I recently saw an actual news article censor the words "sexual" and "molest." Fucking shit hell fuck shit fuck.
ooooh, storytime!
for a while, my husband worked as a call handler for the ambulance service. during his training, they had a talk from someone wanting to introduce new policy and he wanted to use my husband's group as a tester group. fun, right?
well, the talk was about how saying suicide was triggering. if a caller says theyre suicidal, the handlers should say "unalive" instead, because saying the word might actually trigger the suicidal person.
if the caller says they were raped and need help, the handler should say "S A" instead, because rape is triggering.
I don't know about you, but if I phoned up the ambulance service to ask for help because I want to die, I wouldn't want them using tiktok speak and trivialising the issue. I think that would make me less likely to ever ask for help. SAY THE WORDS. how are we supposed to address the problem if we can't even name the fucking problem.
luckily, my husbands main instructor literally said "well, that's fucking stupid" to the man wanting to introduce this policy and it hasn't been implemented. but it might. we are watching language be erased. NAME. THE. PROBLEM.
I wish I were making this up, I wish I could say I was exaggerating. I'm not.
So fun fact, people who are trained in helping to deescalate suicidal people will always say to put it bluntly.
āDo you want to kill yourself?ā
A, it has the benefit of making sure everyone is on the same page. Self-harm and attempting suicide are two different things. You can want to harm yourself without wanting to kill yourself. It can also let you know if the person is passively suicidal or if theyāre in the process of killing themselves.
B, stigmatizing suicide leads to more suicides.
C, you will not cause someone to kill themselves by saying the word suicide. It is not a magic word that speaking the name of will cause someone to jump off a roof.
Also, speaking to causation on this trend (separate from issues of censorship), lay people need to learn what "triggering" actually means.
Because way too many people do not understand the difference between "This word is an activating reminder for something traumatic in my brain and it has a rapid and deeply negative impact on my mental health which may result in dissociation, flashbacks, spiraling, panic attacks, or similarly serious reactions" and "ewww that word makes me UNCOMFYYYYY."
Time to talk about self-harm and abuse again!
When I was working on breaking my self-harm habit, one of the most COMFORTING things was discussing it frankly and openly with a professional. Saying out loud, āIām doing X to myselfā and seeing her just nod like it was no big deal and proceed business as usual with her questions was AMAZING for making myself less shameful im talking about it. The idea that I wasnāt revolting, that my problem was not uncommon, that it was actually a pretty normal response to stress and trauma, made it easier to talk about it and eventually stop doing it.
On the other hand, the WORST therapy session I ever had was with a young man who I presume to have been relatively new and inexperienced in the field because, after confessing I was experiencing symptoms of PTSD related to childhood abuse, instead of asking outright, āwere you physically abused?ā or āwhat were typical punishments in your house?ā, THIS GUY sort of fumbled over his words to ask, āWere you everā¦ā, before flicking his hand in a āstriking someone with a beltā gesture in my general direction.
And because HE wasnāt comfortable using frank and open language, *I* got to deal with being triggered by that! Because GUESS WHAT: SOMEONE PRETENDING THEYāRE HITTING YOU CAN BE UPSETTING TO PHYSICAL ABUSE SURVIVORS
So yeah. Obviously everyone has different triggers and different things that help or make things worse.
But for the love of god, WE HAVE WORDS FOR A REASON
