Gay wrote. For one thing, Gay doesn’t once belittle people who use or benefit from trigger warnings.

26. Sorry, Breslin’s article, not Roiphe’s. (I mix these folks up sometimes.)

27. It’s interesting how my perspective has changed on the issue. I used to find trigger warnings silly, until I thought about it. I don’t object to the labelling of video games, movies, or television, so why would I be bothered with writing. I think a lot of it was getting used to the world ‘trigger warning’ which sounded weird to me.

    Now I’m even in the process of trying to work a ‘trigger warning’ into my stand-up comedy act since I occasionally go to some dark places. Odds are someone in the audience has experienced some of trauma and the last thing I want to do is cause someone unnecessary distress.

    So I guess I’ve come full circle.

28. It’s interesting how my perspective has changed on the issue. I used to find trigger warnings silly, until I thought about it. I don’t object to the labelling of video games, movies, or television, so why would I be bothered with writing. I think a lot of it was getting used to the world ‘trigger warning’ which sounded weird to me.

    Now I’m even in the process of trying to work a ‘trigger warning’ into my stand-up comedy act since I occasionally go to some dark places. Odds are someone in the audience has experienced some of trauma and the last thing I want to do is cause someone unnecessary distress.

    So I guess I’ve come full circle.

29. “After some in-depth research (like, half an hour, maybe?), I was able to conclude that, for whatever reason, the feminists are all over their TRIGGER WARNINGS, applying them like a Southern cook applies Pam cooking spray to an overused nonstick frying pan. It’s almost impressive, really. I guess the idea is that blog posts are TOTALLY SCARY, and if you are EASILY UPSET, if you see a TRIGGER WARNING coming, you can look away REALLY FAST, or click elsewhere, so you won’t, you know, FREAK THE FUCK OUT.”
    
    All right, this person is a raging asshole. Christ.

    “These days, feminism isn’t a movement at all, really, but a collection of blogs obsessed with the pop culture it claims to be victimized by, a forum for women who promote themselves as victims of a patriarchy that no longer exists, a pretend movement that contains within it no forward movement at all, only a fetal-like desire to curl up on itself, muttering Women’s Studies jargon, and handing out trigger warnings like party favors at a girl’s-only slumber party.”
    Living under a rock much? Also, talk about being a privilege-blind dipshit.

    /derail

30. it is our choice to use or ignore them. Personally, I am very appreciative of trigger warnings. At first, trigger warnings were my cue to prepare myself for possibly very difficult content. Now I am at a stage where trigger warnings also somewhat attract me, signaling content that may be educational, insightful, or cathartic.

31. It requires a level of self-consciousness that is readerly, not writerly, so for me, it would induce a second-guessing that would hamper writing, in the way that Yogi Berra said he couldn’t think and hit at the same time.

    Personally, I found that to be the case when writing about really emotionally painful things like the Evangelical Christianity series earlier this year. I cut out a lot of troubling snipets and axed an entire post that talked about some of my experiences with Evangelical doctrine that lead to child abuse/negligence. Trying to parse out what might be triggering caused me to reconsider whether sharing those experiences/clips would really be valuable to others or whether they would just be triggering.

    That said, I’m okay with where I ended up in making that decision. I’d rather not say something than to say something that triggers someone.

    1. That’s the thing, I’m not sure I would. Writing is creating a work of art, and for it to be good, it has to be whole. At least, for me. I want to be true to what the piece needs in order to be all it can be.

       1. I don’t see why it’s either/or, though. Can’t you write what you want, without censoring or second-guessing yourself, and then put up trigger warnings after you’ve written it?

          1. I think its because when you write something painful the focus is on expressing or sharing something emotional. You want the piece to have an emotional impact on the audience. When you shift the focus to protecting your audience from the potential harm that your words may cause it changes how you think about what you’ve written. When added to that the insecurity and shame I already felt about the topic, it was just too much weighing against there being any value in the posts. That isn’t of course anyone else’s responsibility. No one else should have to experience being triggered to accomodate me, but I just wanted to point out that those things do happen and point to a fairly recent example.

          2. But the thing is I don’t think anyone is asking you to protect the audience from harm. The whole idea with the trigger warning is to let you spill it all out, let your piece be as full on and as troubling as it needs to be and then just add a little note so that the audience can do the job of protecting themselves.

          3. @Rayuela23,

             And yet that is how I experienced it and the effect it had. Again, you can feel differently about it and I’m not suggesting that we stop using trigger warnings. But they do have an impact on some writers who are writing about their own traumatic experiences. I’m not sure why that is so controversial.

          4. Yeah, well, I’ve never written publicly so obviously I don’t have that level of knowledge about it. But it’s funny because I imagine the trigger warning as being *liberating* for a writer. That is, if something you’re writing is getting a bit heavy you can forego the agonizing about whether it’s a bit much for a Tuesday morning and just add a content note.
             But then I can also see that maybe you wouldn’t WANT a content note, so you would try to change the piece to try to avoid that. Again I find myself saying: hmmmm.

       2. Because the trigger warnings then become part of the piece, and that of necessity affects it.

          1. I don’t really agree that the TWs or CNs are part of the piece. This is a quibble, but I more think of them as ‘meta-text’; similar to, for example, hat-tips to contributors, suggestions of further reading, etc. You usually find TWs within square brackets, for example.

          2. I think that is a quibble. They’re about content, they have an effect on how the reader experiences the content; as far as I’m concerned, they’re part of the piece.

          3. To expand, they’re part of the piece because they absolutely change how the piece is experienced. For some people they change it in a good way. Good. But they also turn the the piece into one of suspense: I know a thing is coming, but where is it coming? Is this it? What about now? Was that it?

             But what if I don’t want that suspense to be part of the piece? What if the piece isn’t about suspense? It’s a kind of spoiler effect. Do I want that effect? What if I don’t?

             Is there not a defter way for me to signal through the writing what is coming, if I want to? Something that is integrated with the piece and in the narrative voice rather than a standardized mechanism? Does that signal accomplish the same thing? Do I want it to?

             Those are not easily answered questions for me, no matter how easily others may answer them.

          4. Yeah, that’s definitely true, particularly about the sensation of suspense – and the ‘was that it?’ – that it creates for the reader. Hmm

       3. Yeah, I can definitely see that as well.

       4. For most writers and audiences out there, the writing uses a structure where the opening paragraph sets the expectations, and everything that follows works with those expectations. Yes, there are exceptions, but you have to be extremely good to pull them off successfully.

          Even if you’re a good writer, even if I have a high degree of trust in you as a fan of your writing, I’m deluged with so much writing that I’m forced to make judgements from the first paragraph. (Novels and non-fiction books usually get a handful of pages.) In fact, I’d argue that pulling off a “gotcha” is more demanding of the opening.

          I don’t think that the explicit terms “trigger warning” or “content note” need to appear at all if you provide an accurate title and lede.

          WRT links to other content, well, you’re not the writer, you’re a reviewer trying to sell me that additional content. Tell me what to expect, and your assessment of what’s there.

          1. It’s different for fiction, though. I’ve read a lot of Joyce Carol Oates and Annie Proulx. I also adore Octavia Butler’s writing. I can think of novels and stories by them that contain content that is deeply disturbing, which is not apparent from the opening, and which telling the reader about in advance essentially works as a spoiler for the short story or novel. I can also say that reading these pieces took me to difficult emotional places that took a lot of time to process.

             In the context of this type of fiction, a content note would be fine for people who don’t care about knowing what is going to happen before it happens in the story. But a content note also changes the tone of the piece completely. It becomes an extra layer of foreshadowing or an outright spoiler. There is a major caveat here in that Butler, Oates, and Proulx are known for dealing with disturbing material so having difficult subject matter occur suddenly in a story by one of them is something a reader who is familiar with their writing can anticipate.

          2. Yes. It is mainly my fiction that I’m thinking of. There’s definitely an Oates story out there that I wish I had never read. But a warning or a note would change the story completely.

          3. It’s different for fiction, though.

             Outside of the world of fanfiction, where such tags are a community convention that’s useful for matching readers with works they may like, is anyone advocating warnings for fiction? My thought is that the primary focus is on non-fiction writing and blog posts where clarity of communication is of primary importance.

             But I’m not convinced that fiction is all that different because the tone and possibilites are largely defined in the opening pages. Sure, there are exceptions, but if you pull a bait-and-switch in the middle of Act II, that requires a lot of work and polish to pull off properly.

          4. Sure, there are exceptions, but if you pull a bait-and-switch in the middle of Act II, that requires a lot of work and polish to pull off properly.

             Well, first, I’m good, so plenty of work and polish doesn’t exclude stuff I write. That’s fine by me. But second of all, I don’t agree. There’s plenty of fiction that deeply distressed/s me, not so much because of a bait and switch but because it never occurred to me that somebody would do X in a work of fiction, or in this work of fiction, or I wasn’t expecting it right then, or I didn’t realize I’d be distressed. Daniel Handler’s Basic Eight, Joyce Carol Oates’s “You, Little Match Girl,” Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?.

             And I’m not convinced of the distinction between fiction and non-. What about the opening chapter to Lucky, which was not at all where I expected to encounter the rape scene. But putting it there was a deliberate move to create immediate shock, and a warning at the beginning of the chapter would have changed the tone completely.

          5. There’s plenty of fiction that deeply distressed/s me, not so much because of a bait and switch but because it never occurred to me that somebody would do X in a work of fiction, or in this work of fiction, or I wasn’t expecting it right then, or I didn’t realize I’d be distressed. Daniel Handler’s Basic Eight, Joyce Carol Oates’s “You, Little Match Girl,” Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?.

             Sure, I’ve read a fair bit of fiction that left me hugging a pillow for a few hours. But with fiction, literary non-fiction, art, and cinema we have an entirely different set of mechanisms through which we can make choices about a given work.

             But I don’t see anyone demanding that Oates, Butler, or Proulx change the way they write, nor is anyone demanding that you add spoilers to your literary fiction or non-fiction. So this seems a bit like borrowing trouble.

          6. For me, it’s less borrowing trouble than mulling over the issues raised.

          7. It’s not terribly obvious to me that TW/CNs, which are tied to the pragmatics of intertextual Computer-Mediated Communication, have much application to other rhetorical forms that benefit from rich cultural support and criticism that allow for readers to make choices about how to engage in a work.

32. My main issue with the original Rumpus article is the bit of speculation about the harm trigger warnings might be doing:

    There is also this: maybe trigger warnings allow people to avoid learning how to deal with triggers, getting help. I say this with the understanding that having access to professional resources for getting help is a privilege. I say this with the understanding that sometimes there is not enough help in the world. That said, there is value in learning, where possible, how to deal with and respond to the triggers that cut you open, the triggers that put you back in terrible places, that remind you of painful history.

    (Please keep in mind that when I use “you” in the following paragraph, I’m referring to the author of the article and others who explicitly agree with the author on this particular point. So not Jill, since it seems unlikely that she’s on board with this small aside in the article.)

    The thing is, other people don’t get to decide that I have to go through trauma recovery right now. Especially when right now is when I’m reading an article in my office on break, and the frequently-insensitive coworkers nearby could hear me crying. Hell, you don’t get to decide anything about the course of my recovery; the point is, you are not my therapist, and it’s condescending and harmful for you to try to “help” me by making me confront explicit descriptions of rape on your schedule.

    1. Yeah, I think the idea that someone else is judging how I or anyone else goes about dealing with our traumas is one of the major things about the article that get under my skin. Firstly, as you say, it’s not anyone else’s business to decide when and how I go through recovery, or to impose an external schedule on it. Secondly though, I also think even if there were some mythical “right” way for everyone to recover, such that it could be judged by someone on the Internet, it still would not be their right to make me adhere to that via refusal of TWs or what have you. As long as I am not harming anyone else, my health is nobody’s business but mine and my therapist’s. And if I want to do it the “wrong” way, if I want to fuck everything up, to be blunt, that’s my right. It’s my mind.

    2. Yeah, this is problematic, and way too close for my comfort to the common assholish argument that no one should use TWs/CNs because someone who is triggered by reading something on the internet should be spending that time in therapy and/or grow a thicker skin. (Apparently therapy is a thing where you just need to put in X hours and you will be cured and normal at the end of it, kind of how you need so many hours of behind-the-wheel practice before you’re allowed to take the driving exam)

       If there is any inherent problem with TWs, it’s that the term can be seen to imply that (a) there is something inherently wrong with the thing being warned for, and (b) people need a warning about the content if and only if it triggers them. For example, a detailed description of a BDSM session could be triggering to some people, but BDSM is not inherently bad. And you don’t _need_ to be full-fledged PTSD triggered for reading about sexual assault to be upsetting and maybe more than you really wanted to deal with at that time. So I prefer Content Note because it’s more neutral on both counts.

33. I was under the impression that the trigger warnings on feminist sites were part of an acknowledgement that patriarchy is harmful and creates many victims/survivors – women are often the victims of a range of practices which are represented as “normal” in mainstream society which are actually harmful. I feel part of my job as a feminist is to bring that harm to light. Rape apologism, the constant pressure on women to look and act in particular ways – I feel that trigger warnings about these things (i.e. for sexual violence, diet talk) are political statements which suggest that these are common and that they are a problem – hence challenging the mores of patriarchal cultures.

34. I prefer the term ‘content note’, not for the reasons the move away from ‘trigger warning’ was originally made, but because I feel that the way ‘trigger warning’ is often used really minimises PTSD.

    But, seriously, if you’re posting stuff that’s potentially traumatic to survivors, it’s just polite to give them a heads up. As pointed out upthread, we put content warnings on movies and games.

    I’ll also note that, when they’re used for things like racism, it’s again a matter of simple courtesy and respect to use them. I think you might need to think about your how your own levels of privilege are impacting your outlook on the matter if you don’t think it’s kind of obnoxious and thoughtless to send, for example, a person of colour or a trans person to read a racist or transphobic article or comment thread without saying “Oh, heads up, that’s a really hostile environment where the author/commenters are dehumanising and degrading you.”

    As all too many of us know, dealing with oppressive shit every day can really wear you down. I don’t think it’s expecting too much to ask that the people who are expected to be your allies and supporters give you the option of opting out from taking on yet another serving of it if you’re not up for it.

35. Personally, I support the warnings, it just seems better to phrase it as content warning rather than trigger warning.

36. I like the piece, because I’m pretty ambivilent about trigger warnings and think they can definitely be overdone.

    But something I don’t think many people have touched on is the idea that you *have* to be ok. The author seems to be saying that if you are getting bad reactions from this stuff you have a problem and you should fix it etc.

    Well I was sexually assaulted earlier this year and one of the ways I’ve been coping is by gritting my teeth and insisting that I am actually fine, ok, no problems, dong good. Because 90% of the time that’s the truth and having people treat me like I’m broken just makes me feel more broken. But sometimes if I’m by myself and have been living in my head too much and I read something that touches off a spark in me, I do go into a bit of a downward spiral, and trigger warnings are a way of me avoiding that.

    So in my case, it could be said that I’m not ok, or that I’m not always ok, but as far as I’m concerned that’s fucking fine. And the condescending idea that I have to be working through my trauma or w/e when I’m actually concentrating my efforts on living my life kinda pisses me off.

37. I can only speak for myself, but excessive trigger warnings have driven me away from communities in the past. The warning functions as, well, a warning. As in, an alarm. It can become very draining very fast if you are always perusing pages of content with WARNING WARNING CAUTION DANGER DANGER!! signals all over them. I noticed myself becoming progressively more nervous instead of less – after all, if everyone is acting like you should be terrified and shell-shocked by the information in these articles then damn, there really must be something fearsome in there. And so you turn away. And keep turning away.

    The problem is that a single over-cautious trigger warning is harmless. It might do more good than harm. But, it has a cumulative, stressful effect when trigger warnings are absolutely fucking everywhere.

    1. Agreed. Personally, the constant alarmism is more distressing than the intermittently stressful content.

    2. All right, I see what you mean. But that sense of alarmism can be avoided if you phrase it differently e.g. saying “content note” instead of “trigger warning”, as Vi suggested. All that matters is that you make the reader aware that the following material may be triggering to some.

       1. I agree; ‘content note’ is much better phrasing. There is still the potential to overdo those, of course, but at least the threshold is higher and it is easier to compromise.

    3. I agree that the constant warnings can have negative effects. When nearly every post has a trigger warning it becomes both pointless and irritating.

       But as I think about it, I’m not sure what that feeling on my part really means. It reminds me of when I first went to college, and I was really annoyed that the RAs and various student associations kept warning us about rape, and kept putting up signs everywhere reminding us about rape awareness, and it bothered me because I just found the constant alarmism annoying and it didn’t seem useful. And then, you know, it turned out they were right – it WAS something I needed to think about and be warned about and be aware of in the dorms. So… yeah. I have that same feeling now about all these warnings, but it doesn’t necessarily mean they shouldn’t be there.

       Mostly, I just ignore them. I only find them helpful if they are very specific about what the content is – then sometimes I will decide to read something later when I’m in private. Usually they are very vague and therefore very useless. The content itself isn’t usually the thing that gets to me, it has more to do with the style in which its described if that makes any sense. Some pieces of emotional writing about something will be much more upsetting than a dry statement of the same thing, but they both get trigger warnings with the same explanation, so… I don’t find it very helpful.

       And as a practical matter I imagine lots of people who actually have ptsd are triggered by otherwise innocuous imagery, like a ceiling fan or something that may be coincidentally associated with whatever happened to them, and there’s no way everyone can be warned of those types of things. So I prefer the idea of a content warning, since trigger warnings don’t seem like a very practical idea. It really is a content warning, and that name makes more sense.

38. My trigger, for years, was laying on my side. I don’t use trigger warnings, because who can protect you from that? They actually remind me of the signs promoters put in front of horror movies and roller coasters, warning away sensitive people and those with heart conditions. It’s an attempt to make the experience more frightening by framing it as too scary for some. It feels exploitative.

    1. It also feels silencing. It reinforces the idea that there are some experiences that we have to be extremely careful about discussing. And it adds an extra burden when writing about something that is already difficult to share. Trigger warnings create the temptation just to edit out the really difficult parts of the piece because sharing them isn’t worth upsetting people. Maybe that shouldn’t happen, but too many women are already socially conditioned to avoid acting in ways that are upsetting to others and to never make a fuss about their own feelings.

       1. Of course it does – because some people find the material triggering. That’s not silencing, though, because it doesn’t actually prevent you from writing anything. What’s the point of a warning if the things that can be triggering to some aren’t even there?

          People use trigger warnings so that they can write triggering material.

          1. I don’t disagree with that point. I do think that trigger warnings have an implicit message that certain content is not welcome in a space and, therefore, has to be approached very carefully or shouldn’t be mentioned at all. That implicit message feels silencing to me, even though I know rationally it is supposed to facilitate discussion. What I’m trying to articulate is that trigger warnings can have negative emotional impact on at least some people that can stifle the discussion of issues of trauma and addiction. I think that impact needs to be balanced with the desire to create a safer space by using trigger warnings and content notes. Different people will feel more comfortable in spaces that have different degrees of balancing and that’s ok.

39. I’ll add that trigger warnings also create a hierarchy of triggers. Triggered by graphic descriptions of rape? Cool, you get one. Triggered by smirking assholes who refuse to say “vagina”? Nope.

    1. Who says? I see content notes for misogyny all the time. (A term I really do prefer to “trigger warning,” by the way, and I’m glad Shakesville made the change, because there are lots of things that may not rise to the level of actual triggers per se, but which I still prefer to be warned about so I can decide if I feel like reading the post.).

40. I think everyone ought to read the piece Jadey linked at 37 if they can, before continuing this conversation. There’s a disturbing amount of ignoring the distinction between ‘unpleasant/annoying/stressful’ and ‘capable of causing severe psychological pain and/or leading to physical harm’ going on in places here.

    And no, TWs/CNs are not perfect or unproblematic. Nobody is saying they are. But they are one small way to avoid inflicting real suffering on people unnecessarily – some of whom, as was pointed out earlier, aren’t able to participate in such a discussion as easily as many of us here. Maybe we could be careful to try and not ignore this fact?

    1. Thanks, maedchen.

       On that last point, though, I also want to acknowledge that there have been a number of people on this thread who do have triggers and who are also explaining why trigger warnings don’t work for them from their own experience (in addition to people with triggers explaining why TWs *are* important to them!). I am still coming down on the side of using warnings (or content notes, as Vi and others mentioned – I don’t think these notes need to be excessively alarming per se, although prominent enough to be noticed is helpful), but I don’t want to minimize dissenting views from people with personal experience.

       1. Thanks for this. It seems like sometimes there’s a tendency to see the experiences of survivors who like TWs and find them helpful more valid than the experiences of survivors who find them pointless or even harmful.

       2. I don’t want to minimize dissenting views from people with personal experience.

          Agreed. I also don’t want people to have to tear open those wounds just to prove that they have a vested interest in the subject.

       3. Oh, agreed, and a good point to note. I don’t think that this issue is one in which there is anything like a perfect state we could all eventually agree on – it is, rather, a place where our broken edges may bump into others’, which is unfortunate and which we should be aware of and try to minimize. However, I guess the article and some other discussions of TWs/CNs (and I do prefer the term ‘content note’ myself, I think) have left me with a sense, rightly or not, that pushback against the use of such notices can often forget the real level of potential suffering we are talking about here, and at times can veer close to something like ableism. That gets my hackles up a bit, and is why I was so glad you linked to that article.

          That said, I fully agree that there should be a range of spaces with differing approaches to warning/not warning, so people can find places comfortable for them. And people who find warnings problematic in specific ways certainly ought to be welcome in the conversation. I just don’t get why the *idea* of having warnings *anywhere* has to be such a bone of contention and excuse for condescension (I did find the OP rather condescending in places).

    2. I feel like someone needs to be blunt with this: If you’re self-harming after reading something on the internet, yes, you do need to seek help that trigger warnings can’t provide.

       There really seems to be a portion of the emotional disability advocacy community that wants to be validated for flirting with disaster — indefinitely — instead of advocating that we have agency and responsibility to maintain some semblance of comprehensive mental health. Avoiding additional stress and unpleasantness is part of living with and maintaining mental health regardless of one’s disability status. Trigger and content warnings can help with that.

       But the example above is of a person in crisis. Normalizing crisis is bad news for those of us who struggle with maintaining mental health.

       1. I feel like someone needs to be blunt with this: If you’re self-harming after reading something on the internet, yes, you do need to seek help that trigger warnings can’t provide.

          but how do you know we aren’t seeking that help? you imply that the process of mental health is one you’re familiar with, so you know that “get treatment” isn’t as simple as “get a sandwich.” sandwiches are binary: either you have one or you don’t. treatment doesn’t work like that; as the poet said, #itsaprocess. i’ve been in therapy for almost eleven years now. should i have blocked myself from the internet for this whole past decade, because sometimes things still trigger me, and one of the ways i deal with being triggered is self-injury?

          1. Abby, I’m not a therapist, so I can’t speak to people’s treatment. I’ve been in treatment for PTSD on and off for 15 years. But our personal stories ultimately aren’t the point of the comment. Nor is the fact that trigger warnings are already used as a matter of course on social justice blogs for issues like sexual assault, rape, child abuse, animal abuse, etc. I use them when I blog, and most everyone else does too. The question of whether or not they should be used is kind of a moot point at this juncture.

             But my point is that we individuals are ultimately responsible for our own treatment, management of triggers, and choice to self-harm. We’re in a weird spot when we’re asking writers to anticipate our triggers for us, accuse them of callousness when they don’t, and use our choice to self-harm as the rhetorical gotcha to honor our triggers or else. We are readers voluntarily reading things on social justice sites we know will contain content that triggers us.

             There’s something about this dynamic that strikes me as being against mental health. Not for. Kind of codependent. Certainly not supportive in any meaningful sense.

          2. i’ve been in therapy for almost eleven years now. should i have blocked myself from the internet for this whole past decade, because sometimes things still trigger me, and one of the ways i deal with being triggered is self-injury?

             I’m not sure how to phrase this without sounding like a total shithead, but… yes. If being triggered results in self-injury, and there are triggering things on the internet, and if what you’re saying is that reading the internet leads you to self-injury? Then yes, perhaps don’t read the internet, and also continue with your therapy.

             I am happy to provide trigger warnings for things that I know are common triggers for Feministe readers. However, no writer can foresee every possible trigger. And the vast majority of spaces on the internet do not, and will not, provide trigger warnings. Even feminist spaces are not 100% perfect when it comes to trigger warnings. So at some point, yes, it is on the person with the trigger to exercise self-care. If you’re hurting yourself as a way to deal with a trigger, that’s what needs to be dealt with. Every trigger warning in the world on ever Feministe blog post is not going to solve that problem, because the problem isn’t a lack of trigger warnings.

          3. i’ve been in therapy for almost eleven years now. should i have blocked myself from the internet for this whole past decade, because sometimes things still trigger me, and one of the ways i deal with being triggered is self-injury?

             I’m not sure how to phrase this without sounding like a total shithead, but… yes. If being triggered results in self-injury, and there are triggering things on the internet, and if what you’re saying is that reading the internet leads you to self-injury? Then yes, perhaps don’t read the internet, and also continue with your therapy.

             wow. i’m so glad you finally actually came out and SAID that you don’t want people like me here, jill! thank you for your honesty.

             1. No, Abby, it’s not that I don’t want people “like you” on here. What I did say is that I think self-care is important. And if reading the internet results in self-injury, I would recommend not reading the internet. Because yes, I would prefer to lose a reader than have that reader hurting themselves.

                I’ll also use this moment to remind everyone that we do not all know everything about each other, including histories of mental illness, self-harm, etc. And having an opinion on those things should not require us to flay ourselves open and disclose every private detail of our lives and histories.

          4. Jill, the vast majority of people with triggers are well aware of what a Wild West-esque world the internet can be, and we take cautionary measures as we see fit. Honestly, in the past 4 years, the majority of times I’ve been triggered haven’t been due to the internet, because I grew up on the internet and I know what parts of it to avoid.

             I have yet to see anyone in this discussion stick up for the people who think writers should magically anticipate their every move. That you keep bringing it up confuses me, because either you’re getting all kinds of pressure in private, or your warnings policy is being shaped by a couple randoms every now and then who don’t know how to practice sensible self-care. The latter, if it’s the case, surprises me, considering how long you’ve been a blogger.

             But to tell someone with triggers that they should just quit the internet while they’re recovering is astonishingly insensitive and displays a lack of understanding of what people who want trigger warnings are asking for. We don’t want a guarantee, we don’t want 100% safety, we want a reasonable policy that helps us weed out the things we shouldn’t be reading or engaging with. I truly do not understand where you extrapolated, from Abby’s comment, that she expected a perfect safe space that would never trigger her.

             Also, just as an aside – “cut yourself off from the world” is not generally good advice to give someone with PTSD.

       2. Not to play armchair psychologist, but someone can both be the kind of person to be triggered into self-harm and be in treatment. Treatment isn’t a one-and-done thing, it’s a process that can span years. It’s not as simple as “just avoid everything until you’re better”.

    3. And no, TWs/CNs are not perfect or unproblematic. Nobody is saying they are. But they are one small way to avoid inflicting real suffering on people unnecessarily – some of whom, as was pointed out earlier, aren’t able to participate in such a discussion as easily as many of us here. Maybe we could be careful to try and not ignore this fact?

       Okay, but where do you draw the line? I don’t mind trigger warnings for things like “warning: contains graphic descriptions of sexual abuse” (and I remain grateful to Jonathan Haidt for using what is essentially a trigger warning at one point in his book The Righteous Mind), but what is the standard for deciding? Personally, I tend to come down more on the side of providing trigger warnings for graphic content or detailed descriptions of violent/abusive behavior and leaving the rest of it alone, but I don’t really see how that gets us to a policy for a large, safer* space blog.

       *since I consider Feministe a safer space, but not a safe space.

       1. Okay, but where do you draw the line? I don’t mind trigger warnings for things like “warning: contains graphic descriptions of sexual abuse” (and I remain grateful to Jonathan Haidt for using what is essentially a trigger warning at one point in his book The Righteous Mind), but what is the standard for deciding?

          That’s determined by what people who suffer from triggers have to say. There’s no reason not to be inclusive.

          But if you really can’t include all of them for some reason, then just put up a trigger warning that is general enough so that it serves as a sufficient advisory.

          1. But the author of this essay has triggers and specifically doesn’t like the warnings. And a generalized trigger warning doesn’t seem to me to be significantly more helpful than no trigger warning; it basically means “there’s some content in here that some people may be triggered by.” But that’s essentially meaningless to anybody who hasn’t already read the piece.

          2. I don’t agree–I find lots of trigger warnings to support the premise that I should be afraid. And frankly, the best way for me to go about my life is to believe that I generally do not need to be afraid. Obviously, there are a lot of folks (including both of us) who differ on the issue.

          3. @EG

             And a generalized trigger warning doesn’t seem to me to be significantly more helpful than no trigger warning; it basically means “there’s some content in here that some people may be triggered by.” But that’s essentially meaningless to anybody who hasn’t already read the piece.

             Of course that’s way too vague. I’m talking about using a trigger warning like “Trigger warning for various depictions of abuse”. That’s not very specific, but I think it’s descriptive enough to be fully inclusive.

          4. Except it’s not just about abuse; it’s also about Eve referring to her daughter as “chubby.” It’s also about, in Shakesville, “hostility to agency.” I’m sure there’re more, as well.

             1. It’s also about hats and covering the royal wedding:

                http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2011/04/29/and-the-best-hat-goes-to/#comment-362724
                http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2011/04/29/and-the-best-hat-goes-to/#comment-362733

          5. What I said was just one example of a trigger warning. I’m well aware of the fact that other things can be triggering as well.

             As for warnings like “Trigger warning for hostility to agency”, I think a much better way to warn people about something like that is to make tags, titles, etc. clear enough for people to know that triggering material is ahead.

             I think giving readers a choice to read something triggering when they are in the right state of mind is the only real goal here; how that choice is given is largely up to the writers. Trigger warnings can be used to warn readers, but they aren’t irreplaceable.

          6. It’s also about hats and covering the royal wedding:

             http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2011/04/29/and-the-best-hat-goes-to/#comment-362724
             http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2011/04/29/and-the-best-hat-goes-to/#comment-362733

             OK, this is precisely what people are talking about when it comes to emptying the entire concept of meaning! I cannot even deal.

             Mxe354, you had said that a general warning so as not to list each individual thing should work; the point is that such a warning might–or would probably–have to cover such a range of things that it would become useless, particularly if hats are one of those things.

             1. Again, for the record, I support the use of trigger warnings generally. I have used them and will continue to use them. However, there has to be a balance between a writer meeting a community’s needs, and individual community members taking responsibility for their own mental health. For example, I use trigger warnings when I post a piece that includes potentially triggering/graphic discussions or descriptions of things that tend to be triggering for feminist blog readers — mostly, rape and domestic violence — and where the content of the post is not clearly from the headline and/or excerpt. If the content of the post is clear from the headline, then it’s my view that (duh) readers have a general sense of what the post is about and can proceed accordingly. For example, there was a post a while back where the description said something like, “Here is a nude photo of this person.” Below the fold was a nude photo. One of the first comments was someone complaining that there wasn’t a NSFW warning. That, to me, is where things get silly and begin to defy common sense.

                No one can foresee everyone’s triggers. A general trigger warning sounds fine in theory, but then what, do we put a general trigger warning on every post? I genuinely did not foresee that a two-sentence post with a photo of a royal hat would be “triggering” to someone. I genuinely doubt that Eve thought her post would be triggering because she used the word “chubby” as a descriptor.

       2. I don’t think we can or should aim for any one set of overarching guidelines for everywhere, for all time. Rather, I think the presence and types of warnings used, if they are, ought to be negotiated by the people frequenting a given space, and the policy made clear. So where you or I may draw the line on our individual blogs will differ from where the line is drawn here, in other communities, etc. Some space may have a policy you or I personally find too warnings-oriented and silly, or not nearly attentive to the idea of warnings at all, and so on. You should have a right to contribute to the negotiation and be heard; but if there is overwhelming desire for certain policies you disagree with, well, one can always leave the space. I’m not saying every space should be a ‘safe space,’ or can be made so. I’m saying let’s not ridicule or ignore the needs of those who feel that such spaces are necessary for them.

    4. I think everyone ought to read the piece Jadey linked at 37 if they can, before continuing this conversation. There’s a disturbing amount of ignoring the distinction between ‘unpleasant/annoying/stressful’ and ‘capable of causing severe psychological pain and/or leading to physical harm’ going on in places here.

       I think this is a good point, but I can’t help wondering who you’ve included in the net you’ve cast here. One can’t assume that people who dislike trigger warnings are privileged enough to never feel ‘real’ distress from reading something emotionally loaded.

       1. I’m not saying that people who dislike warnings never suffer “real” distress from emotionally loaded material. I’m saying that the comparison, for instance, of reading (not being trigger by, but simply reading) content notes is MORE stressful than being triggered into reliving a past trauma is a hurtful comparison that ignores just how much damage being forced to read triggering material can be for some people. As for the distress felt by people who are not actually triggered: well, it’s not *the same,* even though it’s real. The distress I for example feel upon reading about someone being injured in a fire, because I empathize, is real but nowhere near the same qualitatively as the distress I feel reading accounts of assault or bullying that *trigger* me, or the distress narrated in accounts of other survivors who are triggered worse than I am.

          There may not be an objective brightline where one can say from the outside “this is normal distress, and that’s being triggered,” but from the inside that line can be drawn by individuals, and is no less real for that subjective aspect. But really, I’m mostly asking people to consider that, when balancing between annoyance/aesthetic concerns/perceived silliness, and plunging people into severe psychological pain and flashbacks, maybe the considerate thing to do is allow people to have some spaces where they can choose to avoid or carefully approach potentially painful material without fucking ridiculing them for it or concern-trolling their recovery process. Yes, if you choose to use or encounter warnings you might not be able to perfectly capture the aesthetic intent you want/be in suspense, or feel that someone’s being silly. That’s nowhere near the same as being thrust into a flashback. There’s an imbalance in the levels of negative reaction that’s being glossed over a bit too much for my taste.

          Now, of course one can’t perfectly anticipate all of everyone’s potential triggers in advance. We need to make allowances and be understanding on both sides. But we can acknowledge people who say they are triggered and take their feedback into consideration when it’s given.

          1. I’m saying that the comparison, for instance, of reading (not being trigger by, but simply reading) content notes is MORE stressful than being triggered into reliving a past trauma is a hurtful comparison that ignores just how much damage being forced to read triggering material can be for some people.

             This only makes sense if you are still assuming that those people do not have triggers and therefore do not know it’s like to be triggered. Sometimes the environment produced by constant trigger warnings is so toxic that the risk of being blindsided with triggering material once in a blue moon is preferable.

          2. igglanova – I wouldn’t have a problem with it if it were framed as “I do have triggers, and the notes themselves are more anxiety-inducing FOR ME than the occasional trigger.” That’s an individual perspective. But when the comments are more generalized and implying (at least as I understand them) nothing about the writer actually having any idea of what being triggered is really like, just annoyance with the idea of people wanting marked areas of the net where things are warned for, then as I say, it gets my hackles up. And since this whole thread is really starting to get to me, I may have to bow out before I lose my cool.

          3. I make a point of maintaining privacy about my personal life. Nobody, least of all a stranger on the internet, is entitled to know my deepest fears and personal pain. That is why I don’t fly my trauma flag freely. It is nobody’s goddamned business.

             I’ll also point out that you have misrepresented my argument. I’m not opposed to trigger warnings. They have utility. I’m opposed to excessive trigger warnings that, taken cumulatively, create a toxic and alarmist environment.

41. The article was well-written and emotionally honest. That said, the use of trigger warnings appears to be a matter of( forgive my Southern soul) simple good manners. Many women come to feminism via serious damage from the patriarchy, and healing is offered freely by those in recovery. Breslin’s obviously lived an easy life with an empty cranium, and no trigger warnings are ever posted for idiotic content, one reason why we might occasionally be perceived as angry.
    If someone walks into our spaces black and blue or with a recently sutured wound, we do not punch these spots. Not all blog posts are comfortable chairs, and we warn where the springs will rise up and bite you in the ass Where you write TW, my mind transposes “information available”. YMMV.
    TWs discourage self-censorship, promote honest discourse, and inform readers. MCP’s don’t like them. I vote we keep them.

    1. Angie, I agree. If we can do something to make someone feel more comfortable, why wouldn’t we?

       My dad recently threw a hissy fit that he can’t use the words “retarded” (in the clinical sense, he is a doctor) or “gay” (in the old definition of happy). My response was, (besides not-a-few incoherent sputters) it doesn’t hurt you to NOT say those words, and it certainly helps others by not use them, so why is it so hard for him to do people a “favor” and use inclusive language?

       Obviously, that situation is different, as some here argue that it does harm writers to use trigger warnings, but overall I feel like, if it’s not doing you much harm, or makes you go only a little out of your way (to find a new word in my dad’s case, or to look over your writing with an eye for possible triggers), good manners means to be considerate of your audience.

       If someone says your (general your) writing has a triggering element, it shouldn’t be an admonishment. They should just giving you an FYI, that hey, this is triggering for me, you may not have considered it a trigger before. However, since triggering is such an emotional issue, it doesn’t always come across as an FYI and is much more emotionally-loaded. Still, I appreciate when someone says something is triggering that I wouldn’t have necessarily seen as a trigger, because then I learn and am able to be more accommodating in the future.

42. My problem with trigger warnings is not so much their existence, but the way they have gone from being seen as a courtesy that writers can do for their audience if it fits in with what they’re trying to achieve to mandatory if you want to be seen as having a basic level of decency in very little time. There’s pressure on writers to change what they write and how they write and what audience they’re writing to and what reaction they want from their audience, instead of recognition that writing is, both content-wise and method-wise, a hugely diverse thing, and that the diversity is good. Some of the best things I’ve ever read (like Laurie Halse Anderson’s ‘Speak’) gave me no immediate indication of what I was going to read, but I was immensely glad afterwards that I had.

    Trigger warnings/content notes often also seem oddly patronizing much of the time. For the most part (there are exceptions, like ‘Speak’ and EG’s above example), it should be clear from the title and lead what this is about. If you have your title “Paul Ryan and ‘legitimate rape'”, and then the first paragraph makes it clear that this will be about rape and rape culture, having a “TW: rape, rape culture” is not exactly a compliment towards my ability to read critically. And unless you as a writer are trying to do something different stylistically, your title and lead should clue me in as to what the piece is about, and if they don’t, you probably need to edit. That’s not even really about being sensitive to PTSD, so much as recognizing that no matter what forum you’re writing in, everyone has limited time and energy, and most would like to be able to know if this is an appropriate piece for them to read in the 10 spare minutes they have before they leave for work.

    As for blogging… Could tags not be used for the exact same purpose as content notes?

43. That’s not even really about being sensitive to PTSD, so much as recognizing that no matter what forum you’re writing in, everyone has limited time and energy, and most would like to be able to know if this is an appropriate piece for them to read in the 10 spare minutes they have before they leave for work.

    Yes. Google reader currently has 776 articles for me. About half will get cleared without a look. A fair chunk of the rest will get nothing but a headline, the remainder has to sell me on the first paragraph. If I don’t understand what your article or blog post is about with a headline or one paragraph, I don’t have the time to figure it out.

    I’m not so much an advocate of the specific words “trigger” or “content note” as an advocate for a reduction of mystery meat in my aggregators. If you tell me up front that you’re reblogging explicit survivor stories and testimony, I might read it, I might not. If you’re being coy or cagey about the content, I probably won’t know what you’re talking about and will scroll past.

    As for blogging… Could tags not be used for the exact same purpose as content notes?

    On some sites, perhaps. Not all aggregating platforms show tags though.

    1. this, yes, exactly.

44. I’ll also add that trigger warnings are not neutral; they can and do manipulate one’s reading of a piece and the discussion of a piece. They add a level of constant alarm, as others have pointed out, and they can also frame a situation in certain terms. For example, if I write a post about, say, Obama’s old “periodically” comment about Hilary Clinton during the 2008 elections, and the post itself is basically just “Obama said this thing” without much more analysis, but I preface that with “TRIGGER WARNING: Misogyny, attacks on a woman, rape culture,” that not only frames the discussion in a way I was unwilling to do in the actual analysis, but it also positions it in a way that’s unassailable — to argue with what is basically my point, you have to argue against the trigger warning. And how can you argue with the fact that someone people might find those things triggering, and I was simply trying to warn them that those things may have been present in Obama’s comment and they therefore may find this post triggering? It ends up being a way to frame a discussion without doing the kind of analysis that can actually be challenged in its merits.

    I’m not saying that happens a lot. It doesn’t. But it does happen sometimes. And again, I think trigger warnings have a place in feminist spaces. But I don’t think that we necessarily use them well, or that they are without issue, or that it should always be up to the people with the particular triggers to dictate what should and should not have a trigger warning.

    1. trigger warnings might add a sense of alarm for mentally healthy people; i wouldn’t know. as a person with PTSD, i find that trigger warnings validate the sense of alarm i feel constantly. they make me feel like the person who put them there understands that, and believes that i am worthy of consideration anyway.

       1. as a person with PTSD, i find that trigger warnings validate the sense of alarm i feel constantly. they make me feel like the person who put them there understands that, and believes that i am worthy of consideration anyway.

          As a person with PTSD, the constant alarmism ramps up an already-ever-present anxiety.

    2. But I don’t think that we necessarily use them well, or that they are without issue, or that it should always be up to the people with the particular triggers to dictate what should and should not have a trigger warning.

       I think that depends very strongly on context. For starters – there’s no one really stopping you from couching that hypothetical warning re: Obama’s remarks in a caveat that you think it could be interpreted as being triggering but would prefer to frame the argument in a different way.

       I think there are some things it’s pretty much a given that you’re going to see on a feminism blog, misogyny and rape culture being two of them, but I still appreciate trigger warnings for graphic descriptions of rape, in-depth discussion of self-harm, etc. Context matters. And personally, I don’t agree with the way Shakesville and sites similar to that do things, because I think a site should have a clear system for what they warn for, and not go so far into erring on the side of caution that they’re putting up warnings for every little thing.

       But – and this is a big but – I don’t think the way to spark a discussion about the feasibility of trigger/content warnings is to link an article that disingenuously belittles people who need trigger warnings under the guise of imparting personal experience. If my personal experience is that every woman I’ve ever known has been a petty bitch who’s superficial and bad at math, and I post about it with a paragraph of caveat at the end that says, you know, it’s just my personal experience, I don’t think all women are like that – it’s still a pretty misogynistic post, no?

       It’s possible to have discussions about trigger warnings without setting up the straw man of disabled, whiny survivors who don’t know how reality works, can’t handle the Internet, and are probably not even seeking legitimate treatment. As a survivor who has relied on trigger warnings as part of my system of self-protection, that makes me disinclined to want to participate in the conversation at all.

45. But my point is that we individuals are ultimately responsible for our own treatment, management of triggers, and choice to self-harm. We’re in a weird spot when we’re asking writers to anticipate our triggers for us, accuse them of callousness when they don’t, and use our choice to self-harm as the rhetorical gotcha to honor our triggers or else. We are readers voluntarily reading things on social justice sites we know will contain content that triggers us.

    Lauren, this troubles me. Self harm is not – neurologically and psychologically – a cut-and-dry choice. I’ve seen people use self-harm as a “gotcha” occasionally, but I’ve seen, much more often, people referring to self harm when attempting to construct a complete picture of the effects of triggering for people who don’t understand it. Either way, it is in no way as simple as a “choice”, any more than being triggered is a “choice”.

    The argument you’re using sets up bloggers as helpless victims to manipulative people with triggers. As far as I know, most bloggers are grown-ups. They publish content of their own free will, and they can add or not add trigger warnings as they see fit. That doesn’t mean social pressure doesn’t exist, but I’m really disturbed by the characterization of people who want trigger warnings as being manipulative, etc., because that plays right into some very ableist and misogynistic stereotypes of people with trauma issues and sexual assault survivors. I’m sure these people exist, but I’ve never encountered a well-respected online forum where they’re the majority, or even a significant minority.

    I find it eminently understandable that writers who are trying to work out how to use trigger warnings encounter self-doubt, anxiety, etc. But to take that and place the blame for it entirely on the shoulders of an ableist and misogynistic victim archetype isn’t productive at all.

    1. As far as I know, most bloggers are grown-ups. They publish content of their own free will, and they can add or not add trigger warnings as they see fit.

       And my point is that we are all grown-ups who are ultimately responsible for our own treatment, management of triggers, and choice to self-harm. If you don’t like the word “choice,” that’s fine. I’m suggesting as gently as possible that if someone is hurting herself, the problem is not the writer or the lack of trigger warnings.

       If you’re suggesting that the community care for itself and that we try to respect one another’s feelings, I can and do support that. I talk about that all the time. But some blogger out there can’t reasonably be expected to take responsibility for my mental health. Or yours. Or anyone else’s but their own.

       1. And my point is that we are all grown-ups who are ultimately responsible for our own treatment, management of triggers, and choice to self-harm. If you don’t like the word “choice,” that’s fine. I’m suggesting as gently as possible that if someone is hurting herself, the problem is not the writer or the lack of trigger warnings.

          So you don’t believe in trigger warnings as a tool for people to avoid being triggered?

          If someone reads something that triggers them and then they self-harm, it’s unfortunate, yes, and it’s not the writer’s fault. If there’s a reasonable way to avoid that, though, shouldn’t it be taken? I’m not suggesting warnings for every little thing that might trigger someone, as that’s pretty much impossible. But basic warnings – depictions of rape, graphic violence, and so on – give people with triggers the ability to opt out of reading something that might hurt them. It doesn’t protect them 100% of the time, but then, I’ve never met anyone who thinks trigger warnings will protect them 100% of the time. Wearing sunglasses doesn’t mean you’ll never squint from the sun, it just means you’ll do it a lot less.

          The idea that trigger warnings are some kind of tool with which survivors remove responsibility from themselves for self-care, rather than a tool with which survivors can more easily exercise self-care, is baffling to me.

          And it’s not that I don’t like the word choice; it’s that it is inaccurate.

          1. Yes, exactly. You put it into words beautifully, thanks.

          2. Elena, I’m not quite getting your point here. I think the case can be made that Feministe does use trigger warnings for the big issues that are likely be triggering for lots of people (e.g., graphic depictions of assault or self-harm), but not for smaller things (like the use of the word chubby or hats).

             I am not sure where anyone has argued against the use of trigger warnings for things that are likely to be upsetting to a lot of people.

          3. FashionablyEvil, I was responding less to Feministe’s actual policy and more to the linked article and Lauren’s response to it/survivors who disagreed with it. I might have misread, but this in particular:

             And my point is that we are all grown-ups who are ultimately responsible for our own treatment, management of triggers, and choice to self-harm. If you don’t like the word “choice,” that’s fine. I’m suggesting as gently as possible that if someone is hurting herself, the problem is not the writer or the lack of trigger warnings.

             functions as an argument that obfuscates and almost argues against the purpose of trigger warnings. I wasn’t completely certain to what extent she was arguing against trigger warnings, so I responded to the idea that trigger warnings are a crutch, rather than a tool; the response contained an extrapolation of what I thought she was saying, and then a response to it.

          4. The idea that trigger warnings are some kind of tool with which survivors remove responsibility from themselves for self-care, rather than a tool with which survivors can more easily exercise self-care, is baffling to me.

             What’s setting off warning bells for me is the difference between exercising tools we have under our own control, and expecting others who are not in our control to exercise tools that are not in our control.

             Look, there’s already consensus that trigger warnings are a must-have on social justice blogs, and that’s great. I support it. But the expectation that an individual’s mental health is a community effort is dangerously misplaced.

          5. I haven’t seen that expectation, though, only people talking about how obviously, it exists. Are you referring to the people who occasionally show up to demand warnings for hats, the word “chubby”, and so on? Because, to be blunt, anyone who runs a popular blog is going to see their share of trolls and people whose opinions are extremely far off from reasonable.

             To take the existence of those randoms and extrapolate it into some kind of internet societal pressure, and then to take that and turn it into an argument about these phantom people who refuse to self-care, is to exercise some nifty ableist mental gymnastics. And that worries me.

          6. To take the existence of those randoms and extrapolate it into some kind of internet societal pressure, and then to take that and turn it into an argument about these phantom people who refuse to self-care, is to exercise some nifty ableist mental gymnastics. And that worries me.

             I don’t want to be the asshole that keeps pointing this out, but there is someone on this thread who mentioned self-harming as a way of coping with triggers she encounters on the internet.

             There are no nifty, ableist mental gymnstics to phantom self-harmers here. I’m responding to actual words that are on this very blog post that you are commenting on right now. You are actually responding to my response to that comment, so.

          7. The ableist mental gymnastics come into play when you extrapolate from “I self-harm when triggered” into “it is everyone on the internet’s responsibility to warn me for every little thing, or it’s your fault when I self-harm”. That person replied to your comment saying that if you self-harm then you have problems trigger warnings won’t help, yes? That’s a false statement in and of itself; someone who self-harms when triggered can use trigger warnings to reduce their incidents of self-harm, but that doesn’t mean that accidentally being triggered into self-harming is the author’s fault and, again, that leap of logic is what I have a problem with.

             Self-harming when triggered is not a refusal to exercise self-care and it’s ableist and just generally kind of crappy to say that it is. Reading things despite trigger warnings, and then self-harming – that would be a refusal to self-care. Going to places on the internet without adequate warnings and then self-harming – that’s a refusal to self-care. Accepting the risks of a place with limited trigger warnings, and knowing that sometimes you might be triggered into self-harm, is exercising self-care.

             In my experience, the problem with PTSD is that the ideal situation in terms of avoiding triggering is perfect isolation in a completely controlled environment, and that hinders recovery. A person with PTSD has to find a balance between removing themselves from situations that harm them, and still experiencing the world and slowly becoming more capable of dealing with the things that trigger them. This is something that is best accomplished with psychological treatment, but there’s no absolute timeline, because how people heal from PTSD is a very individual thing.

             In the meantime, yes, sometimes that person will run into things that trigger them and, if it’s a coping mechanism of theirs, they’ll self-harm. Again, I see very few people (and I haven’t seen anyone say it in this post, feel free to link me if I’m wrong) saying that that’s the author’s fault. Trigger warnings are not a catch-all. I know it, everyone I know who uses them knows it.

             But to take people saying they self-harm when triggered and turn that into them saying that they expect trigger warnings to be 100% accurate and if they’re not, then the author is responsible for their self-harm: that’s the ableism I’m talking about.

          8. I never said it was self-care; I said that being triggered, and reacting to being triggered (which, depending on the person, can include self-harm) is not necessarily proof of a lack of self-care. In order to 100% prevent being triggered, I would have to exist in a state of near perfect isolation and have every piece of media I ingested be carefully vetted for me. That’s impossible. Thus, it follows that sometimes I am going to be triggered, accidentally, and if I’m someone who self-harms when triggered, I will sometimes self-harm.

             That does not mean that I have not been practicing adequate self-care; it just means that self-care is, like most things, imperfect and subject to occasional mistakes.

             And that doesn’t address the actual content of my issue, which is the extrapolation of “I self-harm when triggered” to “I self-harm when triggered, and it’s the author’s fault”.

          9. If I understand you correctly, Elena, the following analogy might be helpful in thinking about warnings and, say, self-harm/other reactions to being triggered. Yes, we are all responsible for managing our own process, just like we are all responsible for how we drive on the freeway. But it is helpful when driving to have roadsigns telling us where we are, what hazards we are approaching, etc. – Such signs actually enable us to be more responsible drivers when we heed them, because we can anticipate things. Asking for roadsigns is not shifting responsibility for our driving onto the highway authority; it’s making sure that people have whatever tools are useful and practical to enable them to make the best decisions they can. A warning, to me, is like a roadsign: caution, falling rocks. Sharp curve ahead. Etc. Asking for people to consider using warnings/content notes is asking for the tools to be *able* to be responsible in managing ourselves. Not shifting the blame.
             Anyway, thanks, and I’m out.

          10. Yes, thank you, moviemaedchen; that’s exactly what I mean.

          11. Elena, I apologize. I asked the mod to delete my last comment because this isn’t the hill I want to die on, and I thought my last statement was unnecessarily snarky. It looks like you already replied to it. I really don’t want to argue this because it’s not worthwhile to me. This is ultimately a derail because we already agree on current usage of trigger warnings.

              Please feel free to respond, but I’m extracting myself from the conversation.

          12. Lauren, it’s very true that we agree on the practical application of trigger warnings. Thank you for the dialogue.

46. Pingback: Self Injury and Such « Believer's Brain

47. Now, to me, trigger warnings and content notes are an excellent idea. Surely, in a discussion of say, rape or abuse, some of the most valuable voices, the ones we most want contributing, are going to be survivors, who are also more likely to feel triggered or vulnerable, or just need a run up at the whole thing to take part?

    I’ve taken part in some amazing discussions of sexual assault and rape online. I’ve also had times when I’ve had to close down the computer and go have a cry for a bit before distracting myself with cats when something hit me hard, and times when I’ve avoided a particular forum for several days to avoid the thread until it naturally runs out of steam, because I got triggered and KNOW I won’t be able to cope with it at that time.

    Every time I’ve had a bad reaction to a potentially triggering subject, the trigger came as a punch in the gut that I wasn’t prepared for. Even as I consciously seek out and participate in discussions of difficult subjects. I know a lot of survivors I’ve met who also try to contribute to discussions of potentially triggering subjects, and getting a heads up if content is going to be graphic, for example, is immensely beneficial in enabling them to take part.

    I don’t think there’s any value to an internet where the most valuable voices are the ones that have to take the biggest risk to participate.

48. I amsincerely concerned that someone who claims to be a therapist and survivor claims that forcing people to read stories about rape and sexual abuse is a necessary part of life. WHAT? Is wrong with you? Idon’t really think any of us should be have to read disturbing crap. Seriously? Is that required for any particular reason?

    I have been sexually abused and raped and impregnated and lost children and raising a child from being impregnated while past out drunk. I’ve taken meds done therapy changed diet done yoga done accupuncture done bodywork done ayuveda done trauma recovery therapies etc etc etc etce tecetc.

    Just because something stopped your panic attacks does not mean it works for others? Seriously why are you allowed to practice as a therapist when you are so clearly uneducated about the percent recovery rates of various treatments and the reailty that there are people who do not recover from PTSD to point of being able to avoid traumatic reactions to certain stimulous even with years of treatment? You should lose your license and try reading pub med or actual published research on rates of recovery and the reality that we who do years of treatment and still have serious sympons when exposed to triggering content exist and it is not our fault.

    No I’m not planning to sue anyone for writing content I don’t like. I understand the negative reaction to trigger warnings myself because I like to pretend I don’t get triggered any more and I’m tougher than that but as I write this my hands are drenched in sweat and my stomach isin knots and my shingles tends to act up and I get little bumps and neurological pain in my lower backand groin as little outbreaks pop up. I can literally do breathwork thatreduces all of this and I like to pretend I can “control” all of it with my awesome body awareness and meditative techniques and all that but these reactions are not my fault.

    And if you say otherwise, fuck you. Seriously about the losing of the license, until you get a real education about PTSD. Having it and using your expoerience to dispense false and harmful assholic judgement to others who experience different than you is not the same as having a quality education. Again, I really don’t care whether people use triggers. I care that IN THIS ARTICLE and in in these comments– two people who recovered from their triggers using therapy have decided that their experience should be universalized onto others to judge people with ongoing PTSD issues for not being as good as they are. It’s truly an injustice to people with ongoing PTSD who have been recieving various types of treatments for years and eventually learned to manage by reducing the amount of exposure to trauma inducing content.

    1. rox, thank you for saying what I couldn’t in this conversation – specifically to jemima101 above. For what it’s worth, when zie self-identified as a counselor, I decided zie must have omitted “camp,” i.e. zie’s a camp counselor and NOT someone with any therapy credentials. It’s the only way I can keep from posting a million FUCK YOU comments. Hope that reframing helps you too.

49. And you know what? I tend to ignore trigger warning and plow through things anyway. I don’t give a shit. I also have worse health than people I know who manage their triggers better by avoiding content that is unhealthy for them. There is no reason why exposure to rape should be an assumed part of life. That’s rediculous. No one shouldbe forced to be exposed to rape content for fucks sake. I DO think people canstopreading something when they notice they don’t like it. So I’m not saying we have to have trigger warnings to manage our reading. I AM saying that it’s perfectly reasonablefor some people to not want to read details about rape or disturbing crap whether they have ever been raped or not.

50. And I have already on other sites seen people use survivors claims they have learned to manage their triggers to claim that survivors who sustain more permanent damage after trauma are lesser humans and need to be working harder and blamed for their traumatic reactions.

    It’s just so gross. It makes me sick when fellow survivors who have a TITLE totheir name use that to make the world a more hostile and judgemental environment for other survivors who are struggling with more prolongued symptoms and altered functioning.

51. In few cases just putting TW next to a few words describing aspects of your post can not only keep someone from being upset, it can SAVE THEIR LIVES. Oh, but that’s not what this woman is saying. She’s saying, hey it will benefit these people in the long run, if they learn to cope.

    Sounds like the argument people make, that bullying only builds character. I have a Tumblr and come across people who might commit suicide, if they should happen upon a situation or story that reminds them of a situation they experienced that was so horrifying, that dying would be better than being reminded of it to them. Really, what kind of person would then just say they need to toughen it up?

    I mean, you just have to type a few words, if she can write this post admonishing people for *gasp* caring about someone outside themselves, they can manage to put trigger warnings in things being posted. As far as people not knowing what may or may not trigger them, nobody has the ability to read minds, which is why trigger warnings exist in the first place.

52. I see Trigger Warnings as a kindness. I see them as showing respect. It is about seeing how our actions (writing or linking to triggering info) affect others and taking responsibility for how our actions can hurt others instead of running the “you’re too sensitive line”.

    Trigger Warnings also help the reader in their self care. A Trigger Warning can help prepare the reader, it’s not just about avoiding (though that’s a valid response).

    I appreciate Trigger Warnings. They’ve never stopped me reading an article, but I’m not living with PTSD. I am a survivor and they help me prepare mentally, especially when graphic descriptions of sexual assault are included.

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