"Trigger warning"

[OTheHugeManatee]

AIBU to think this phrase is useless at best and at worst actively harmful?

I'm absolutely in favour of treating upsetting subjects sensitively when posting on the internet, for example by giving some thought before posting a thread with a disturbing title. But more and more I'm seeing this 'Trigger warning' appearing on MN and it properly gets my goat.

I believe the idea is to warn off people who have PTSD and might be triggered by the content into experiencing flashbacks or other distressing symptoms. But (I have a professional qualification in this area) just putting 'Trigger warning' on something that you think might be vaguely evocative of a traumatic experience doesn't actually do anything.

Two reasons. Firstly, the thing about PTSD is that actual PTSD triggers are hugely specific to individual traumatised people. Just speaking about a similar trauma won't necessarily be triggering, while an apparently innocuous smell, a noise, a texture or something else totally random could send someone into terrifying flashbacks.

Secondly, trying to avoid triggers actually makes PTSD worse. It's well established that the way to treat PTSD is with extremely careful, calibrated exposure therapy, handled by an expert clinician. So even if posting 'Trigger warning' was an effective way of signposting to traumatised people that there was content somewhere that they should avoid, doing so would be feeding into the vicious cycle of PTSD and actively helping to make their suffering worse.

So AIBU for asking people to just stop posting 'Trigger warning' on things? It might be well-meaning but it's of no real use to PTSD sufferers and IMHO its only function is as a way of signalling 'Morbid content lovers over here! I have some morbid content for you!'. If that's not what you're trying to do, why not just give some thought to posting sensitively and leave it at that?

Miaow I'm with you on the hospital curtains. Someone local to me posted a picture of their newborn in hospital and just a glimpse of the curtain was enough for me.

I was diagnosed with PTSD. I find a huge number of (often ridiculous) things can be a trigger for me and even a thread title can do it.

Thing is, sometimes I delve in on the 'exposure is good for you' basis. It may prove to be too much but at least I'm pre-warned to a certain extent. But I don't need the 'trigger' warning.

As part of an ante-natal group on FB, someone had understandably posted about feeling bonded with the baby. Another had put up a quote about how wonderful it feels to be a mother. Those two posts, on the same day, were a massive trigger for me. A trigger warning on those for me would have been useful, but I simply cannot expect that!

So many aspects of everyday life can be a trigger to those with PTSD. Part of treating it is for them to understand what they are, and learn how to deal with them.

Having said that, I certainly appreciate the thought and concern from people putting trigger warnings, it only comes from a good place. I don't find it useful but others may, perhaps it would be better to just say 'upsetting content'?

Ilkley I am the same.

There seemed to be an almost constant run of threads with graphic violence to animals quite explicit in the titles at one point. Cats being attacked by dogs, hamsters being squashed and the like.

As an animal lover I prefer them to babies I found them upsetting.

It doesn't mean people are encouraged to completely avoid the issues that trigger them, as others have said. It DOES give them the option to choose for themselves whether or not they are in a robust / safe enough place to read those threads today. As someone who says they have a qualification in this area I can't believe you have a problem with people trying to give other people the power to make that choice for themselves. It's going to be clumsy, it's a text based system. YABU.

hedge - thanks for explaining. I agree with you there - but I do also take the OP's point that the confusion between the two states can get in the way of the best support, so I'm torn.

And - not addressing hedge here - I do feel there's a big difference between being upset and being triggered.

I'm really triggered by certain music so nothing written down really phases me, even if it's very similar to upsetting experiences in my life I don't relate to them, everyone's different I guess

And I'm really shocked by the pro ana on here I have never seen it.

Hello all

Thanks for all your comments.

It might be an idea to start a thread about this in Site Stuff to see what folks across the board think.

Right now we don't feel that there is a need for a blanket policy on this issue but we really welcome any feedback and discussion.

I have to agree with OP.

I suffer/have suffered from PTSD. One of my twin babies was stillborn. It was horrifically traumatic. It still is, really. A number of years on, and certain things still 'trigger' flashbacks. On MN, this mostly happens when I click on a thread that is concerning twin babies (unknowingly - I have hidden the multiples topic and automatically hide any thing with twins in the title).

Lots of other bad things have happened in my life, and there are many thread with 'triggering' in the title that I could help with, or at least add to. But actually, the warning stops me from clicking often. Not because I actually feel it will trigger a flashback, but because it probably won't, and the discord annoys me.

I know that sounds stupid. And I know there will be various things that trigger all kinds of people, so insisting that any thread containing twin babies states so in the title is futile (although I may have asked for it a few years ago...)

Manatee I get your perspective with PTSD but avoidance of self harm and suicide threads is suggested in DBT for BPD, isn't it? Also with ED. I do agree trigger warning is useless in its nonspecificity though.

Royalsighness - unless I'm thinking of the wrong thread it wasn't what I'd call 'pro ana'. Written by someone with an eating disorder, very little doubt about that. But it certainly didn't have the feel of the true pro ana threads of yesteryear - no ana prayer or ana commandments or the like

YANBU. It's misused all the time now and many people seem to think it is the same thing as 'reminded of' which does minimise what PTSD sufferers really experience.

I have complex PTSD, caused by a major event in my life when I was six and then compounded by a very serious sexual assault. I've also suffered from dv.

I've had counselling, cbt and am likely to be taking drugs for the rest of my life. I have things that trigger very serious reactions and those I try and avoid. They are connected to the sexual assault and I've unwittingly read things online or something has come on tv which leaves me shaking, unable to talk, curled up and terrified. I avoid like the plague so if someone wants to discuss, in detail, something like that then I prefer to have that noted in the title.

However, if it's just the word rape or sexual assault then I can deal with it. It's when there is detail and likely to describe things that I've experienced that I don't want to read it. I just can't cope and it brings very real flashbacks and real sheer terror.

Dealing with a world that does not care about your personal trauma is part of being a functional human being.

Life carries an implicit trigger warning, unless you stay in a box.

splemp

No, it isn't basic decency. It's idiocy of the highest order.

Placing trigger warnings at the start of every Blackadder episode because it would "stop just one person" who has, like me, been badly traumatized by the most horrendous violent acts, from seeing the Richard the III episode, or people alluding to shagging children, but do I want them to do that? Do I fuck, what a bloody stupid idea, badging life itself with warnings about things you are about to see.

The information we see or otherwise consume in life contains references to stuff. Usually when it isn't something that happened to you, it's something that happened to somebody else.

@butterflyballs - keep at the cbt, stay the course and eventually you will start to desensitize a bit so you can function. I won't pretend it ever goes away or that you won't lie awake in bed every now and then, but it does improve.

I'm not a fan of trigger warnings. I understand why they have become so prevalent on the internet but in practice there are so many potential pitfalls. Some of these are already outlined in the OP. And of course, so many topics are potentially upsetting. It would be impossible to cover all eventualities. Where should we draw the line? I really don't know.

My real concern WRT trigger warnings has nothing to do with MN in particular or the internet in general. I'm much more concerned about the trend in academia to include trigger warnings and to make so-called triggering material optional. I read an article recently about students who objected to reading and discussing Greek mythology without a trigger warning because of the existence of rape in some of the myths. As an academic, I'm very troubled by this sort of thing. Education at its most basic demands that we confront difficult and complicated subjects. I teach Russian literature. There aren't enough trigger warnings in the world.

Blackadder could be just as triggering as these for someone, that is the nature of how a trigger operates. In fact, the strongest triggers are usually so idiosyncratic as to be uncontrollable. There was a point in my life hearing splashing water was triggering for me, so you know that gameshow where they run across the obstacle course? Incredibly painful. Actual accounts of incidents similiar to what I'd experienced? Fine.

Personally I don't think it's aimed at PTSD suffers specifically.

I recently lost my dd2, it is very distressing. Some days I want to talk and post about her. Some days reading similar posts will really upset me (not to the pint of a PTSD sufferer but still upsetting)

There is a termination thread running at the moment with a trigger warning. At the moment I'm strong enough to read and reply. If I was having a rough few days that trigger warning would really help me know that it potentially has details that will upset me.

If someone is that vulnerable to an event in their past, they are surely at risk whenever they are in command of a screen, keyboard and mouse, if it gives them access to all the horror that is available on the internet. MN is tame by comparison!

It's like trying to put fire out with a water-pistol believing that 'Trigger Warning' is an important safety feature, but it does have a useful place, if only to make a person think "should I click on this, if it risks me being upset by what I'll read".

I actively avoid most of the "Trigger Warning" threads, because I believe they are unhelpful to my type of personality (squeamish), and I'm highly unlikely not to be able to assist the person anywhy. So, I'd rather leave it to other people and give my support in Relationships instead.

sorry typo I'm highly unlikely to be able to assist the person anyway

Kitty, after what you must have been through, I wonder how helpful it is for you to be reading any of that stuff....

I get incredibly annoyed by the use of trigger warnings in tweets. If I've read the warning I've read the whole tweet. I can't understand how that's useful.

Of course PTSD triggers can be something as apparently innocuous as an episode of Blackadder. For me, a particular piece of road is so disturbing I take massive detours to avoid it. A detailed description of a miscarriage (the overt cause of my PTSD) would not trigger the flashbacks. Not at all.