Why is everyone 'triggered' these days?

[Mylifeisamesssuchamess]

Why does everyone seem to be 'triggered' these days? Surely being genuinely triggered would be rare and would usually happen if you've experienced severe trauma. Surely for most people it's just that they feel pissed off about something, scared or upset and it's not as extreme as being 'triggered'.

I think the meaning of triggered has shifted to mean feeling uncomfortable.

Because language evolves.

Because I have severe, diagnosed PTSD.

Triggered in psychology terms means something. Now everyone and anyone has appropriated it mean “read or seen something I don’t like”. A bit like “anxiety”. Everyone now “has anxiety”. Except suffering from anxiety is profound and debilitating, what they mean is they are feeling anxious about something.

We live in a world of labels. People seem to need a label in order to get validation

Yeah properly triggered means you absolutely have no control over it. It's quite a frightening experience. As is waking up with a panic attack.

Now both of them are just flung around willy nilly to mean I struggle to regulate my emotions so everyone must tip toe around me.

Genuinely traumatised people aside, it seems that general resilience in the population is at an all time low. Every cohort now has a 'voice' and expect to be heard equally leading to mass fragmentation of families, communities and general society. Everyone seems so overly emotional/damaged/offended that many end up tip toeing around the topics and banter that brought many together. Also, such a lack of humour nowadays, everyone seems to scared/heavily policed to have a giggle about everything. I miss how it used to be and I don't think the current situation is healthy or sustainable.

So do I. We should probably just pull ourselves together

1 in 4 women have been sexually assaulted. 1 in 6 children have (https://cambridgerapecrisis.org.uk/sexual-violence-statistics/)
Then plus women who have has abortions, miscarriages, been robbed, know someone who's killed themselves etc etc there is a huge amount to triggered by.
I have been sexually assaulted and sometimes I feel up to reading/supporting someone in a similar situation and sometimes i can't cope with it. Triggered warnings are helpful.
I really don't think it's a big deal and if the trigger warnings don't affect you then you're very lucky.

You aren't everyone though, are you?

I also have PTSD, but obviously OP doesn't mean people like us. It's very much an overused phrase right now.

I think its just overused.
like someone else has said the term anxiety is used hugely.
'this gives me anxiety' rather than 'this makes me feel anxious'
anxiety is an illness, anxious a feeling.
I have multiple MH issues so I I am triggered by things. but half the people who use it are just using it incorrectly for 'I dont like this so im calling it something its not to get people to feel sorry for me'

So it's heard so often because it's overused and not because there's been a huge increase in the number of people suffering with mental health issues. Glad you cleared that up.

It's fashionable to be "triggered" by everything these days.

I have ptsd following events during Covid.

I'm going to guess that a lot of healthcare staff and other frontline workers also have it.

It's probably a lot more common than it was.

It might be overused but personally I didn't used to know the word. So I might have said "I don't like this kind of film" or "this reminds me of my childhood", now I can say "films with abusive parents in are triggering for me because of my own abusive childhood". Just as an example. Not PTSD in my case but definitely trauma.

Possibly both. You surely can't deny lots of people say they're triggered by things that they simply don't like, as opposed to things that cause a severe physical and mental reaction? Personally, it doesn't bother me if people use it that way, but lots do. It doesn't negate the huge numbers of people who genuinely get triggered in the psychological sense.

Triggered has a specific meaning whereby the event/comment stirs up a mental health issue related to something you experienced in the past.

eg I find news reports about terminal cancer triggering because they take me back to watching my father die. A friend who has not experienced that might find such reports upsetting, but would not be triggered.

Same as talk about rape makes me anxious but doesn’t trigger me as I have fortunately never been a victim of sexual assault.

I think the point (or at least my interpretation of the op) is that isn’t it really insulting to people like you with PTSD when everyone is ‘triggered’ when, as a pp said, they mean they’re uncomfortable?

You’re regularly encountering people who tell you they are triggered but also tell you they do not have a diagnosis of PTSD?

Really?

How extraordinary.

The overuse of anxiety to convey feeling slightly worried or nervous about a situation / event, really gets my goat. Real anxiety is not being able to cope at all, not being able to leave the house/ perform daily duties without panic attacks, living in perpetual fear, chronic insomnia, shutting out the world etc etc. I wish people would stop using it incorrectly - it makes a mockery of true sufferers and the impact on their lives.

Oh, there's no point arguing with people like you who get offended by every little thing. It's well-known that people adopt all kinds of medicalized language to explain normal everyday emotions and experiences, but sure, it never happens with the word triggered. Fine.

i have the same. I actually started a thread about being triggered not long ago !

I don’t know but our dog is easily triggered. If you start putting your coat and shoes on, she thinks she’s going for a walk. 🐾

It’s totally overused but in conjunction with people becoming more and more sensitive. I think people use it when really they just mean something ‘hit a nerve’. But in an age of social media where people are seeing & sharing more, people increasingly expect everyone else to be sensitive to their personal situation - they all expect to never have to experience that discomfort of hearing/seeing something that might hit a nerve.
The reality is, we all have a few things that ‘trigger’ us but we can’t all tip toe around each other.
I am not dismissing the cases of PTSD and true Triggering. And I do agree ‘TW’ are useful for those cases.
But within my own friendship circles, I’ve seen people fall out over being offended by other people sharing things that ‘trigger’ them… It gets a bit out of hand! Back in the day they would have thought to themselves ‘ouch, that’s hit a nerve’ but they wouldn’t have expected the other person to not share just ‘incase’

I can totally see why that gets your goat.

I have kinda the opposite which totally upsets me. People certainly don’t like to think they themselves have bipolar or schizophrenia but they sure to like to think/jest that people they don’t like have it. I find it fucking offensive when these medical conditions are used as slurs or jokes.