A note about 'triggers' - another rant.

[emanix]

Note: The following post is NOT likely to be triggering, at least any more so than a toiletry bag, but may offend/upset a few people. It is not, however, a personal attack on anyone, and the blog I am referring to is not on LJ. I just came across yet another blog in which someone uses the term 'triggered' to mean 'somewhat upset/annoyed me'. I'm

Comments

[cheshcat]

THANK YOU. Well said.

I find the co-opting of this phrase by those who are using it casually (in a non-PTSD/non-anxious context) to be immensely insulting to those who actually struggle with the real bio-physical response of a triggering. (Yes, I'm happy to give those with anxiety disorders and phobias the benefit of PTSD allocation. Trauma is trauma; we need not be competitive.)

However, PTSD trauma is (as you indicate) NOT simply everyday discomfort and whinging. It's much more specific as an embodied psychological experience where the experiencee has no or very little control. I find it particularly frustrating when people say things the equivalent of, "X really annoys me because X exists in the first place. Now X is doing some mundane thing and I don't like it, because I should have thought of it first. However, I'll exaggerate how I feel and claim that I feel triggered and this is unfair and I shouldn't be made to feel this way."

Or, even worse, "I went shopping and was totally triggered by the dress the sales clerk had on. It was so adorable!" (What the Hell?!)

Grawr.

I met a psych-theatre guy in New York who does performative therapy with political refugees (shamefully, his name is escaping me at the moment, as he is quite brilliant). He had a fascinating theory: In our grandparents' generation, one exaggerated one's courage. They made their heroic escapades all the more so, even when it referred to little things. They had noble accomplishments, they were brave, they had role models like John Wayne and Clint Eastwood who were rough and tough and made it work...

However, the next generations (ours included) grew up with Jerry Seinfeld and Woody Allen and their ilk, people that exaggerate their suffering, often in ridiculous ways. ("I got splashed by a cab, I spilled my coffee, they ran out of my favourite bagels, can this day possibly get any worse?") Psych-theatre guy thinks we all do this now because we do not get enough validation for our everyday suffering, since we all psychologically do not want to compete (and lose) when faced with the spectre of the Holocaust (Ultimate Suffering). He thinks this is sad, as our everyday challenges and little sufferings are still valid, and deserve some measure of validation, rather than pouring the energy into unsatisfactory self-perpetuation. Of course, this becomes even more of an issue for the vast sections of the survivors' community, when they already feel that seeking validation is like dancing across a mine field.

[emanix]

"I'll exaggerate how I feel and claim that I feel triggered and this is unfair and I shouldn't be made to feel this way."
Oh god, the 'my feelings are your fault and your problem' passive-agressive routine. I didn't even get into that one, and I'll try not to now because I might never stop, but so with you there.

Interesting theory about the different generations. Not sure about the holocaust bit, but I have thought rather often that while the fifties had a whole bunch of things that we don't want to bring back, a bit more of the 'stiff upper lip' attitude, and a bit of general pride in doing good stuff would go a long way right now. It seems like being happy, healthy, brave etc. are all distinctly unfashionable things to be, and people compete to have the worst deal (like all the rows about rape culture and male privilege versus female privilege that I keep tripping over and getting angry at because nearly all of them contain some idiot claiming to be 'triggered' in a way that makes it clear that they actually weren't).

I wonder how much of this is caused (ironically) by the tendency of hyperfeminist types to plonk 'trigger warning' in the title of any post that involves a hint of sensitive topic, without explaining what 'trigger' actually means - thus leading other, dumber, bloggers to make stupid assumptions and run with them.

[emanix]

Hm, being un-PC, and a bit uncharitable there... I should have said 'less well-informed' bloggers, rather than dumber, of course.

[hollykitten]

Don't worry, I don't think that merits having to sit on the naughty step with me ;-)

[blazingrowan]

Mm, that's really interesting: thanks.

Yes: my impression is that there's lots of unnecessary competitiveness, loads of misunderstanding around trying to use similar scales for suffering (death vs. Oxford, for example)... I'm not sure about rooting this all in Ultimate Suffering as embodied by the Shoah - it seems more general and everyday, and in particular rooted in peer competition.

It seems to squick me particularly because we have no option but to trust peoples' own truth for themselves, and trust in their good faith in not exaggerating and attention-seeking unnecessarily, and there seems to be so much potential there for removing help and validation from people who really need it. I think the only way to tackle that is to emphasise the need to *not* be unnecessarily noisy about this, and that could silence those who do need help, and argh we're going in circles...

[emanix]

there's lots of unnecessary competitiveness, loads of misunderstanding around trying to use similar scales for suffering (death vs. Oxford, for example)
Gosh yes, and it is hard to not get into these arguments. I hesitated to make this post in the first place, because it was precisely not what I was after. I have no interest in competing with anyone, and in fact often avoid making mention of my own experiences with this stuff because I'm sure there are people who are/have been worse off than myself. I should add that the ex-partner in the 'oxford' anecdote is still someone I care about, and I had no wish to see that innocence taken away (still don't) - only for him to understand that he *was*, in many ways, an innocent. I'm aware, constantly, that there are plenty of things I haven't experienced, and I try to respect that in my dealings with other people.

I'm aware that people react in a diverse range of ways to the same events, and that people genuinely can feel triggered by things others find perfectly innocuous (the reason I included the toiletry bag story as an illustration of this), and indeed will almost certainly draw different lines as to what constitutes 'triggered' and what doesn't. What bugs me isn't that, but people who are using the term in contexts where they themselves make it clear that they weren't in fact overwhelmed in any way, which I feel is unfair to everyone - maybe someday they will genuinely have a reaction that overwhelms them completely, and there will be no word left to describe it because they've overused that one so much.