Triggers: What they feel like for me
In response to my previous post, someone responded in great earnest, "I don't want to inadvertently mess up" and asked if there was a list to help her. I am now wondering--has anyone made a list of triggers common enough to make an easy starting place for folks to be able to use those and then add further labels if someone suggests?
The things that are easy-to-think-of "probably be sure to warn for these" would be: rape, sexual violence, sexual harassment, dubious consent/grey sex (even though I think dubious consent = lack of clear and proper consent and that this is, resultantly, NON-consensual), torture, beatings, abduction/restraint, abuse (physical, psychological, sexual), cutting, eating disorders (I can SPEAK for how easily triggered THOSE issues can be), forced confinement/institutionalization, or implied or references to same. I'm sure there are others, but those are the ones that seem "obvious" to me as I go through my own stuff and the stuff of friends.
I was going to list the handful of things I saw on TV/in movies that I was TOTALLY and VERY BADLY triggered by and how that felt and why it is important to me to try and safeguard myself and why I rely on others' reviews and labels to help me. It is possible that this post, which discusses depression, PTSD, abuse, fear, flashbacks, sexual assault (minor), and self injury (minor) may be triggering. Proceed with caution for yourself. I don't know if this is anything new or has anything to add, and I'm a bit behind on the discussions, but, perhaps this will help clarify to some folks, though I think impertinence already reached most of those who are going to be reached.
This is a discussion of my personal triggers. They do not apply to everyone (or, perhaps, anyone), but perhaps this will help it make sense to someone, though I think that Impertinence did far better than I will.
First, my qualifications to speak (since folks have seemed, in some discussions, to question various folks' authority and knowledge):
1. I have official diagnoses from professionals of: PTSD, Asperger Syndrome, depression, anxiety, generalized anxiety disorder, dysthymia, and an eating disorder. I have had all of these diagnoses for upwards of four years now, and have HAD these conditions for the following number of approximate years: PTSD (25), AS (39), depression/anxiety/GAD/dysthymia (25), ED (15). You'll note that the depression et al and the PTSD match in length. Hmmmm. I have OCD tendencies which, along with the tendencies toward depression and anxiety definitely run in my maternal biological family, and which are also common for Aspies (see: Sheldon Cooper).
2. I spent much of 14 years being bullied and harassed (to varying degrees at various times) by my 4-years-younger brother (and, yes, there's DEFINITELY shame in being the Big Sister who's scared of her Little Brother). At the height of his worst days, he attacked me with a bowie knife in my living room while he stood over me, turning purple and screaming, "I'm going to kill you! You're on my death list!" while he kicked my legs and stormed and raged.
3. I spent 11 years being harassed and bullied on the school bus in ways verbal, psychological, and physical.
4. I spent 11-13 years being harassed and bullied at school, to varying degrees, sometimes in the classroom, often in the halls and lunch room, often in P.E., often on the playground, for being "different," "weird," "a teacher's pet," "too smart," "disgusting," "annoying," "out of fashion," ...you name it. I learned early on that there were two kinds of kids who got back papers/tests and immediately flipped them upside down, peering carefully and discreetly at their grade: the kids who were failing and the kids with over 95%. I was spied on in the bathrooms. Rumors were spread that I was having sex, that I'd gotten pregnant and had an abortion. I had kids follow me down hallways and stick me in the butt with straight pins.
5. A preacher at my church fondled my breast when I was 13 or 14 (only once, through my clothes rather than under) when we were driving alone back from a church event. A kid at the jr. high trapped me in a music practice room and made sexually explicit threats sometime in that same time period.
6. Since I was 17, I've seen eleven different therapists. I've read a staggering pile of books and articles on Asperger Syndrome, PTSD, trauma, dysfunctional families, impact on families of a child having a disability, and on and on. I've been in near-continuous therapy for the past five or six years. I'm on a brain med cocktail that includes anti-depressants (Paxil, then Prozac, now Lexapro) and anti-anxieties (buspar and xanax daily), and that's not always adequate.
Background of my ISSUES
The preacher fondling me in the car stands out as NOT traumatic for me. I was scared and uncomfortable, but I wrote him a letter to tell him that I'd tell other adults if anything like that happened again because it was WRONG...and nothing happened. I felt entirely empowered by MY action having the desired results.
Conversely, with all my fears that grew out of the bullying on the bus and at school, I was told, over and over, "If you would ignore them, they would stop," "You need to get a thicker skin," "Don't LET them get to you," and other standard issue comments that said, underneath, that *I* was in control and if *I* did the "right" thing, it would be All Better, which I understood to mean I wasn't doing the Right Thing, so it was my fault. I went to teachers, bus drivers, parents, friends, church people...nothing.
So, by the time I was being pricked with pins in the butt in the hallways and was threatened in the music room, I knew what I had to be able to do to get help from an adult. I knew I had to have names, faces, times, details, and an explanation of my impeccable and unimpeachable behavior which meant that I had neither done/said/looked funny/anything else that could be deemed to have "started it" nor could I have responded with emotion or without checking with an adult first.
I was, in junior high, actively avoiding other kids. I used the swings where no one was, so the day that I was smart-mouthing a kid who was picking on me and she slapped my face so hard that, with the chilly weather, my plastic-framed glasses broke, well, I had participated in the argument and I didn't tell school folks and begged my mom not to call the kid's mom.
When two bus routes had to be combined one day so there was ONLY a seat at the back and the kids (who had told me I wasn't allowed back there eight years prior) taunted me, called me a bitch, crumpled cigarettes in my hair, and threatened to set my hair on fire, I was horrified to have to talk to the principal to keep my dad from doing so...and even more horrified that I had to say "bitch" out loud to tell the principal what the kids had said. I never knew if anything happened to them, and I was terrified that they would take revenge on me.
When I was hiding from lunch recess by slipping into music practice rooms and doing my violin practice safely away from other students, and a boy I didn't know came in and leaned against the wall by the door, I ignored him (like I'd been told). I ignored him when he said, "You should get a pimp." I ignored him when he kept talking. I was terrified. Terrified that he'd break the violin my parents had paid so much for. Terrified if I moved or left or tried to leave that he'd touch me or try to stop me or that it would be seen as instigating something. So I ignored him as he continued taunting. I ignored him as he said, "I know when and where you're going to be raped and I'm going to be there watching." I ignored him while he left, and then put away my violin and sneaked out, watching for him. But I couldn't identify him. I hadn't looked at him because that might have been not-ignoring and because that might have angered him (and then it would have been "my fault" that he escalated things). I didn't know him. I looked through my previous year's yearbook, but all the faces blended together and I couldn't tell which he was or even if his photo was in there.
And since, at age 13, I knew that without a name, without a description that was useful, without data, the adults certainly couldn't help when they wouldn't when I DID have that information...I never told. I figured the ONLY possible outcome would be that *I* would get in trouble for being there practicing where I'd thought it would be safer than on the under supervised playground with the kids who treated me this way.
By age 13, I had learned that telling adults got me in trouble and did not get me help and that it wasn't worth reporting incidents like the above, and that anything precious could be lost or taken or destroyed or threatened and I was sure that the others would get away with it and that I would probably either get in trouble or told how I'd done things wrong. Let me say this again: before I was *13* years old, I already felt it was useless to ask for help when I as abused/assaulted/bullied; I already thought I was helpless and that it was hopeless to ask for backup. At 13. And that's older than some folks gave up.
After I got home everyday from being afraid in the hallways, afraid on the bus, taunted both places most days, I'd walk up the hill to my house, knowing that I would spend the time till bedtime being taunted and baited and mocked by my brother. There were many, many days I DID "ignore him"...some days for 2-3 hours. He would persist obsessively. If I even said, "Would you STOP it?" once my dad got home (he was, of course, never there for the HOURS leading up to me yelling for it to stop), I would get in trouble for yelling, for "setting a bad example," and for being mean to my brother. When I taught myself sign language at age 13, I took great pleasure in the fact that although my brother could still making fun of me for talking the television, he could no longer comment on the content. That was a victory for me--to have some part of it that was just mine, even if I was still being harassed.
When I was 15 and my brother Jason was 11, he was pestering me after school, and I was being a smart-ass back (see--my fault again). I was sitting on the sofa, my other brother in the rocking chair to my right, and Jason standing in front of me. He lost it. He pulled out his bowie knife (probably something similar to this) and raised it over his head, screaming at me, face turning purple, kicking my legs over and over, and shouting, "You're on my death list! I'm going to kill you! I'm going to kill you!" I remember thinking, "Well, if he stabs me, Andy's here, so he could call an ambulance and I might have a chance." I don't remember Jason stopping or why or anything. I remember hearing the back screen door close. I remember Andy saying, "WHAT was THAT?" I remember being in my room with the door closed and locked, having followed my procedure (yes, I had a procedure for this, it was that frequent) of removing breakable things from the wall so that if Jason returned and tried to break down my door (again...or beat on it with a tack hammer...again), the things wouldn't fall and break. I don't remember GOING to my room, though I remember that I took the route clockwise around the center of the house. I remember writing in my diary, trying to work up anger or indignation or some feeling. For the most part, though, I was relieved, and even hopeful: I thought maybe, just maybe, people would believe me that Jason was dangerous, would believe I had good reason to consider him so, and believe that something needed to be done. I remember the discussions--first my story, then his, then Andy's, then mine--as my parents interviewed us separately to get the story. I remember telling them I was angry. I remember them telling me that I should avoid antagonizing Jason because he was mentally ill and unstable (duh!), so I should never cross his path and ignore him. I remember that he "didn't like" counseling, and they didn't think it was helping, so he stopped after 1-2 months. So much for the glimmer of hope. That helplessness, that sense that there was NO WAY I could be good enough, do well enough, try enough, to make things okay, and that somehow it was my fault because I hadn't found that answer...just further reinforced by this.
Triggers
One of my triggers is the name "Jason." I cringe when I hear it, see it, read it, sometimes even when I say it. I get chills and I feel like my blood runs cold. I shake. I have two colleagues by that name...and I never call them by their given name. I had one friend I was going to be betaing for who was giving a name to an unnamed figure in the series canon, and had chosen "Jason," and I asked her if she could please maybe make the name something else. She, very kindly, did so. I have a good friend with a neighbor whose name is Jason...and I'm uncomfortable around him--even though he's perfectly nice and we have a lot in common--and try to pretend it's not his name. But I pull away a bit.
In fic, I don't expect this name never to show up. I don't expect warnings or labels. This is not a common thing. It's mine. And I try to stay away, but, well, I encounter it sometimes, and, with lots of meds and therapy, the DURATION of me being thrown tends to be shorter now.
I'm lucky. Despite the above, I can read most things and have little trouble with the reading. Most of the stuff folks would warn for in writing and fanfic doesn't trigger me. The things that bother me most are the irrevocable losses of something precious, especially when it's sacrificed for something that's going to be lost or unappreciated anyway...sort of like how my needs and well-being and how *I* was sacrificed to the status quo and because I "looked okay" and was behaving and getting good grades...and so things that were precious to me were taken away and expended somewhere they were both never appreciated and that energy and those things were expended on folks who were not even appreciative. So when Buffy's Umbrella of Protection was broken, I was terribly upset. In "Gift of the Magi" I am not upset by Della's hair--it'll grow back, sad though it is then--but by the loss of Jim's grandfather's watch, which they may NEVER get back. In The Shoeshine Girl I'm devastated when the shoeshine guy gives his one medal he ever won to the girl...who has said mean things about it because she's going to miss him and can't bring herself to say that...and so she's left with the guilt of having yelled as her last exchange, the guilt of his forgiveness, and he's left without a thanks and without that memorial. When the Feds in Thunderheart destroy the thousand-year-old turtleshell rattle, I'm devastated. These don't trigger me as badly as the things I'm going to list below; these are like mini triggers that make my chest feel tight and empty, that make me feel hopeless, that make me feel all over again like *I* have lost something precious, something irretrievable. Again, these are not things for which someone can--or that I expect anyone to--warn. Even so, if I'm already in a precarious place in my head, these can nudge me into a deeper depression and even into wanting to hurt myself in relatively passive ways (eating badly/not eating/otherwise not taking care of myself, and the like).
Most of my serious triggers are things I encounter either IRL or in auditory or visual material, and so I monitor very carefully what I watch and what TV shows and movies I see. I rely on reviews, friends, searches, summaries, etc., to be able to decide what I think I can handle.
The worst failure of my monitoring system (which was in its infancy and established in large part due to this incident) was with The Piano. A couple of friends had highly recommended it, saying it was hot and sexy and brilliant and I should go with Husband (b/f then) because I'd come out of it wanting to JUMP him. Lots. So we went--yay, date.
But in the movie, Holly Hunter's character was stripped of all choices by the (admittedly mostly well-meaning) men in her life. Her wishes and needs were disregarded in the interests of things "looking all fine" on the surface of things. She was sexually manipulated to get back the one thing that truly mattered to her, her piano, her one mode of expression. She was asked to prostitute herself for it. Then she had sex with the man who was manipulating her...and my friends found this sexy while I was horrified. She was trapped, used, manipulated, had her most precious possessions and outlets taken without a thought...and when Sam Neill found out, he flew into a rage, held her head down with a knee, and chopped off her right index finger with a hatchet then made her daughter deliver the finger to the lover.
I saw that and I couldn't catch my breath. I wanted to crawl through the back of the movie theater seat to get farther from that visceral anger, from the person with the hatchet who would DO that to another human being, even in his anger and betrayal, who could PERMANENTLY INJURE her over his hurt pride. But I couldn't move except to shake violently. The image was caught in my head and played over and over through the rest of the movie and I couldn't understand why anything that followed happened or why she would STAY with the man who had sexually manipulated her (though I totally understood her leaving Sam Neill!). I could see nothing "tender" or "sexy" about Harvey Keitel making her strip, exposing himself to her, ransoming her piano piece by piece for her body. I could understand why she would strip away bits of herself to get that one thing back...but NOT how ANYONE could find it sexy.
And I couldn't move. And when the credits were over, I still couldn't breathe properly and I was still shaking and I was still freaking out and going over and over and perseverating on that scene and the spurting blood and the expression of complete and utter shock--psychological and physical--on her face and talking and talking about it. We left the theatre, and I was literally dazed. I couldn't stop shaking, could only stand and HOLD my husband-b/f-at-the-time and SHAKE. He was considering leaving my car there (we'd arrived separately) because he was afraid to let me drive because I couldn't stop shaking and wasn't making sense. After about fifteen minutes, I got coherent enough to drive, just to get back to his place, but I was dazed, confused, upset for the rest of the night and I OBSESSED for YEARS trying to figure out what was so upsetting to me about it and why others were turned on. Over three years later, a friend played the (GORGEOUS!) soundtrack, and I was up all night again, caught back up in that dazed confusion and shakiness. The music put me right back there. These things are powerful, physically, mentally, and they linger.
I had a similarly visceral response years later when I saw part of an ep of Nikita where they (the "good" guys!) cut off someone's finger as part of an interrogation and told him that if he'd talk, they'd get him to a hospital to reattach it. I never let anyone watch even BITS of that around me ever again, I was so freaked. The layers of betrayal and family weirdness and betrayal on Alias was another thing I knew would push my buttons and I've never watched it. Similarly: Friday Night Lights. I grew up in a small town where the high school sports teams were The Big Thing...and going back there...not entertainment for me. This is not to say that these are not good shows. I'm sure they are...and that actually makes it WORSE...because if they're well done, they'll push my buttons that much harder, so I choose to stay away. Similarly, if I read the "Rated R for ____" about a movie and the list includes things that I'm pretty sure will upset me, or it's Just Too Real, I often avoid it. I do the same with fanfic; we get summaries, labels, and such on movies, TV, books...I don't see a difference in fanfic as a medium where warnings/labels would be part of what we get and use in our culture.
My first year at my current job, our principal mandated that we all attend a weeks-long writing workshop after school. The woman running the workshop had an assignment she thought was BRILLIANT. She said that we were all to "Think of the most frightening experience you've ever had," then share with the other two in our group, then the group was to pick one of the three stories and everyone was to write that story in 1st person. My first thought was "When Jason tried to kill me," and I cut that thought off and refused to consider it or run it in my head or picture it or anything. Even so, just that one passing thought was enough to derail me for over two weeks.
I couldn't get out of the meetings; they were mandated by my job. I couldn't get out of the room: that would call attention to me. I kept my face hard and rigid and locked away how I felt, and told the group I couldn't think of anything appropriate to share, they accepted it and we used someone else's story. But my stomach was flipping around and my heartrate had shot up and I was breathing rapidly and I was panicking. I told the woman in charge I didn't think this was a very good idea and she refused even to listen to me. I tried the next week to suggest that it was perhaps not SAFE to make that suggestion to a roomful of strangers, who might have very BAD frightening experiences, and she insisted that fear produces stronger memories and therefore better sensory memories for people to use in writing and that she still thought it was great. When it had been two weeks and I was still shaking all the time and still panicked and still freaking out, I told her that was how it had affected me. She said, "You've had a traumatic experience, haven't you?" I said, terrified, "Yes," though I'd never admitted those words applied, and said that there were LOTS of others for whom this would be an issue and who would be thrown for as bad a loop as I had been, if not worse. She said that, no, it wasn't a concern because the exercise was always successful and I was just a special case and asking for a funny or embarrasing or joyful momnet wasn't a better idea. So she recognized my response, how LONG the impact was being, WHY I was responding that way, and then told me that HER EXERCISE was more important than my three weeks of solid panic and messed-up sleep, all the while trying to teach classes.
This is what happens when someone who has been traumatized is told that THEY are the problem and that they should just get over themselves and that there's no need for warnings or for compassion. Labeling fic helps to give people the power to avoid triggers. I shut down my memories immediately. I didn't share it or re-live it, and yet my visceral terror and panic were already triggered by "most frightening experience" and I was TRAPPED there...I couldn't avoid hearing it, I couldn't stop attending. If someone opens a fic that doesn't have the warnings and runs into a trigger that could easily have been warned against, the damage may already be done even AS that person is closing the window.
A principal and a half later, our new guy wanted to bring discussions of race to the table. He did not do a particularly good job introducing the topic and the scholarly terms and defining how he was using terms, in spite of volunteering to educate folks on the aspects of race that many of us did not understand (for the record, he's white and around my age, and I'm also white). One of the activities that he thought would be helpful was watching the film The Color of Fear. (There is an interesting discussion of it here.) He had specifically asked me to participate and I did not know if this was because he believed I was an ally or because he believed I needed to be educated. He was new. I felt I needed to make a good impression. I also really wanted to learn more so that I would have a better sense of what was sensitive and insensitive and so that I would be a better teacher.
The day we were to watch the film, the principal suddenly couldn't be there, so, leaving a series of reflection questions with one participant, he had the group of us sit alone and watch. I started out with my knees drawn up and was shrunk down hiding behind them. A bit into the film and the discussion, one of the men became very angry and started screaming and cursing and gesturing violently. If he had been deliberately imitating Jason in a rage, it could not have been more similar. I freaked out and had to close my eyes so at least I wasn't looking at his body language but the shouting went on and on for two or three minutes, it seemed. I sat and cried silently and rocked and my heart pounded and I squeezed at my arm with my fingernails until I had little red crescents all over my wrist. I didn't want my colleagues to know how badly I was losing it, to think of me not as a grown-up. The same man had another outburst in the 2nd 30 minutes and I just covered my face. I felt like I could feel that anger vibrating right through me hitting me like a wave. I was facing the TV with my eyes closed and I still felt it going through and making my back shudder. And it's like radiation--it's everywhere, and you can't go somewhere or get behind something where it's not.
I realized later that I'd been thrown so completely back into being trapped and terrified that I'd been frozen in place. When people asked why, if I was so upset, I didn't just leave, I was perplexed. It didn't even occur to me that I could leave. I was triggered by the reminder of Jason--the matching behaviours and the noise--and to feel that trapped, it was like sitting on that sofa, feeling trapped, afraid for my life, being kicked over and over. Then it was made worse secondarily by being told that it was my own fault, that I should have left, that I was over-reacting, that I was just having a personality conflict with the person who chose the film, not that it was actually problematic for me to see. And although I blogged and talked and went to my therapist and baked and DID...by the weekend I was in such a deep depression and utter despair and an ongoing panic that I couldn't derail any of it and was trying to hurt myself (mostly by trying to draw blood from my arm with my fingernails, something that didn't work) that weekend and hiding even from friends--at a con!--and refusing to eat and sleeping constantly. It was weeks before I regained ANY equilibrium.
When I took a German film class a year and a half later, one of the films they were going to was was Michael Haenecke's Funny Games. Once the teacher described it as being about two psychotics taking a family hostage, holding them captive, and perpetrating sadistic, cruel, torturous "games" on them...I knew I couldn't watch it, and I told the professor so. I got a note from my counselor to make sure that the professor didn't get accused of favoritism, and I did not watch the movie, did my work on the other films, and kept myself safer. I couldn't have done that without the summary and labels on the film that showed me it would screw me up.
Things that seem small may be huge to those of us who have triggers. There was a man at an opera showcase night at a restaurant who was singing amongst the tables, sitting at tables and serenading folks...and he sat at the table with my friend and me. He teased, while singing, about eating my dessert. Then he tried to touch me, this strange man who'd sat at our table and was performing with the manner of "Oh, aren't I SO SEXY and don't you just WANT ME." I freaked. My friend said that I nearly TELEPORTED backwards in my chair as I scooted it backwards to get out of reach. Strange men, behaving sexually (in the BROADEST definition of the term), reaching for me, even in a public environment with friends who I know have vouched for this guy...but I panicked. I was shaky and edgy and tense for the rest of the evening. He couldn't have known about me...but he COULD, perhaps, have read my leaning back, tensing, leery, cautious body language, and not tried to get me to play along anyway.
These flare-ups, incidents, spells, things--whatever you call them--are miserable. They are drains on me, my family, my coworkers, everyone around me...and there's never any telling how long it will last this time--a day? a week? three weeks? two months?--or how bad it will get--depression? not eating? not getting out of bed?--or anything else about it. And every time, it's a depressing, despairing reminder that this will never, ever, ever be over no matter how well it seems I'm doing or how long it's been since I was last triggered. Between every time, there is that vain hope that maybe it won't happen again. Then EVERY time, I wonder what I haven't done well enough to "get over it" (made, of course, worse by people who ASK why I haven't "gotten over it" like it's the flu), how I could have avoided the trigger, why I am still bothered, why this thing, why this time, whether I'm going to set an example for my kids where they are impacted by this in a terrible way, whether my husband is going to be fed up this time and be DONE (which I don't truly think will be the case, but I fear it nonetheless), whether THIS is going to be the time everyone is just DONE with sympathizing and putting up with me through these spells because MY GOD how could it be worth dealing with this irregularly when you don't have to (and I have to because I have no way out).
And when a SINGLE person EVER says, "Well, *I* shouldn't have to take care of fragile little you," or "Your feelings aren't real," or "Your feelings aren't as important as my fanfic," or "You just shouldn't have looked," or "Then don't be in fandom if you can't take it" (oh, I see...if someone hurt me and took away my safety and equilibrium, I should HAVE TO give up my hobby and enjoyment as well...that makes sense), or "You should get a thicker skin," or "You just shouldn't LET yourself be bothered," to me or anyone else who has triggers other people GAVE to us by INJURING us--often over and over--I'm just disgusted and furious and hurt. Because all those things things blame ME all over again, just like happened when I was being hurt...but now they're being done by a community that I chose for the way it included me.
Like I said, I rarely have trouble with fanfic. Some shows I don't go near. I do a lot of self-filtering. But to hear folks say, "I can be harmed by a lack of labels on these types of stories," and to have anyone in fandom say, "Like *I* care," means that those people don't care about MY health either, that they don't care that I could be thrown into one of the downward spirals I talk about above any more than they care about the person who IS bothered by the fic. And that kind of disregard is unworthy of ANYONE.
ETA: This has been left unlcoked so that it may be linked and shared as anyone wishes, if anyone feels it would help someone understand the concept, help someone with fic, help someone feel less alone, give any kind of insight, etc.
The things that are easy-to-think-of "probably be sure to warn for these" would be: rape, sexual violence, sexual harassment, dubious consent/grey sex (even though I think dubious consent = lack of clear and proper consent and that this is, resultantly, NON-consensual), torture, beatings, abduction/restraint, abuse (physical, psychological, sexual), cutting, eating disorders (I can SPEAK for how easily triggered THOSE issues can be), forced confinement/institutionalization, or implied or references to same. I'm sure there are others, but those are the ones that seem "obvious" to me as I go through my own stuff and the stuff of friends.
I was going to list the handful of things I saw on TV/in movies that I was TOTALLY and VERY BADLY triggered by and how that felt and why it is important to me to try and safeguard myself and why I rely on others' reviews and labels to help me. It is possible that this post, which discusses depression, PTSD, abuse, fear, flashbacks, sexual assault (minor), and self injury (minor) may be triggering. Proceed with caution for yourself. I don't know if this is anything new or has anything to add, and I'm a bit behind on the discussions, but, perhaps this will help clarify to some folks, though I think impertinence already reached most of those who are going to be reached.
This is a discussion of my personal triggers. They do not apply to everyone (or, perhaps, anyone), but perhaps this will help it make sense to someone, though I think that Impertinence did far better than I will.
First, my qualifications to speak (since folks have seemed, in some discussions, to question various folks' authority and knowledge):
1. I have official diagnoses from professionals of: PTSD, Asperger Syndrome, depression, anxiety, generalized anxiety disorder, dysthymia, and an eating disorder. I have had all of these diagnoses for upwards of four years now, and have HAD these conditions for the following number of approximate years: PTSD (25), AS (39), depression/anxiety/GAD/dysthymia (25), ED (15). You'll note that the depression et al and the PTSD match in length. Hmmmm. I have OCD tendencies which, along with the tendencies toward depression and anxiety definitely run in my maternal biological family, and which are also common for Aspies (see: Sheldon Cooper).
2. I spent much of 14 years being bullied and harassed (to varying degrees at various times) by my 4-years-younger brother (and, yes, there's DEFINITELY shame in being the Big Sister who's scared of her Little Brother). At the height of his worst days, he attacked me with a bowie knife in my living room while he stood over me, turning purple and screaming, "I'm going to kill you! You're on my death list!" while he kicked my legs and stormed and raged.
3. I spent 11 years being harassed and bullied on the school bus in ways verbal, psychological, and physical.
4. I spent 11-13 years being harassed and bullied at school, to varying degrees, sometimes in the classroom, often in the halls and lunch room, often in P.E., often on the playground, for being "different," "weird," "a teacher's pet," "too smart," "disgusting," "annoying," "out of fashion," ...you name it. I learned early on that there were two kinds of kids who got back papers/tests and immediately flipped them upside down, peering carefully and discreetly at their grade: the kids who were failing and the kids with over 95%. I was spied on in the bathrooms. Rumors were spread that I was having sex, that I'd gotten pregnant and had an abortion. I had kids follow me down hallways and stick me in the butt with straight pins.
5. A preacher at my church fondled my breast when I was 13 or 14 (only once, through my clothes rather than under) when we were driving alone back from a church event. A kid at the jr. high trapped me in a music practice room and made sexually explicit threats sometime in that same time period.
6. Since I was 17, I've seen eleven different therapists. I've read a staggering pile of books and articles on Asperger Syndrome, PTSD, trauma, dysfunctional families, impact on families of a child having a disability, and on and on. I've been in near-continuous therapy for the past five or six years. I'm on a brain med cocktail that includes anti-depressants (Paxil, then Prozac, now Lexapro) and anti-anxieties (buspar and xanax daily), and that's not always adequate.
Background of my ISSUES
The preacher fondling me in the car stands out as NOT traumatic for me. I was scared and uncomfortable, but I wrote him a letter to tell him that I'd tell other adults if anything like that happened again because it was WRONG...and nothing happened. I felt entirely empowered by MY action having the desired results.
Conversely, with all my fears that grew out of the bullying on the bus and at school, I was told, over and over, "If you would ignore them, they would stop," "You need to get a thicker skin," "Don't LET them get to you," and other standard issue comments that said, underneath, that *I* was in control and if *I* did the "right" thing, it would be All Better, which I understood to mean I wasn't doing the Right Thing, so it was my fault. I went to teachers, bus drivers, parents, friends, church people...nothing.
So, by the time I was being pricked with pins in the butt in the hallways and was threatened in the music room, I knew what I had to be able to do to get help from an adult. I knew I had to have names, faces, times, details, and an explanation of my impeccable and unimpeachable behavior which meant that I had neither done/said/looked funny/anything else that could be deemed to have "started it" nor could I have responded with emotion or without checking with an adult first.
I was, in junior high, actively avoiding other kids. I used the swings where no one was, so the day that I was smart-mouthing a kid who was picking on me and she slapped my face so hard that, with the chilly weather, my plastic-framed glasses broke, well, I had participated in the argument and I didn't tell school folks and begged my mom not to call the kid's mom.
When two bus routes had to be combined one day so there was ONLY a seat at the back and the kids (who had told me I wasn't allowed back there eight years prior) taunted me, called me a bitch, crumpled cigarettes in my hair, and threatened to set my hair on fire, I was horrified to have to talk to the principal to keep my dad from doing so...and even more horrified that I had to say "bitch" out loud to tell the principal what the kids had said. I never knew if anything happened to them, and I was terrified that they would take revenge on me.
When I was hiding from lunch recess by slipping into music practice rooms and doing my violin practice safely away from other students, and a boy I didn't know came in and leaned against the wall by the door, I ignored him (like I'd been told). I ignored him when he said, "You should get a pimp." I ignored him when he kept talking. I was terrified. Terrified that he'd break the violin my parents had paid so much for. Terrified if I moved or left or tried to leave that he'd touch me or try to stop me or that it would be seen as instigating something. So I ignored him as he continued taunting. I ignored him as he said, "I know when and where you're going to be raped and I'm going to be there watching." I ignored him while he left, and then put away my violin and sneaked out, watching for him. But I couldn't identify him. I hadn't looked at him because that might have been not-ignoring and because that might have angered him (and then it would have been "my fault" that he escalated things). I didn't know him. I looked through my previous year's yearbook, but all the faces blended together and I couldn't tell which he was or even if his photo was in there.
And since, at age 13, I knew that without a name, without a description that was useful, without data, the adults certainly couldn't help when they wouldn't when I DID have that information...I never told. I figured the ONLY possible outcome would be that *I* would get in trouble for being there practicing where I'd thought it would be safer than on the under supervised playground with the kids who treated me this way.
By age 13, I had learned that telling adults got me in trouble and did not get me help and that it wasn't worth reporting incidents like the above, and that anything precious could be lost or taken or destroyed or threatened and I was sure that the others would get away with it and that I would probably either get in trouble or told how I'd done things wrong. Let me say this again: before I was *13* years old, I already felt it was useless to ask for help when I as abused/assaulted/bullied; I already thought I was helpless and that it was hopeless to ask for backup. At 13. And that's older than some folks gave up.
After I got home everyday from being afraid in the hallways, afraid on the bus, taunted both places most days, I'd walk up the hill to my house, knowing that I would spend the time till bedtime being taunted and baited and mocked by my brother. There were many, many days I DID "ignore him"...some days for 2-3 hours. He would persist obsessively. If I even said, "Would you STOP it?" once my dad got home (he was, of course, never there for the HOURS leading up to me yelling for it to stop), I would get in trouble for yelling, for "setting a bad example," and for being mean to my brother. When I taught myself sign language at age 13, I took great pleasure in the fact that although my brother could still making fun of me for talking the television, he could no longer comment on the content. That was a victory for me--to have some part of it that was just mine, even if I was still being harassed.
When I was 15 and my brother Jason was 11, he was pestering me after school, and I was being a smart-ass back (see--my fault again). I was sitting on the sofa, my other brother in the rocking chair to my right, and Jason standing in front of me. He lost it. He pulled out his bowie knife (probably something similar to this) and raised it over his head, screaming at me, face turning purple, kicking my legs over and over, and shouting, "You're on my death list! I'm going to kill you! I'm going to kill you!" I remember thinking, "Well, if he stabs me, Andy's here, so he could call an ambulance and I might have a chance." I don't remember Jason stopping or why or anything. I remember hearing the back screen door close. I remember Andy saying, "WHAT was THAT?" I remember being in my room with the door closed and locked, having followed my procedure (yes, I had a procedure for this, it was that frequent) of removing breakable things from the wall so that if Jason returned and tried to break down my door (again...or beat on it with a tack hammer...again), the things wouldn't fall and break. I don't remember GOING to my room, though I remember that I took the route clockwise around the center of the house. I remember writing in my diary, trying to work up anger or indignation or some feeling. For the most part, though, I was relieved, and even hopeful: I thought maybe, just maybe, people would believe me that Jason was dangerous, would believe I had good reason to consider him so, and believe that something needed to be done. I remember the discussions--first my story, then his, then Andy's, then mine--as my parents interviewed us separately to get the story. I remember telling them I was angry. I remember them telling me that I should avoid antagonizing Jason because he was mentally ill and unstable (duh!), so I should never cross his path and ignore him. I remember that he "didn't like" counseling, and they didn't think it was helping, so he stopped after 1-2 months. So much for the glimmer of hope. That helplessness, that sense that there was NO WAY I could be good enough, do well enough, try enough, to make things okay, and that somehow it was my fault because I hadn't found that answer...just further reinforced by this.
Triggers
One of my triggers is the name "Jason." I cringe when I hear it, see it, read it, sometimes even when I say it. I get chills and I feel like my blood runs cold. I shake. I have two colleagues by that name...and I never call them by their given name. I had one friend I was going to be betaing for who was giving a name to an unnamed figure in the series canon, and had chosen "Jason," and I asked her if she could please maybe make the name something else. She, very kindly, did so. I have a good friend with a neighbor whose name is Jason...and I'm uncomfortable around him--even though he's perfectly nice and we have a lot in common--and try to pretend it's not his name. But I pull away a bit.
In fic, I don't expect this name never to show up. I don't expect warnings or labels. This is not a common thing. It's mine. And I try to stay away, but, well, I encounter it sometimes, and, with lots of meds and therapy, the DURATION of me being thrown tends to be shorter now.
I'm lucky. Despite the above, I can read most things and have little trouble with the reading. Most of the stuff folks would warn for in writing and fanfic doesn't trigger me. The things that bother me most are the irrevocable losses of something precious, especially when it's sacrificed for something that's going to be lost or unappreciated anyway...sort of like how my needs and well-being and how *I* was sacrificed to the status quo and because I "looked okay" and was behaving and getting good grades...and so things that were precious to me were taken away and expended somewhere they were both never appreciated and that energy and those things were expended on folks who were not even appreciative. So when Buffy's Umbrella of Protection was broken, I was terribly upset. In "Gift of the Magi" I am not upset by Della's hair--it'll grow back, sad though it is then--but by the loss of Jim's grandfather's watch, which they may NEVER get back. In The Shoeshine Girl I'm devastated when the shoeshine guy gives his one medal he ever won to the girl...who has said mean things about it because she's going to miss him and can't bring herself to say that...and so she's left with the guilt of having yelled as her last exchange, the guilt of his forgiveness, and he's left without a thanks and without that memorial. When the Feds in Thunderheart destroy the thousand-year-old turtleshell rattle, I'm devastated. These don't trigger me as badly as the things I'm going to list below; these are like mini triggers that make my chest feel tight and empty, that make me feel hopeless, that make me feel all over again like *I* have lost something precious, something irretrievable. Again, these are not things for which someone can--or that I expect anyone to--warn. Even so, if I'm already in a precarious place in my head, these can nudge me into a deeper depression and even into wanting to hurt myself in relatively passive ways (eating badly/not eating/otherwise not taking care of myself, and the like).
Most of my serious triggers are things I encounter either IRL or in auditory or visual material, and so I monitor very carefully what I watch and what TV shows and movies I see. I rely on reviews, friends, searches, summaries, etc., to be able to decide what I think I can handle.
The worst failure of my monitoring system (which was in its infancy and established in large part due to this incident) was with The Piano. A couple of friends had highly recommended it, saying it was hot and sexy and brilliant and I should go with Husband (b/f then) because I'd come out of it wanting to JUMP him. Lots. So we went--yay, date.
But in the movie, Holly Hunter's character was stripped of all choices by the (admittedly mostly well-meaning) men in her life. Her wishes and needs were disregarded in the interests of things "looking all fine" on the surface of things. She was sexually manipulated to get back the one thing that truly mattered to her, her piano, her one mode of expression. She was asked to prostitute herself for it. Then she had sex with the man who was manipulating her...and my friends found this sexy while I was horrified. She was trapped, used, manipulated, had her most precious possessions and outlets taken without a thought...and when Sam Neill found out, he flew into a rage, held her head down with a knee, and chopped off her right index finger with a hatchet then made her daughter deliver the finger to the lover.
I saw that and I couldn't catch my breath. I wanted to crawl through the back of the movie theater seat to get farther from that visceral anger, from the person with the hatchet who would DO that to another human being, even in his anger and betrayal, who could PERMANENTLY INJURE her over his hurt pride. But I couldn't move except to shake violently. The image was caught in my head and played over and over through the rest of the movie and I couldn't understand why anything that followed happened or why she would STAY with the man who had sexually manipulated her (though I totally understood her leaving Sam Neill!). I could see nothing "tender" or "sexy" about Harvey Keitel making her strip, exposing himself to her, ransoming her piano piece by piece for her body. I could understand why she would strip away bits of herself to get that one thing back...but NOT how ANYONE could find it sexy.
And I couldn't move. And when the credits were over, I still couldn't breathe properly and I was still shaking and I was still freaking out and going over and over and perseverating on that scene and the spurting blood and the expression of complete and utter shock--psychological and physical--on her face and talking and talking about it. We left the theatre, and I was literally dazed. I couldn't stop shaking, could only stand and HOLD my husband-b/f-at-the-time and SHAKE. He was considering leaving my car there (we'd arrived separately) because he was afraid to let me drive because I couldn't stop shaking and wasn't making sense. After about fifteen minutes, I got coherent enough to drive, just to get back to his place, but I was dazed, confused, upset for the rest of the night and I OBSESSED for YEARS trying to figure out what was so upsetting to me about it and why others were turned on. Over three years later, a friend played the (GORGEOUS!) soundtrack, and I was up all night again, caught back up in that dazed confusion and shakiness. The music put me right back there. These things are powerful, physically, mentally, and they linger.
I had a similarly visceral response years later when I saw part of an ep of Nikita where they (the "good" guys!) cut off someone's finger as part of an interrogation and told him that if he'd talk, they'd get him to a hospital to reattach it. I never let anyone watch even BITS of that around me ever again, I was so freaked. The layers of betrayal and family weirdness and betrayal on Alias was another thing I knew would push my buttons and I've never watched it. Similarly: Friday Night Lights. I grew up in a small town where the high school sports teams were The Big Thing...and going back there...not entertainment for me. This is not to say that these are not good shows. I'm sure they are...and that actually makes it WORSE...because if they're well done, they'll push my buttons that much harder, so I choose to stay away. Similarly, if I read the "Rated R for ____" about a movie and the list includes things that I'm pretty sure will upset me, or it's Just Too Real, I often avoid it. I do the same with fanfic; we get summaries, labels, and such on movies, TV, books...I don't see a difference in fanfic as a medium where warnings/labels would be part of what we get and use in our culture.
My first year at my current job, our principal mandated that we all attend a weeks-long writing workshop after school. The woman running the workshop had an assignment she thought was BRILLIANT. She said that we were all to "Think of the most frightening experience you've ever had," then share with the other two in our group, then the group was to pick one of the three stories and everyone was to write that story in 1st person. My first thought was "When Jason tried to kill me," and I cut that thought off and refused to consider it or run it in my head or picture it or anything. Even so, just that one passing thought was enough to derail me for over two weeks.
I couldn't get out of the meetings; they were mandated by my job. I couldn't get out of the room: that would call attention to me. I kept my face hard and rigid and locked away how I felt, and told the group I couldn't think of anything appropriate to share, they accepted it and we used someone else's story. But my stomach was flipping around and my heartrate had shot up and I was breathing rapidly and I was panicking. I told the woman in charge I didn't think this was a very good idea and she refused even to listen to me. I tried the next week to suggest that it was perhaps not SAFE to make that suggestion to a roomful of strangers, who might have very BAD frightening experiences, and she insisted that fear produces stronger memories and therefore better sensory memories for people to use in writing and that she still thought it was great. When it had been two weeks and I was still shaking all the time and still panicked and still freaking out, I told her that was how it had affected me. She said, "You've had a traumatic experience, haven't you?" I said, terrified, "Yes," though I'd never admitted those words applied, and said that there were LOTS of others for whom this would be an issue and who would be thrown for as bad a loop as I had been, if not worse. She said that, no, it wasn't a concern because the exercise was always successful and I was just a special case and asking for a funny or embarrasing or joyful momnet wasn't a better idea. So she recognized my response, how LONG the impact was being, WHY I was responding that way, and then told me that HER EXERCISE was more important than my three weeks of solid panic and messed-up sleep, all the while trying to teach classes.
This is what happens when someone who has been traumatized is told that THEY are the problem and that they should just get over themselves and that there's no need for warnings or for compassion. Labeling fic helps to give people the power to avoid triggers. I shut down my memories immediately. I didn't share it or re-live it, and yet my visceral terror and panic were already triggered by "most frightening experience" and I was TRAPPED there...I couldn't avoid hearing it, I couldn't stop attending. If someone opens a fic that doesn't have the warnings and runs into a trigger that could easily have been warned against, the damage may already be done even AS that person is closing the window.
A principal and a half later, our new guy wanted to bring discussions of race to the table. He did not do a particularly good job introducing the topic and the scholarly terms and defining how he was using terms, in spite of volunteering to educate folks on the aspects of race that many of us did not understand (for the record, he's white and around my age, and I'm also white). One of the activities that he thought would be helpful was watching the film The Color of Fear. (There is an interesting discussion of it here.) He had specifically asked me to participate and I did not know if this was because he believed I was an ally or because he believed I needed to be educated. He was new. I felt I needed to make a good impression. I also really wanted to learn more so that I would have a better sense of what was sensitive and insensitive and so that I would be a better teacher.
The day we were to watch the film, the principal suddenly couldn't be there, so, leaving a series of reflection questions with one participant, he had the group of us sit alone and watch. I started out with my knees drawn up and was shrunk down hiding behind them. A bit into the film and the discussion, one of the men became very angry and started screaming and cursing and gesturing violently. If he had been deliberately imitating Jason in a rage, it could not have been more similar. I freaked out and had to close my eyes so at least I wasn't looking at his body language but the shouting went on and on for two or three minutes, it seemed. I sat and cried silently and rocked and my heart pounded and I squeezed at my arm with my fingernails until I had little red crescents all over my wrist. I didn't want my colleagues to know how badly I was losing it, to think of me not as a grown-up. The same man had another outburst in the 2nd 30 minutes and I just covered my face. I felt like I could feel that anger vibrating right through me hitting me like a wave. I was facing the TV with my eyes closed and I still felt it going through and making my back shudder. And it's like radiation--it's everywhere, and you can't go somewhere or get behind something where it's not.
I realized later that I'd been thrown so completely back into being trapped and terrified that I'd been frozen in place. When people asked why, if I was so upset, I didn't just leave, I was perplexed. It didn't even occur to me that I could leave. I was triggered by the reminder of Jason--the matching behaviours and the noise--and to feel that trapped, it was like sitting on that sofa, feeling trapped, afraid for my life, being kicked over and over. Then it was made worse secondarily by being told that it was my own fault, that I should have left, that I was over-reacting, that I was just having a personality conflict with the person who chose the film, not that it was actually problematic for me to see. And although I blogged and talked and went to my therapist and baked and DID...by the weekend I was in such a deep depression and utter despair and an ongoing panic that I couldn't derail any of it and was trying to hurt myself (mostly by trying to draw blood from my arm with my fingernails, something that didn't work) that weekend and hiding even from friends--at a con!--and refusing to eat and sleeping constantly. It was weeks before I regained ANY equilibrium.
When I took a German film class a year and a half later, one of the films they were going to was was Michael Haenecke's Funny Games. Once the teacher described it as being about two psychotics taking a family hostage, holding them captive, and perpetrating sadistic, cruel, torturous "games" on them...I knew I couldn't watch it, and I told the professor so. I got a note from my counselor to make sure that the professor didn't get accused of favoritism, and I did not watch the movie, did my work on the other films, and kept myself safer. I couldn't have done that without the summary and labels on the film that showed me it would screw me up.
Things that seem small may be huge to those of us who have triggers. There was a man at an opera showcase night at a restaurant who was singing amongst the tables, sitting at tables and serenading folks...and he sat at the table with my friend and me. He teased, while singing, about eating my dessert. Then he tried to touch me, this strange man who'd sat at our table and was performing with the manner of "Oh, aren't I SO SEXY and don't you just WANT ME." I freaked. My friend said that I nearly TELEPORTED backwards in my chair as I scooted it backwards to get out of reach. Strange men, behaving sexually (in the BROADEST definition of the term), reaching for me, even in a public environment with friends who I know have vouched for this guy...but I panicked. I was shaky and edgy and tense for the rest of the evening. He couldn't have known about me...but he COULD, perhaps, have read my leaning back, tensing, leery, cautious body language, and not tried to get me to play along anyway.
These flare-ups, incidents, spells, things--whatever you call them--are miserable. They are drains on me, my family, my coworkers, everyone around me...and there's never any telling how long it will last this time--a day? a week? three weeks? two months?--or how bad it will get--depression? not eating? not getting out of bed?--or anything else about it. And every time, it's a depressing, despairing reminder that this will never, ever, ever be over no matter how well it seems I'm doing or how long it's been since I was last triggered. Between every time, there is that vain hope that maybe it won't happen again. Then EVERY time, I wonder what I haven't done well enough to "get over it" (made, of course, worse by people who ASK why I haven't "gotten over it" like it's the flu), how I could have avoided the trigger, why I am still bothered, why this thing, why this time, whether I'm going to set an example for my kids where they are impacted by this in a terrible way, whether my husband is going to be fed up this time and be DONE (which I don't truly think will be the case, but I fear it nonetheless), whether THIS is going to be the time everyone is just DONE with sympathizing and putting up with me through these spells because MY GOD how could it be worth dealing with this irregularly when you don't have to (and I have to because I have no way out).
And when a SINGLE person EVER says, "Well, *I* shouldn't have to take care of fragile little you," or "Your feelings aren't real," or "Your feelings aren't as important as my fanfic," or "You just shouldn't have looked," or "Then don't be in fandom if you can't take it" (oh, I see...if someone hurt me and took away my safety and equilibrium, I should HAVE TO give up my hobby and enjoyment as well...that makes sense), or "You should get a thicker skin," or "You just shouldn't LET yourself be bothered," to me or anyone else who has triggers other people GAVE to us by INJURING us--often over and over--I'm just disgusted and furious and hurt. Because all those things things blame ME all over again, just like happened when I was being hurt...but now they're being done by a community that I chose for the way it included me.
Like I said, I rarely have trouble with fanfic. Some shows I don't go near. I do a lot of self-filtering. But to hear folks say, "I can be harmed by a lack of labels on these types of stories," and to have anyone in fandom say, "Like *I* care," means that those people don't care about MY health either, that they don't care that I could be thrown into one of the downward spirals I talk about above any more than they care about the person who IS bothered by the fic. And that kind of disregard is unworthy of ANYONE.
ETA: This has been left unlcoked so that it may be linked and shared as anyone wishes, if anyone feels it would help someone understand the concept, help someone with fic, help someone feel less alone, give any kind of insight, etc.