TRIGGER WARNINGS: May Contain Triggers.

How do we feel about them? I’m sure we all have an opinion and I’m sure it differs wildly. I understand their use, their need, but are we a little too liberal with them?

I think the starting point (for me) would be to consider that it often nannies us, doesn't give us enough agency to make up our own minds. There’s a tagline illustrating the content. It's usually implicit in the opening paragraph what it's about, and we can decide from there. I don’t like it when things are fully described, it's like a far too long trailer; I want a teaser, not most of the plot! But that’s just my opinion and you KNOW what they say about opinions.

Trigger warnings came about as a response to PTSD, called shellshock at the time, as early as 1918 and thereafter attributed to war veterans. During the 90’s it spread out through academia and later online on blogs and feminist websites to protect people from potentially upsetting content.

But how much warning do we need? We ALL have our own shit to deal with and it is just that, our own shit. Life can be entered into with too much caution sometimes - this I’ve learned to my cost over the years. Sometimes you need to boldly and blindly go into something, confront it and hopefully come out of it a little better. But exposure therapy isn’t for everyone and isn’t always helpful. Face your demons they say...but in your own time.

My traumas are fairly easily dealt with and even though they make me feel like I’m making a big fuss over nothing (years of being told that tends to stick) or I’m trying to garner attention for something silly (imposter syndrome is strong) I usually feel a little better having faced them, vicariously or otherwise. Sometimes though it can definitely put me into a spiral of self doubt and loathing, despair and anger, and it spills out in weird ways when I least expect it. Having a trauma trigger isn’t an excuse, but it is sometimes an explanation. Perhaps there’s a reason you react so strongly to a particular stimuli, why you’re frothingly angry about something that seems small, why you jump out of your skin when a door slams. It might go some way to explain my inexplicable and fervent hatred of certain songs, bands, people or smells. Even colours! It runs deep...why is that?

The trigger warning can be a trigger in itself for some. There’s been much talk following research that trigger warnings are useless, but data gained from controlled experiments and even some anecdotal evidence would suggest otherwise. It’s also been said that they don’t help with overcoming trauma, they can deepen it in some cases. Avoidance is a classic symptom of poor mental health, it’s one of the things that slips in quietly, you don’t even notice you’re doing it, or not doing it. Sustained and slow exposure is well proven to be very useful and effective in treating trauma or phobias.

The writing of this is bringing up some curious responses in me, I keep going blank, having all my thoughts go into a tumble that I can't make sense of. The words are jumping about. It’s interesting that it seems to be “triggering” some deep seated personal doubts.

*I can’t do it*

*I’m too stupid*

*it’s nonsense and doesn’t make any sense*

etc etc etc.

But with all of that in mind, I did it.

SPOILER ALERT!

Have you ever watched a film and something big happens and you know it’s coming because people have told you? If you don’t know it’s coming it can strengthen the emotion of watching it, but if you do...you’re poised, worrying about it, totally distracted by it, and when that moment comes it can have a strange impact on you. Your responses may be disproportionately big. The relief it’s finally arrived might make you over react. Or it might even be a total let down. You’d girded yourself for this BIG moment and it was somewhat lacklustre compared to your vivid imaginings.

I have my own triggers, car crashes being a big one. When they happen on screen I have to have a little wrestle with myself. I find them perhaps more difficult than some. When a car rolls over, I can’t look, I feel slightly sick, I avert my eyes and often make a singing/shouting noise to cover the sounds of the car splintering against the road. Even writing that makes me recoil slightly. I had a car accident when I was a teenager. It was pretty big! If at the start of watching something there’s an exact warning; *This film contains scenes of car accidents* then I wait. I wait and wait. I feel the angst rising until the scene unfolds, and then I can relax. So yes, it spoils it. If the warning is *this film contains some scenes which viewers may find upsetting* I think...ok, how fragile am I feeling today? If a car crash happens I can just deal with it, put my hands up to hide the screen, panic sing over the sound...this can be amusing in company. If I’m watching a film about a serial killer then yeah, give me those upsetting images! If I’m watching a little sitcom or soap and suddenly there’s a murderer driving a family of four into the canal (Corrie circa 2003) then it might cause a different response. A story of everyday folk can be a bit jarring and ridiculous when it involves such antics. You do get a little warning at the start of some of these shows, but for me they make me tense and a little bit cynical too, waiting for the bang! But if there was no warning...I suspect I would complain.

I question if I am triggered or just moved or upset. Sometimes it’s a completely appropriate response, I’d be worried if I didn’t have an emotional response. Some things are upsetting within the context of the piece. Some things make you shudder when you recall it, but others can set you back, send you down the rabbit hole.

*My stolen copy from the school library, circa 1983*

The ratings for films seemed to be more simple in my youth. Anything that was PG was always worth a look, it might be a bit grizzly and exciting. And of course the X, I steered clear of that until I was old enough. Embarrassing sex scenes with mates in the local fleapit? No thanks. I scare easily too! Except for Nightmare On Elm Street which made me laugh like a drain while my friend freaked out, and freaks out to this day about it! But as far as reading matter was concerned, I don’t recall there ever being much of a system of protection or warning beyond a genre or age group. Someone else’s warning could certainly colour a book badly for you. I want to be able to make up my own mind and not be spoon fed.

That’s what we did at school. “Read this and tell me what you think it’s about” was the standard. For Animal Farm it was patently clear to me it wasn’t about farming or animals at all, but I found myself in a small group with that insight. If we’d been told before what it meant, what it was, the symbolism and politics, would it have ruined it? It wasn’t an easy read, it was sad, made me angry at times, but I was able to spend time with it, working it out. I wrote bad essays about it and scraped a pass. Had it said on the cover in bold type “This book contains politics and strong imagery of animal cruelty” it might have made me see it very differently. I was only just 16 at the time so it’s fair to say I wouldn’t have taken much notice of all that. It was at least mercifully short. I saw other girls in school with books you could hold barn doors open with! I would imagine Shakespeare might need one or two trigger warnings.

Social media, news, information, shared photos and stories. I find detailed explanations of what lies ahead. It puts me off, explains the whole thing in a sort of truncated way making the thing itself seem pointless. It could be argued that many might employ these warnings as a form of virtue signalling or shock tactic. It’s also a trend, as so many things are, and as a fully fledged middle aged person I might not always get the trends and I accept that. Sometimes it’s not for me or about me.

I can’t help thinking of the research done about hi viz clothing. It’s supposed to be a warning, but we’re now SO used to seeing them on our roads, our workforce, our security that we no longer really see them at all! Every now and then you have to change things to get them noticed.

I asked friends for opinions on this and I got some excellent responses.

C L says:

“Personally I find them in relation to sexual violence incredibly helpful...sometimes I also find them a little over sensitive and the text of the trigger warning is more triggering than the article itself. I also find that sometimes I am confused as to some. I think it can be a bit policing of people's content and can hinder expression…”

C H says:

“I think they're vitally important, they give people the opportunity to decide what they can and can't handle at a given time and give people a chance to brace themselves for anything they might need to. They actually decrease avoidance, because someone who has particular triggers is more likely to just blanketly avoid stuff on the off chance it will contain them.”

H H says:

“I don't think anyone has a problem with flashing light warnings, for epileptics. That one's fairly agreed on. Where we draw the line, I think, just needs to be really research lead. Intuitively, I feel like we've maybe gone a bit too far one way, but maybe not.

As a creative it definitely feels like spoilers sometimes. Like at our Christmas show it felt like a shame that we had to tell everyone there was nudity in our show, cause it was a reveal gag, but I also get that it may be necessary to warn some people.

I was thinking maybe the trigger warnings are things you can request to see (in general, so you don't have to give personal/ upsetting information away), then others don't get the spoilers? Does that seem fair?”

In conclusion, we do need them, we value them, we like them...we just maybe don’t want them to be so detailed, OR IN SHOUTY CAPS LOCK! We want to be given a choice before we dive in and dice with our emotional fragility. It will always be difficult to meet everybody’s needs, but we can generally approach life with care for those who need it. We can still be daring, wild, nude, dangerous and cover really difficult topics. Just as long as we know what we’re getting ourselves into. Optional info in a discrete link seems like a really good option to me. And a simple TW at the top so it isn’t bearing it’s full arse at you.

*Thanks to my friends who contributed to the discussion we safely had online.