to think that the usage of the word "triggering" on MN has become too commonplace and should be restricted?

[lougle]

My understanding of a 'trigger' is that in some way the thread contains content that leads a poster to remember or think about a traumatic situation they themselves experienced.

It would be fair, I presume, to think that any mention of abuse by a partner may trigger a stress response in someone who has experienced DV, even if the details don't correlate.

But the way the usage had evolved on MN seems to be 'trigger=unpleasant' or 'trigger=upsetting', which I think trivialises the reality of a true 'triggering response'.

Taking an example of a child at the hands of a parent. It's upsetting, incomprehensible even. But I doubt it could truly be 'triggering' unless you'd experienced, or knew in detail of anoanother incident. For example, if you'd served on a jury in asimilar case and were badly affected by what you heard and saw, it could be triggering, but in most cases it's just upsetting.

I dislike the use of triggering when it is clear about what it is in the title. E.g. 'Domestic violence- May be triggering' and I've seen similar. The use of the word 'triggering' is not actually helpful and can be very limiting unless you give a rough idea why. So the phrase Domestic Violence means anyone who would be triggered by reading about it would be able to avoid and triggering adds nothing.

Equally, a thread saying 'AIBU about...' And then it was edited to say 'may be triggering' or 'distressing images' isn't helpful either, as there are so many things which could trigger someone. So instead of that, it could be edited to have ('child abuse') and so on. The word itself doesn't help me (I avoid threads related to a personal experience I had) as it could be anything.

Trigger warnings are only vaguely useful because different people are triggered by different things. And I've been triggered by things I've never expected at times. Like several years ago I found my friend's news of a pregnancy a bit triggering because I was struggling with my own thoughts on children but other people's pregnancies before and after haven't done that.

This thread gave me an idea for a new revenue stream for Mumsnet. Sort of like in-app charges. Charge for use of certain popular words in AIBU. For example

fuck
cunt
cocklodger
LTB
goat
patriarchy

lougle, the much more likely reason someone would be triggered by news of a child being murdered by its parents is that they were abused as children, which is very common, is that not obvious?

I think 'triggering' has replaced 'lighthearted' in the pointless addition to a thread title league table.

Surely decent thread titles are enough for one to decide if it's a personal trigger or not.

I think the important thing is for people to pick a title that actually relates to the sort of thing they are going to put in the OP, instead of "What do you think?" or "Should I leave him?" - if you're going to go on to describe an abusive situation, then say so in the title and let people decide whether it's an area they want to read about.

It seems to be a buzz word atm you used to just see it occasionally I have seen it scattered a?l over the place

I would always say better safe than sorry. I'm always scared that I'll get told off for not warning people when I might have a thread that is potentially upsetting. That said, you can usually make a pretty good guess at what my threads are about from the title.

Maybe people should either have clear titles to threads or use sensitive as a word triggering is such a huge spectrum iyswim and very emotive word

Yanbu it's very overused.

And it's a bit silly really since anything could be a potential 'trigger' for omeone. Presumably therefore that's a risk we all take watching TV or listening to the radio or opening a newspaper or reading a novel.

It joins my other most hated current cliches (no idea how to do acute accent): 'fat-shaming' and 'victim-blaming'.

Saying trigger warning has the same effect as certain words to me so pointless and rather annoying

rinabean of course, but if a thread title is "child abused by mother" or "father sentenced for abuse", surely that in itself is the trigger warning. Do you really need to warn people that it could be triggering?

I was just thinking the same when I clicked on active convos, it never used to be in thread titles and I don't suppose the general content of threads or make up of the members is any different to what it was (say) a year ago.

Why has it now become necessary?

I think people are worried about accidentally triggering, the response that could incite in vulnerable people and the response in arseholes who'd jump over. I don't know about MN but I read and write a lot on livejournal and there used to be loads of wank there quite regularly regarding triggering. Mainly people forgetting to warn for something, choosing not to warn but warning of sorts with 'read at own risk, I don't warn' and accidental unexpected triggers.

I remember seeing all of those and so would possibly err more on the side of caution now. I've seen people trolled and wanked there and on tumblr and dreamwidth and plenty of other places. Out of every 10 people who complained about triggers you found that maybe two were when the person just hadn't known or was a complete cunt. The rest were eager jump on, a lot of people i know from those lj days post in other places and after seeing the wank explode and sometimes even wank_report get a hold of it- i can see why they would err.

But yes, sometimes it is tiresome and unnecessary. Not always, not all things are self evident or self revealing and most people do err on caution. A good friend of mine wrote about her trans experiences and was told she should have warned for 'gay themes', er no. Yet she ended up trolled because someone didn't like to hear her thoughts. And all in her own journal mind, she merely linked to a forum.

So I guess it depends, if you are saying 'triggers for oatmeal eating'...factually correct that it could be a trigger since some people are phobic but not an actual trigger.

On MN the only time I've actually seen 'trigger warning' if when either HQ have edited or there's no explanation in the title.

So which triggers are we talkign about?

Gosh sorry that was a bit of a ramble! It took me back to old days of much much meta about triggers and much much wank.

Is the "&quo t" part neant to mean something? I just thought it was some sort of misspelling. Please, someone, explain.

I started this thread last week and it did get some Mn comments

hold on

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/site_stuff/2126041-when-did-all-these-TRIGGERS-start-getting-pulled

I hadn't thought about it but I agree that if thread titles are clear, then they're probably not necessary.

If you start a thread titled "My Mum's not well" then that could be anything from a nasty cold to terminal cancer. Someone might open it to find it's about something that reminds them of a really upsetting scenario that happened or is happening with their own Mum and not be in a great position to cope with the feelings that reading it creates.

On the other hand if the thread is titled "My Mum has bowel cancer - need advice/to vent or whatever" then that's enough for someone who doesn't want to read it, to avoid.

lougle but they don't, that's the thing, I'm sure one of the threads about him was something like "horrible just horrible" and then a trigger warning was added... maybe a rule about appropriate descriptive titles is what's needed, but maybe that's what people think they are doing when they put a trigger warning in. Seems like it would be a big nuisance to make it into a rule and to mod it so the community system of trigger warnings works okay. (I mean "horrible just horrible [trigger warning]" doesn't tell you it's about child abuse, but at least you know to avoid or brace yourself if you have any triggers.)

Trickydecision it's just an end quote, in my browser the title is rendered correctly but it's wrong on MN. It's "triggering" but the end quote isn't formatted properly for some reason.

Thank you, rinabean.