The real irony of the people who make jokes about being triggered is that they tend to idolize the military/veterans as if combat related PTSD isn’t a real thing that also has triggers. Y’all make fun of the people you call hero’s when you’re making fun of the teenagers with PTSD from non-combat related issues, you can’t separate the two.
Most of the people making fun of triggers are making fun of all the bullshit “”“triggers”“”, as in the people calling a mild uncomfortable feelings triggers.
The problem with making fun of a trigger is you genuinely do not know whether they are ‘mildly uncomfortable’ or if that is a thing that is genuinely causing severe anxiety, depressive episodes, or stress responses. Most of the “““““bullshit”““““ triggers I’ve seen being made fun of are actual trauma survivors who have their trauma associated with something unusual or strange. Because the thing that triggers their PTSD or panic is odd, people, not unlike yourself, are writing them off as “whiny babies” or “triggered sjws” or call their trigger bullshit because they cannot understand the association.
For examples: Sirens are one of my triggers. When I hear sirens I get an immediate panic response. This was due to being in an active war zone as a child (The response is significantly worse if it is an air raid siren or sounds too similar to an air raid siren.). If you didn’t know I was in an active war zone though, it might seem silly to see an adult panic and attempt to get to a safe place because an ambulance, fire truck, or police car went past them.
I have a manager who is triggered by the presence of police. Specifically police, other uniforms are fine (i.e. security in the mall does not set off her panic response). Her trigger is severe, if a police officer talks to her, she starts panicking and sobbing and cannot control it. This is because when she was young, two police officers threatened her repeatedly and psychologically abused her for 6 hours while they tried to find out where her brother was (yes, this was illegal. Her parents were not home at the time, and were unaware she was alone as the brother in question was meant to be watching her). If you didn’t know that story though, it might seem silly to see an adult woman burst into tears and have a panic attack because a cop said ‘hi’ to her.
I have seen posts by an abuse survivor talking about how the sound of a garage door triggered them, due to abuse by a parent. They associated that sound with the abuser returning home and the abuse beginning. The sound became a trigger because their mind associated it to that. I saw another post by a rape survivor talking about how she was triggered by the sight of eggs because she made eggs for her rapist after he’d raped her. Her mind associated eggs with the trauma due to the two being connected at least in her mind.
Brains are weird. Trauma doesn’t make sense. The point is, YOU do not know if someone is ““““bullshitting”“““ or not. You do not know how someones trauma associated itself with something odd, which is something trauma really does all the time and making fun of trauma survivors because you don’t understand the association between their trauma and the item that triggers their ptsd or anxiety is absolutely wrong and absolutely hypocritical if you think any other form of trigger is acceptable or okay. You don’t get to decide other peoples trauma triggers. They didn’t even get to decide them, and to tell someone that you’re okay to make fun of them because what upsets them doesn’t make sense to you is absolutely not okay.
I should note too: Phobia’s are real triggers too. People have panic attacks when exposed to their phobia’s in the wrong way. I need certain pictures tagged because I am absolutely terrified of heights, which is a pretty common phobia. People can have serious phobia’s to everything and anything though, and there are things I am not afraid of that others are that may seem strange to me, but to them are very real and very frightening. Just because it seems odd to you, doesn’t mean it isn’t still real to the person experiencing it.
This post needs a zillion more notes. As a Complex PTSD sufferer I truly hope that people will someday stop policing others’ triggers and health problems as if they have a single clue.
Just BACK OFF and let people LIVE.
I don’t usually like to weigh in on this shit or get all that personal on my art blog, but trigger jokes are something that really bothers me. Not just making fun of people’s triggers, but people who make jokes out of using the word at all.
I’ve had kind of a fucked up experience with life, and most people these days wouldn’t know that about me and it’s taken a lot of work to that point. I am also a person who suffers from PTSD and a parade of bullshit that goes with it. I spent a very large portion of my life not being able to handle it. I could barely exist. It’s taken over a decade of living in hospitals and therapy and drugs and specialists to even just sit on a bus or stand with others at a mall. I’ve lost years of my life to this. I’m largely in control of many of my reactions, but there are, and probably always will be some things that guaranteed will set me off. When this happens you won’t be able to get me back for quite some time and I’m lucky if my reaction to it is as mild as a sobbing break down or quiet disassociation. I live with the understanding that if I am going to ever be close to someone in my life, that I will have to explain to one of my friends something that may be genuinely frightening or upsetting to witness me do. I used to have this word that I could use to explain what is happening to me, or to explain why I need to remove myself from a location or situation.
I really don’t feel like I can use that word anymore. No one takes it seriously. Best case scenario, it doesn’t mean anything to them and they blow me off, worst case, I am actively made fun of, and maybe some joke about “tumblr” or whatever. When I hear someone make “trigger” jokes, what this immediately says to me is that this is not a person I can trust and they will likely always be an emotional outsider to me. They may even register as dangerous depending on the situation.
So what word do I use now? How do I communicate this thing that defines my thoughts and actions every time I go outside? How can I stop feeling like a joke to people who would call themselves my friends? How do I stop hearing that what I’ve been going through for 18 years isn’t just ‘not real’ but a joke to them?
I like to not think that’s what you’re going for when you’re making fun of people who misuse the word. I like to think that you don’t realize that people who joke about it now far outnumber the people who where misusing it.
But you’re not just taking it away from them, you’re taking it away from me.
