Joanna Schroeder explores the overuse of the term “Trigger Warning” in the blogosphere, and wonders whether the term actually serves to undermine the security of trauma survivors.
If you spend any time in the blogosphere, you’ve inevitably seen the phrase “Trigger Warning” alerting readers that there will be talk of sexual abuse or graphic descriptions of violence.
But lately trigger warnings have gotten completely out of hand. One article a friend sent me had the following trigger warnings:
Trigger Warning: ableism, anti-gay sentiment (more of both at the link)
(mod note: Trigger Warning for Dan Savage in general: anti-ace, anti-trans, ableism, possibly anti-intersex, misgendering trans people. I can’t give a specific trigger warning for the link because, well, it’s Dan Savage and I ain’t touching it.)
(mod note2: I also added an anti-left-handed tag for this one. I never thought I’d need that, but right-handed people do have some privilege… Being left-handed is a choice, what the fuck?)
Let’s cut straight to it: These trigger warnings are ridiculous. They minimize the importance of the instances when trigger warnings are necessary, which is actually quite rare.
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As an editor, I urge other editors and bloggers to consider this: Trigger warnings should only be used in cases when there is a graphic description of sexual violence, violence and/or war, child abuse or sexual abuse, and sometimes (depending upon context) graphic sexuality.
And they should only be used when the title and/or subtitle don’t make clear that the content of the article will contain the above topics. For instance, if the title of an article is “The Crimes of Jerry Sandusky”, no trigger warning should be necessary as anybody who may be triggered by discussion of sexual abuse should consider avoiding the article. Let’s bear in mind that adult survivors are adults and not infants. They don’t need to be babied, they need to be respected.
If, however, I post an article with a title like, “The Lifecycle of Tomatoes” that contains a graphic description of a sexual assault 3/4 of the way through, I have a responsibility to either post a subtitle that hints at the violence contained within. I don’t want a sexual assault survivor thinking he or she is going to read a lovely story about summertime gardening, only to discover the section too late, when he or she could have avoided that added anxiety. However, the actual term “trigger warning” should be my last-ditch option.
The use of subtitles or introductions that allow a person a peek into the content without having to deeply engage can be very helpful. For instance, a subtitle for the Tomatoes piece could be like, “Bob Smith looks back on the summer he survived a sexual assault”, which would serve as a sufficient trigger warning without implying that survivors are a group who must be babied or even feared.
The subtitle trick is really easy when it comes to sexualized content: “Barb Smith weaves an engrossing and highly sexualized tale of her college years at Mt Holyoke.” If I hadn’t have just made that one up, I would totally read that, but someone who knows that highly sexualized content is troubling for them will know to avoid it.
Again, this isn’t always necessary. On my personal blog, where we dispense sex and dating advice, we have stopped using “NC-17 Content” warnings, as we realized that our site’s mission implied sexuality. If, however, one of our articles about the clitoris or anal sex appears elsewhere, it requires a descriptive title, subtitle or if the first two are impossible, an outright warning.
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So why does the overuse of trigger warnings matter? Isn’t it always better to be overly careful than risk a problem?
I asked Licensed Social Worker Bethany Bateman her opinion on the multiple trigger warnings we see everyday in the blogosphere. To provide context, she explained the history of the term “triggers” as a reference to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) which first gained traction as a diagnosis during and after the Vietnam War.
Once a mental illness is established as being ‘real’, then begins the proliferation of research into how to ‘fix’ it – which can’t be established without understanding as much as possible the mechanisms going on behind it. And so came into awareness the concept of how external ‘triggers’ cause flashbacks – more than an unpleasant or uncomfortable feeling, but for all intents and purposes to the sufferer, an absolutely real reliving of the trauma for them: indeed, the processes that occur in the brain during the flashback or reliving are remarkably similar to what happens in the brain during the trauma itself. Notably, the DSM actually uses the term ‘cues’ rather than ‘triggers.’
I also asked Bateman what could be the consequences of a possible overuse of the term “trigger”.
When writers take ‘trigger warnings’ so far as to warn about things that may be, well, merely disturbing to some, like reading about ‘left-handed sentiment’ or attachment issues, it concerns me that it’s making a mockery of the concept and undermining what someone with PTSD might actually go through when experiencing a flashback.
Ultimately, we know that wanting to warn readers about potentially troubling content comes from a good place. We want survivors of trauma to feel safe reading content on our blogs and in our magazines, but we need to bear in mind that the excessive use of the word “trigger”, to the point where it loses its meaning or efficacy, only creates a less safe environment for readers.
Bateman has one more thought:
I recognize the possibility that trying to frame the argument in this way might lead to accusations of trying to create a ‘hierarchy of pain,’ when obviously, pain in any form is very real to its sufferer. But distinguishing one kind of pain or experience from another doesn’t have to mean that one is more or less valid — just that different experiences of pain warrant different considerations and, practically speaking, can also be more or less disabling to the sufferer.
Good point. Shaming, bigotry or any of the contenders in what some call the “Oppression Olympics” are equally valid concerns, but not all of them constitute the severity of reactions associated with PTSD, which is most commonly caused by sexual violence, war traumas, and childhood abuse and neglect. Let’s try to keep these things in mind as we write and publish, and also make an effort to curb the overuse of the term “trigger warning”.
What do you think of the term “Trigger Warning”? Is it necessary?
Do you feel these warnings are being overused?
If you are a survivor of a past trauma, do you find trigger warnings helpful or problematic? Have you ever been blindsided by content that triggered you, and wished you’d been warned? If so, where does the responsibility for that lie?
Image of tomato courtesy of Shutterstock
About Joanna Schroeder
I hate trigger warnings. I have PTSD, and I have got buckets of “cues” or triggers, as I call them. Some of them I can avoid, and some of them I can’t. It’s the nature of the illness, that sometimes random elements attach themselves to the panic button. Of course cologne can’t hurt me, but if my rapist wore it, I might never be able to smell it again without feeling my throat close in fear. That’s what a flashback can be like.
I could not possibly make the world responsible for removing every word, image, scent, and song that trigger my flashbacks.The solution I work toward daily is my own mental wellness, with the help of a trained trauma specialist. It’s not berating the salesperson waving a cologne card at me in the mall, or leaving snippy comments on blog posts. There is an important distinction between being inadvertently triggering, ignorant, wrong, and even annoying, and being abusive. When the overly correct start tagging links for being, “well, Dan Savage,” or right-handed-centric, they ignore this difference.
In my original copy I went into an analogy about fresh cut grass. If you had a major trauma happen when the neighbor was mowing his grass, the sound of the mower or the smell of the grass might trigger or cue a flashback or an anxiety attack.
For so many of us, it’s hard to even name what written content is going to set us off. One graphic description of assault can be fine, but another (for even unidentifiable reasons) can send us into sweats and tears.
I think the “well, Dan Savage” line was the worst and most egregious example because, DUH it’s a frickin’ Dan Savage link! If you don’t like Dan Savage you click away from it. “The Stranger” logo’s not going to cause a problem, even if his content does. You’re treating your readers like they’re frickin’ idiots when you do this. Actually, I don’t think that’s what this writer is doing. I think she’s using trigger warnings to make snark, which is fucking OBNOXIOUS and disrespectful… If you ask me.
Oh, and Justin, I just want to warn you that this article has a trigger warning for tomatoes. So, you know, be prepared.
And tomato plants remind me of the death of Don Corleone. How could you be so cruel?
OH shit! I warned you too late!
I have little patience for most trigger warnings. What most trigger warnings are designed to do is to prime people to take excruciatingly politically correct offence, or to protect oneself against such people. They are most typically employed in contexts where another person’s thoughts and actions are being dealt with. The message being conveyed is that the thoughts or actions of the person in question are offensive and that the reader should be outraged. As such they are a power game, designed to leverage the power of offence to discredit, silence, or dismiss people that one doesn’t like and/or to identify the issuer of the trigger warning as deeply and uniquely sensitive to the victims of prejudice.
The constant use of trigger warnings are also a message to readers, priming them to be thin-skinned and reactionary grievance-collectors, who use offence-taking and outrage-making to make their way in the world, typically avoiding testing debate along the way, and fainting at the first hint of ideological challenge (which is almost invariably cast as an attack upon some innocent group of victims). Offence-takers are trained to react emotionally, rather than respond rationally.
The offence game really is rather popular. It creates a human shield of hyper-sensitive individuals around a particular framing of the issues, facilitating the demonization of anyone who tries to challenge that framing. Certain types of feminists are past masters of this form. Challenge one of their pet theories and it kicks into effect: you are not just questioning a particular theory, you are *attacking the entire female sex*!!
Of course, offence-taking can get you a long way in a world where people have far too low a tolerance for their own and other people’s discomfort (free societies with vigorous free speech require people with thick skins and the quarantine of thin-skinned people from challenging conversation). We forget that we are ultimately the ones responsible for our own feelings. If we can’t handle views that we strongly disagree with, perhaps we don’t have business being in the debate. Once we recognize that the vast majority of the time trigger warnings serve as a play in this offence game, their overuse becomes more understandable and the pernicious character of their purpose more apparent.
I don’t use trigger warnings as notice that someone is saying something politically incorrect. I use them to find out if something is going to set off reminders of my assault, which will, at best, give me nightmares for weeks, or, at worst, interfere with my relationships for some undetermined period of time.
It’s not about the subject matter being offensive to me, and it’s certainly not about me being thin-skinned. It’s about keeping people with serious traumas from having to re-live the aftermath like it happened yesterday.
The “trigger” in trigger warning is not about triggering hurt feelings.
This has been on a “want to write about this” back burner of my brain for a while now, but you beat me to it and covered it better than I would have. Even brought in a fancy expert.
I can’t recall ever seeing “trigger warning” in my surfing of the internet for roughly 20+ years now until this last year or so when I found myself reading gender-based blogs or sites, including but not limited to GMP. For the most part, they bug the crap out of me, because they hardly ever serve the kind of purpose which you point out as reasonable, which is to warn a reader that would be otherwise ambushed by an innocuous title or topic like tomato farming. The vast majority of the time, however, the title and subhead are sufficient to clue a reader in, as are opening paragraphs, or even the very site they chose to visit.
Usually, the real purpose of a blog trigger warning is like the “warnings” that precede commercials for Girls Gone Wild dvd’s “Warning: These wild scenes depict extremely explicit sexual behavior and should not be viewed by children!” It’s hard to accept as simple concern for potential readers (or viewers) when it would take and idiot not to realize what lies within when the subject matter is so obvious on the surface.
Yeah, you and I have talked about this!
I’ve used them before, before I realized how abused they were, and I think you’ve made it even more obvious to me why they’re useless – at best.
And I agree about the “Warning: these wild scenes…” That’s why I mentioned the thing about the Mt. Holyoke sexual history… It’s like a teaser!
And I agree, a trigger warning is literally almost never necessary.
“Trigger warnings should only be used in cases when there is a graphic description of sexual violence, violence and/or war, child abuse or sexual abuse, and sometimes (depending upon context) graphic sexuality.”
Who are you to say when it is or isn’t appropriate? Everyone has their own “triggers.”
And why is there so much hysteria about sexual abuse on this site? I swear, you guys should pay Jerry Sandusky royalties or something given how much this site has written about him.
You know, I would delete this comment because it’s pretty nasty, but I think we should talk about this.
This site is about men’s lives, and the things men struggle with are a HUGE part of men’s lives. It’s important to know that 1 in 6 boys will be sexually abused by the time they’re 18. 1 in 6. And yet I can bet most people don’t know many (if any) men who have admitted to being abused. Why? Because there is SUCH a massive taboo against men talking about abuse. Therefore, when you have a men’s magazine site that is willing to not only hear, but embrace men who have been abused, you get more and more men opening up about it. I get private emails or message from men regularly saying, “I feel so much more normal in this context. I feel less alone.”
For me, this makes my life worthwhile.
I could go work at FHM or Maxim or Men’s Health, but I don’t want to just live a life telling men which chainsaw to buy (which is fun, like, once) or how to please women sexually (I do that as my side-gig!). I want to help create a space, along with Tom, Lisa, Noah, Justin, Nicole, Deanna, Marcus, Danny, Jack, Shawn, Peter and all our sub-bloggers where those 1 in 6 men can feel accepted and somewhat safe from people telling them that they need to “man up” or shut up, or that their abuse doesn’t count because they’re men, and where they can also talk about parenting, relationships, beer, superheroes, politics and technology.
If you don’t like it, navigate away.
Yeah. You handled that better than I did because I followed your recent over here with the moderation queue open in another tab, ready to lay it down. (Spine like serpent, then like steel. STRIKE!!!).
Trigger warning for left-handed chainsawing
I don’t want to throw gasoline on the fire, but I just wanted to mention that as a sexual assault survivor and foot soldier in the great Stihl vs. Husqvarna holy war, my chainsaw is orange.
This is the best comment, Joanna. I’m glad we’re doing this work, too.
About triggers. Like someone said above this seems to be something that has popped up from almost nowhere in the last year or two (I’ve been blogging for about four years and I can see the sudden rise of the trigger warning).
And why is there so much hysteria about sexual abuse on this site? I swear, you guys should pay Jerry Sandusky royalties or something given how much this site has written about him.
We bring it up so much because it’s a major issue with men. You see men have to work hard to speak up about such things because we are not only told be others that we shouldn’t bring it up but we learn not to bring it up. What looks like “hysteria” to you is actually breaking ground to us. And for the record while the Sandusky case was a big topic in the realm of sexual abuse of males it’s not like no sexual assault against boys was happening before that.
Not to minimize the way girls/women are sexually assaulted but there is something, unique?, about the way male sexual assault victims are treated. Imagine being told that because of your gender you can’t be assaulted/raped (if by a male it means you deserve it because you should have fought him off, if by a female it means you actually wanted and there’s even a chance that you assaulted here). (And to eliminate confuse again I’m not trying to downplay what happens to female victims. They are disregarded in their own ways.)
It’s not “hysteria”. Those are new voices. Voices that have been silent for far too long. Voices that should have never been silenced in the first place. Voices that until recently their owners didn’t even know they had.
Can I also point out that “hysteria” derives from the root for “uterus,” and is an outdated term that probably refers to a belief that the uterus floats willy-nilly through the body, causing mayhem? A feminist accusing men of hysteria is … ideologically and morphologically confusing.
Oh I thought you understood that the rules of engagement change when it’s feminists saying it. That’s also why referring to cowards as pussies as a big no no but referring to jerks as dicks is perfectly acceptable in feminist spaces.
I have little patience for most trigger warnings. Most seem designed to prime people to take excruciatingly politically correct offence, or to protect oneself against such people. They are commonly employed in contexts where another person’s thoughts and actions are being dealt with. The message being conveyed is that the thoughts or actions of the person in question are offensive and that the reader should be outraged. As such they are a power game, designed to leverage the power of offence to discredit, silence, or dismiss people that one doesn’t like and/or to identify the issuer of the trigger warning as deeply and uniquely sensitive to the victims of prejudice.
The constant use of trigger warnings are also a message to readers, priming them to be thin-skinned and reactionary grievance-collectors, who use offence-taking and outrage-making to make their way in the world, typically avoiding testing debate along the way, and fainting at the first sign of ideological challenge (which is almost invariably cast as an attack upon some innocent group of victims). Offence-takers are trained to react emotionally, rather than respond rationally.
This creates a human shield of hyper-sensitive individuals around a particular framing of the issues, facilitating the demonization of anyone who tries to challenge that framing. Certain types of feminists are past masters of this form. Challenge one of their pet theories and it kicks into effect: you are not just questioning a particular theory, you are *attacking the entire female sex*!!
Of course, offence-taking can get you a long way in a world where people have far too low a tolerance for their own and other people’s discomfort (free societies with vigorous free speech require people with thick skins and the quarantine of thin-skinned people from challenging conversation). We forget we are ultimately the ones responsible for our own feelings. If we can’t handle views we strongly disagree with, perhaps we don’t have business being in certain debates. Once we recognize that trigger warnings frequently serve as a play in this offence game, their overuse becomes more understandable and the pernicious character of their purpose more apparent.
Angel —
In response to your comment ‘everyone has their own triggers’ — here is what I would offer you — something Joanna and I also discussed with regards to this article.
The concept of a ‘trigger,’ as it’s evolved to mean in the context of ‘trigger warnings’ in the current blogosphere, lends itself to describing experiences of people with other anxiety disorders as well — like OCD, phobias, or social anxiety disorder. In other words, it’d be perfectly reasonable for someone with SAD to say ‘being in that crowd triggered me to feel incredibly panicked.’ No one could really argue with him/her on that, right?
The research on mental illness prevalence/incidence rates though, indicate that nearly 1/5 of the American population suffer from something that could fall under the diagnostic category of ‘anxiety disorders.’ So that’s a MASSIVE number of people with a MASSIVE number of possible ‘triggers’ to feeling *something* painful living out there in the world and, presumably, reading stuff online everyday. There’s no limit to what someone with OCD, for example, might be ‘triggered’ by – you literally can get cases where people are ‘triggered’ (as we’re using it) by a word or any of its synonyms, a smell, or a concept, into completing their compulsions. And completing those compulsions can be a truly, horribly agonizing experience — but OCD is infamous in its slippery and random nature as to what can bring on obsessive-compulsions.
In terms of diagnostic criteria for these illnesses, though — ie in order to meet the threshold for being treated for a particular illness — this idea of the ability to be ‘triggered’ or ‘cued’ is pretty unique to PTSD — it’s its own phenomenon — one worthy of its own consideration and understanding because a PTSD’s sufferer’s brain is essentially, *literally* RELIVING a trauma. That is not the same as being made intensely uncomfortable, thrown into completing compulsions to relieve discomfort (which, like I’ve said, is agony for some sufferers), or even feeling panicked (though that can of course be part of an experience of reliving trauma for a PTSD sufferer — feeling ‘panic’ on its own is not the same as experiencing a flashback, though). Again, saying these things are synonymous with flashbacks is an incredibly slippery slope that would lead to a literal need to summarize every article before it begins in anticipation it could potentially trigger one of those one-in-five Americans experiencing anxiety in some form.
I’d be interested in hearing from trauma survivors about whether “trigger warnings” are actually helpful or not in avoiding things that will upset them. I honestly don’t know. It seems like if someone is surfing the internet, reading news sites and blogs about social, political, gender and sexual issues, there is going to be a lot of triggering material. Are “trigger warnings” useful?
I am not a sexual abuse survivor but I did survive a nearly fatal car accident many years ago, which left me with a bit of a phobia about cars and traffic. Sometimes if I see a black pickup truck coming toward me (I was hit by a black pickup), my heart starts racing and my hands shake . So I totally understand the concept of “triggers.” But my situation is not the kind of thing that lends itself to “trigger warnings.” On the other hand, if every time I turned around I saw warnings that said “Trigger warning! Black pickup truck!”, that might actually make me jumpier. I don’t know.
Here’s an anecdote about a situation where I wish there had been a trigger warning. I was browsing in a bookstore once and picked up a fringe-y, underground publication. I was curious so I started leafing through it. There was a section in the middle called “police photos”. These were basically really horrible photos of accidents and crime scenes that random people sent in to the magazine. (This was about 20 years ago, in the early days of the internet — I don’t expect magazines like that are needed anymore.) One of the photos, which I will never forget, was of a little girl who had been run over by a truck and was twisted up in the wheel. I did not want to look at that photo. To this day, I wish I could erase that photo from my mind. I was so distraught by seeing the photo that I actually passed out. Yes, I lost consciousness — I fainted dead away, which has never happened to me before or since. It was a totally bizarre experience and YES, I could have used a trigger warning there.
I would have wanted one, too. What a sickening image.
I think I’m doing fine, and then I read something and don’t even know how it’s stuck in the wheel well of my mind, just as grotesquely, until it is in my mind for days. Trigger warnings usually don’t help, at least not the way they’re employed; I recently read a really horrible story that included misogynistic, deadly violence, and an ironic trigger warning about modern art. It was a perfect example of what not to publish.
UGH I could’ve used a trigger warning on the magazine image description.
But see, while that was awful, it still isn’t technically a “trigger” or even “cue” it’s just really disturbing and horrific. if you had PTSD from a related trauma, that would be a trigger. That’s how this word is getting abused.
Beyond that, you DID give fair warning that something horrible was coming up. You said there was something awful you wish you’d seen and this was it…. So I should’ve stopped reading! That’s fair enough, in my opinion, and sort of my point in the article.
And I’m fine despite having read that. But if I’d seen it I would’ve passed out too. That’s a totally normal reaction to trauma. If you think about it, it’s sort of a self-preservation thing.
There was a time when they were able to administer beta-blockers to people who’d experienced a trauma, and it would help their brain not do some specific thing that causes the vulnerability to the flashbacks. (I need to research this again, so I could be wrong). I wish that they could find something that would work like this, and effectively distribute it so that people who survive rapes or other traumas could be treated preventatively instead of retroactively.
Sorry if I upset anyone with the description of the photo! But, the thing is, we all encounter things we find upsetting. I don’t avoid R rated movies as a rule, even though I have been to R rated movies that were a bit too graphic for me in retrospect (Reservoir Dogs comes to mind – the ear – ugh). Still, that doesn’t mean I need a specific set of trigger warnings for every movie. If it’s a Tarantino movie I know it will make me squeamish. I do appreciate it when a reviewer gives a detailed warning of something really extreme and horrible so that I can avoid that movie (there was a notorious French movie. I forget the name, with an extended rape scene – I skipped it). But generally I know when I’m out in the world or surfing the internet I may stumble across stuff that is upsetting. I suspect that even people with a history of trauma know this and can take care of themselves appropriately most of the time. You can usually tell from context generally what to expect. Like with movie reviews, I appreciate a warning in appropriate cases but anti-left-handedness trigger warnings, etc., seem, IDK, goofy.
I suspect that one of the problems here is that practically every warning of ‘disturbing images’ is far more effective at attracting rubberneckers than it is at discouraging persons who may be triggered from looking. Most people are pretty sure that they couldn’t be disturbed or deeply troubled by an image and so are driven to look by morbid curiosity. When they actually look, it is too late. The more that warnings of disturbing imagery or triggering language are thrown around lightly, the less effective they are in those few cases when they are most needed.
No, you didn’t upset me!
I saw the French film – Irreversible – and I’m so impressed someone brought it up. I believe you’re the first person I’ve ever talked to online or in real life who referenced it that wasn’t told about it by me.
I love/hate that film, and it was made for that express purpose. To make you see the rape as this horrifically devastating, unsexualized thing that ruins people’s lives. Too often in films there’s this weird sexualization of rape. This film actually made a rape scene that, unless you truly sexualize ACTUAL rape (not BDSM consensual “rape”), you can’t detach from. I’m not sure the people at the first festival it showed at (Sundance? Cannes? Can’t remember) knew that because people walked out in the first few minutes, and throughout, and then booed during the rape scene and at the end. The theater was silent. It had to be the aim of the filmmakers to create that reaction, but I shudder in horror to think of what a person who was sensitive to violence would’ve done… Except, really, they would’ve walked out. And we all have the power to do that. The rape scene ddn’t come out of nowhere, the very first thing you see in that film is someone getting their head crushed with a fire extinguisher. So, like, you know… Shocking.
If the film had played forward (the point of the film is that the scenes roll backward, last scene first, so you’re totally confused) then the rape WOULD have come out of nowhere. As rape does in real life. Instead, you know that these two men are on a mission to kill someone and you don’t know why, and then you learn it’s because of a rape, then you see the rape, then you see her enter the train tunnel where she’s raped, etc…
It’s a great and horrible film at the same time, but it actually speaks to what I’m saying in a way. We have to exercise our judgement our own selves, and if something’s going to jump out at us out of nowhere, there should be some kind of warning, whether it’s an R rating in a film or a descriptive title or subtitle on an article.
(sorry, that was a tangent. i love to talk about that movie!)
Um, hello, ever heard of a *SPOILER ALERT* Joanna? Here I am on a site about gender reading a post about trigger warnings and sexual violence and PTSD and out of nowhere comes a comment completely giving away the narrative device and plot for a film I have yet to see. might as well remove that movie from my Netflix queue…
Okay, I’m just teasing you, I’ve already seen that movie. If you like that narrative structure, 5 x 2 explores a similar theme without all the violence. If you prefer something a little more disturbing, you can’t go wrong with Antichrist.
No trigger warnings necessary for this comment. You know exactly what you’re getting yourself into if you click those links.
Oh that there were magic bullets – one to prevent and one to cure. They would be each be worth Billions – even Trillions!
I think you are referring to Propranolol hydrochloride (Beta Blocker) which has been used and studied as a prophylaxis to prevent PTSD. Big ethical issues around using it, from side effects caused by a drug being used outside of it recognised clinical purpose, to using the drug to interfere with memory that is not PTSD connected. It can also induce mood changes and nightmares … and then you have the chicken and egg question to deal with too. There has been concern that use of Propranolol could in fact cause PTSD in people who would otherwise not have ended up with the condition. Exposure to Trauma does not automatically cause PTSD – but medical meddling has been known to be the root cause of PTSD.
Studies designed to check efficacy were also highly questionable as to both methodology and ethics. It’s why it’s taking so long to deal with the question of Chemo Prophylaxis around Truama and PTSD – the medical mantra of “First Do NO Harm” is significant, as are concerns of a number of large Pharmaceutical Manufactures seeking market position and possible dominance. When you consider the possibility of hundreds of millions of prescriptions per year with medication being used for up to 12 months .. well the financial implications get big very quickly, as do share options.
PTSD develops over time, so there is also the very big question of do you medicate everyone exposed to Trauma – what level of trauma is significant (and how the hell do you decide that one) – do you medicate only for certain traumas – and given that complex and multi factorial PTSD is the most devastating and intractable to treatment …. does it have any effect on the more clinically significant forms of the condition?
There are at least three major brain structures involved in PTSD, and individuals are affected differently in these three areas when drugs are added to the biochemical mix. That multiplies the issues at least 9 fold when working out if there is any value in using a certain drug – and the only way to check that is by weekly FMRI (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) scanning, or possibly, or rather, concomitantly PET (Positron emission tomography) scanning, with all the injected radiation exposure that involves – and if necessary change of drug and repeat – and then try drug cocktails – and medical insurance corporations sure as hell are resistant to meeting the costs of that lot at around $10,000 per week for the duration (12 months at least) – that could be over $500,000 per patient per year – and in the US alone that would be Trillions of Dollars per year….. as a preventive measure! Who will pay those insurance premiums?
It’s cheaper to compensate than prevent! Studies on lab rats are of no value (how do you consistently traumatise a rat?) – so it turns humans into lab rats to be studied. P^)
Thank you Joanne for writing this piece…. and this response no doubt has to carry a warning that the content may stimulate emotional responses and reactions in some. I will not say that a Trigger Warning is appropriate, because I fundamentally disagree with their usage on multiple grounds. I don’t do saccharine!
Trigger Warning is a modern day “Shibboleth” to show you are trendy, hipster, with it and part of the “In Crowd”… and a caring Netizen.
Has anyone read up on the incidence of PTSD and racial abuse?
If they had, there would be “Trigger Warnings” all over! Funny how the subject of Trauma and Triggers gets skewed by those who want only one image to be seen in the warped mirror of reality called The Net. Trigger Warnings are being used and abused to create ring-fenced realities – a cyber land grab.
I even wonder if some care about the specific spikes of PTSD in certain groups, such as the spike in G.A.Y. people, particularly G.A.Y. men in the age range 40 to 60, linked with the social and personal impact of AIDS, how they were treated, how they experienced social reaction to an emergent disease – and that is not people with HIV, it’s just people who lived through the personal and social upheaval. Where are the Trigger Warnings for them?… and there is also a high incidence of PTSD in people living with HIV of all sexualities and transmission routes – and there are no Trigger warnings there. Why?
The misuse and abuse of Trigger Warnings is all too often linked to the infantilizing of readers. It’s taking on the pattern of a highly sophisticated form of “Gas-lighting” – acting to control people’s perceptions of reality and how reality should and even must be experienced. Trigger Warnings are all too often being used to “Frame” the subject and the experience the reader has to have to the content.
It would be something if “Trigger Warnings” contained a hyper-link which explained what a supposed trigger is – how it works – and where to get help if you are triggered. Putting Trigger warnings all over just shows how lazy and uncaring some Netizens are, whilst claiming to be nice and oh so caring of others! If they were really interested in value they would have done it – created a centralised resource to promote the brand …. and yet in all that Blogging, Blagging and supposed caring writing and use of the net, they have just missed the bleeding obvious – and the most fundamental tool of the whole WWW – the Hyper-link! P^)
All of those free blogging opportunities to set it up Brand Central, and no-one thought it was worth while! Speaks Volumes as to how people who propagate the meme see it as so valid and natural it does not even need to be explained. It’s been so disregarded and disrespected that after some 10 years or so of usage, it still has not been noticed by the Lexicographers who write the Dictionaries.
You only have to look at the mess on Wikipedia to see just how wrong people get it!
“A trauma trigger is an experience that triggers a traumatic memory in someone who has experienced trauma. A trigger is thus a troubling reminder of a traumatic event, although the trigger itself need not be frightening or traumatic.”
WRONG!
It is not Just traumatic memories that are involved – it’s any memory that is “”Intrusive”". It’s not just memories – It’s “Re-Experiencing”, and that can be Visual, Auditory, Olfactory, Tactile, Emotional and even Behavioural. It is Not even memory – it is Re-living! I do wish the amateurs would get out of the way and stop peddling hogwash and ignorance!
Take two words that people supposedly understand – put them side by side and have a meme!
Given that the cues/triggers related to trauma are “”NOT”" always incident/trauma specific, it is no surprise that they have been linked to sexual casualty, and all too often only cues/triggers related to sexual assault are considered more significant – it’s a power play. So many take their own NON PTSD lived experience and then project it into the the reality of PTSD. They get it spectacularly wrong! I wish that abusive attitude and idea would be taken out and shot ASAP!
PTSD (at all levels of manifestation) is one of the loneliest diseases to deal with because not one person experiences it the same way as any other. It’s person specific 100% – and no generic view or attitude applies. PTSD and trauma response does not respond to the supposed penicillin of “Trigger Warnings”, no matter how many spoonfuls of sugar are used to justify it being rammed down throats.
The overuse and open abuse of Trigger Warnings leads some to view PTSD and trauma as only occurring around sexuality and violence/abuse. What about Guns, Motor Vehicle accident survivors, people who have survived a close call with an F5 Twister? Where are the Trigger Warnings for those people – or do they just not count or have value in the eyes of some, along with racial related PTSD?
“My Trauma Is Bigger, Badder and Oh So Much More Important than anything you could even have experienced – I don’t care that you lost your home, all members of your family – that the whole town was destroyed – that you were picked up and blown into the top of a tree where you lay critically injured for 18 hours before some one spotted you and realised you were not dead …. Nope, your Triggers and experience is nothing compared to mine!” It’s pretty anti-social and abusive. It’s political.
There is an ongoing pattern of segregation and hysterical hierarchy creation linked to gender and PTSD which is abusive and being abused. It’s subtle, and of course anyone who raises it is a bad person and gets targeted as a Victim Blamer, Rape Apologist etc etc etc. It’s a highly defended position and so many join in so that they are seen as nice people. It’s easy to fall into mindsets and hard to get out once you are immersed.
There has been ongoing concern in the area of Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI)/Self harm where the Trigger Warning meme seemed to start back in 2000. It has been observed that in that area of Psychology/Psychiatry the presence of supposed “Trigger Warnings” is counter productive as it acts as a flag for those with NSSI ideation – and tells them where to go and find “Triggering” Stuff – It’s like moths to a flame! Many of the net sources where it was manifesting have long been shut down and deleted.
The same has been found with people with Suicidal Ideation – they look for the Net Flags and congregate, creating net churches and missions.
Abuse of Trigger Warning has acted to ghettoise people, and it even acts as a flag for people to gather under and claim victim-hood, increased victimisation and claims for special categorisation under the Umbrella of PTSD and which ever minority element they wish to tag onto the subject. I see nothing positive in the ongoing Ghettoization that some love and even abuse by looking for and then collecting under the Trigger Warning Brand that best suits them and their need. IT’s even worse when people are shunned and turned away because they don’t trigger the right way!
There has been much debate around the existence of a specific form of PTSD called “Rape Trauma Syndrome” (RTS) (Coined in 1974), and there is still an ongoing battle by some to insist that this is a specific form of PTSD and has to be labelled, categorised and treated differently to any and all other forms of PTSD.
RTS is not recognised as a separate issue/diagnosis under The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) criteria – and each time the DSM is revised, there is a push to have RTS segregated off. It’s failed again under the updating of the DSM due for publication early next year.
The push for RTS has raised many questions, such as where is the “Domestic Abuse Trauma Syndrome” – the “Torture Survivor Syndrome” – The “Natural Disaster Trauma Syndrome”? There has been an ongoing pattern of demanding that rape, especially with women victims, be treated differently as a Traumatic event compared to all other trauma – and demands that it be gender specific to only one group.
It’s even raised the most serious question as to at which age can RTS be applied. Is a child sexual abused at age 11 to be put under the banner – or is it only 13+ 16+ 18+? That question has still to be answered. Interestingly PTSD is not age specific to either the age of experienced trauma – or the onset of manifest symptoms. For clarity the two can be years, even decades apart. The same is very true for rape victims, and not all follow the model laid out for RTS.
As RTS is not recognised as an actual psychological/physiological/psychiatric condition, anyone can supposedly diagnose another with RTS – but a diagnosis of PTSD requires relevant professional qualifications in the field of medicine. This has lead to many people dealing with rape crisis centres to being told they have RTS, and not referred to professionals for a formal diagnosis, treatment and management of PTSD. This has raised many issues over the last 30+ years.
There are far too many recurrences of people who suffered sexual assault having been told they had RTS – the person then being made to fit the models of RTS that some insisted upon, and because they failed to fit the ideal they have been left with long term, intractable and now untreatable PTSD. They were traumatised twice over – the second time by being told they had to have the right type of RTS to be helped. Some have even been told they could not have been raped because they did not have RTS the right way! What a pity – they had PTSD the right way, just not the limited conception that had to fit under RTS.
Given that PTSD involves Intrusive memory recall, and all too often the intrusive memories are “”NOT”" Trauma Related (Thank You Justin For Making that Point), the misuse of ideas that only Intrusive memories about the trauma are valid or significant does cause significant patterns of mismanagement and damage to people dealing with all forms of PTSD.
Many people who have PTSD related to sexual assault may have no “Flash Backs/Re-Experiencing” linked to the sexual assault – But they can be crippled by OTHER Intrusive memories that have become PTSD related and significant – and being told that only certain Intrusive memories/recall count or have a place in your post trauma experience is not only false, but dangerous and damaging.
I have come across too many people with PTSD who have been mislead into believing that they are not affected correctly, because when they have read Trigger Warning tagged pages they have not had RE-Experiencing related to the content. I know one person who was lead to believe that they could not have PTSD or even RTS, because each time they read about related Rape Trauma they ended up hearing a Mozart Piano Concerto …. and it would not stop. It went on and on for hours – it was as bad as Tinnitus – it was Intrusive to the point they could not concentrate, read, watch a TV program. hold a conversation …. it became 100% disabling, like being tortured with an Implanted iPod in their head and no off switch. They believed that they were both insane and had lost all control of their own mind – but as it had no apparent connection to rape it could not be PTSD and had no link to triggers.
Did it matter that the intrusion was not specifically related to the trauma? NO. That is started after the trauma and was linked to triggers was highly significant – and the intrusive nature that was debilitating and incapacitating was diagnostically significant – massively significant!
See what I mean about the grossly distorted perceptions and uses of Trigger Warnings?
It not only fails to address the trigger – it completely misleads people as to what is triggered!
If some wish to issue trigger warnings then they should also provide full valid links and resources on the subject of PTSD, so that people have the valid opportunity to recognise themselves and others as people with PTSD – and not be mislead into the ideas propagated by some that only certain patterns of Triggered Response are valid or significant.
It’s not hard to do some digging around the net and find that the trigger warning meme got going in 2004/5 – it’s prominently linked to sites and blogs linked to feminist writers and sexual violence against women co-morbid with Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI)/Self harm. Usage then grew from that base and slowly increased. It’s even manifested in blogs and networking sites that deal with Infertility, Divorce and even Dieting! It’s odd to read how someone was chastised for not issuing a trigger warning to a group of dieters when they announced that they had lost weight! The control issues around that are bizzare.
I have been looking at the subject of Trigger Warnings for some time, and whilst some many have only recently started to question them, there were lone voices – primarily female – questioning the ongoing proliferation as far back as 2010 – Susannah Breslin, Off the Record – “Trigger warning: this blog post may freak you the f*** out”
The only time I have come across a valid Trigger Warning ( which is not even called a Trigger Warning) relates to Australian TV/Media, where they warn when there are to be images or recordings of dead Aboriginals and Torres Straight groups. Religious sensitivity is at play, because for some seeing and hearing the dead in any way can be extremely disturbing and upsetting. It was not just imposed, but came from a sincere dialogue and understanding of both sides – and better still that dialogue informed a wider understanding.
Then in 2011 – the Trigger Warning meme exploded due to three terms being joined and utilised –
1) Slutwalk
2) Rape Culture
3) Trigger Warning.
The whole Trigger Warning meme was located in only one area of The Net and then due to Social Networking and people reading up on the emergent topics and being trendy …. well The Trigger Warning meme emerged to a wider audience who, of course, had to adopt it or else be seen as not as social as they wanted to be!
Of course – anyone who questioned the validity of such a trinity or any element of the trinity was/is “Persona Non Grata” and had to be shunned, driven away, called names and branded as rape apologist – women hater – Ignoramus who had no grasp of PTSD, It’s nature, how people are triggered, how traumatic it is to be triggered, how triggering it is to be dealing with such people …… I’ve been sitting and watching it all play out and it is fascinating! Pure Cyber Social Psychology!
The Cyber Land Grab and Control Issues/Mechanisms are all there in plain sight. The precipitous drop off in occurrences of the three terms after a peak and frenzy in November 2011 is significant!
Cult Model – control “B”ehaviour, “I”nformation, “T”hiking and “E”motions. The “Trigger Warning” meme first controls behaviour, then how information is to imparted and to be received, acts to control thinking about the subject and control emotional responses around the subject. It’s Classic B.I.T.E..
Trigger Warnings act to Trigger Specific Behaviour – Control Information – Control Thinking and ultimately Define and Control what emotions are valid. People who don’t B.I.T.E. the right way get chewed up and spat out!
It’s interesting to do some basic google analytics and see how word combinations combine. Search for “Trigger Warning”+Rape and the hits are massive – search for “Trigger Warning”+PTSD and there is a total disarray of hits which show how matters are being linked and skewed across the net in the last 18/24 months.
It’s time to stop being party to such skewing and deformation of reality.
In many ways, “Trigger Warning” has simply deformed into a net flag and sign post for rape – that is rape of females – and it has little or nothing to do with PTSD, protection from Re-Traumatization or good Netiquette. That the Trigger Warning meme has transmogrified into ever more bizzare renditions is a sign that it is a pseudo idea that has withered on the vine of on-line reality.
A golden rule of dealing with PTSD is that the person is responsible for their own triggers and how they live with and manage THEIR PTSD. There are known patterns of people who are re-experiencing trauma at varying levels who seek out higher level triggers as a way to precipitate crisis and with it catharsis. For some it’s a pattern of deliberate self re-victimisation, and for others it’s like a pole vault – they use the increased exposure to trigger themselves and then be able to get past the issues. It’s the responsibility of the person to work out their own care and management, and actually telling them to avoid environmental triggers as a blanket idea is totally false, disenfranchises them and is counter productive.
The “Trigger Warning” meme is also acting as a Trigger itself – and so from where I’m sitting people who keep on using it are in fact abusing the people they presume to protect – a spectacular own goal.
I have even had to work with some people so that their web browser now blocks access to any page that contains the phrase “Trigger Warning”. These people have the right and interest to seek out information, views, ideas and even other people’s experiences as they make sense of their own experience and even work out their personal redemption. That gets hard when other people presume to know your experience and arrogantly legislate to supposedly protect you from yourself and control you by proxy…. and in doing so act as a trigger to relive the trauma you are recovering from, or leaning to manage the long term effects manifesting as PTSD.
As I said, some have “missed the bleeding obvious”, in the rush to join the club and be seen a caring and nice. The “Trigger Warning” meme has been more political than practical or even useful. I say that it’s time to ditch the Trigger Warning meme and promote better writing and communication – with respect…. in fact I wish people had done it all along and spared us all so many Misguided Pixels!
“Trigger warnings should only be used in cases when there is a graphic description of sexual violence, violence and/or war, child abuse or sexual abuse, and sometimes (depending upon context) graphic sexuality.”
First off, I would just include abuse in general in that list, rather than limiting it to child abuse or sexual abuse. But the main problem I have with this definition of trigger warnings is that, while it is very accurate in the context of trigger warnings’ origins with PTSD, it fails to include other disorders that also include severe reactions from triggers. Yes, trigger warnings started out as a tool for those with PTSD, but they can also be a tool for many others (those with panic disorders, for example) whose triggers probably don’t line up with the ones you listed. For example, people with suicidal ideations are often triggered by discussions of suicide, and experience reactions such as panic attacks or suicidal thoughts. So I would say that suicide is a valid trigger warning.
I do agree that trigger warnings can be overused, at least when it comes to things like warning for the very thing that your blog or post is about. However, I think that the bounds of overuse when it comes to what topics “count” as trigger warnings is up to individuals and don’t need to be policed. I run an advocacy blog for those with mental illness; my determination of what constitutes a trigger warning is geared towards an audience with mental illness, and therefore I warn for things that I wouldn’t if I was speaking to a different audience. For example, I usually warn for ableism, since that is a constant and severe presence in the lives of many people in my audience. And while it may not trigger flashbacks of trauma for all of them, as per your original definition, it certainly triggers a whole host of very real traumatic emotions specific to an individual’s disorder.
Basically, while trigger warnings are definitely overused, I do not feel that they are being co-opted from their original purpose; rather, they are being shared in situations where they are also useful.