[Mezzie]

I struggle with trigger/content warnings as someone with PTSD stemming from severe childhood neglect/abuse (e.g. I was allowed to just rot in the basement for a week with a fever of 104+ as a child).

The reason is because there seems to be a standardized list of 'real' triggers that people agree on, and I'm often triggered by depictions of loving families. Which nobody is ever going to warn for. I also have major disassociation and emotional blunting, so I have no idea what makes violence or sexual related cross the line into needing a warning. So ironically, spaces that insist heavily on trigger warnings are hard for me to exist in as a person with PTSD without breaking the norms. It's hard not to feel there are 'right' and 'wrong' triggers.

[maxbond]

Maybe a more generic tagging/metadata system would help people with more idiosyncratic/unanticipated trauma. Something I find promising in this is that it has the hallmark of many great accessibility solutions, it's useful for everyone even if it's more important to a specific group of people (eg, screen readers and sign language are just great tools, but are much more profound for people with sensory disabilities). It still wouldn't be perfect of course, things could be mislabeled, or the label you would want could still be missing, or like you mention you yourself might not entirely understand what you're looking for.

[Mezzie]

It's possible, but I doubt that would come to pass for two logistical reasons (putting on my librarian hat):

1.) Nobody would want to pay for a central organization/group to make the ontology or labeling system. That would be a complex undertaking that would require a substantial amount of domain knowledge, not something that could be thrown together by volunteers.

2.) Keeping it up to date would require disclosure from people with PTSD to said central group and for various reasons a lot of us wouldn't be comfortable with that.

[maxbond]

What would you think about a casual/emergent ontology, like the way fan fiction is tagged, or like Wikidata? I realize these are very different approaches, but people are already putting in huge effort to categorize content just out of their own passion, and I'm curious what you would think of a user-generated approach.

[Mezzie]

AO3's system was actually what I was comparing the idea to, mentally. Running AO3 does take a fair amount of $ (although a lot of it does go towards legal and server costs), and the tagging system is centrally managed. I think that people would do that for fanfiction because the people doing it get something out of it, whereas not enough people would benefit from a more expanded trigger ontology. People will fund things that benefit themselves ("Alright, I can find my Kirk/Spock stuff, sweet!") over things that benefit a small population in which they're not included.

And the second problem remains. I do not trust volunteers to treat my PTSD experience with any respect. The type of person who would volunteer to do this are likely to be either people who have PTSD themselves (which represents a burden on them/is likely to be difficult/might possibly not be emotionally stable enough to do this work well) OR the virtue signaling/social control type. I've seen too much open grifting and hypocrisy from progressives to trust randoms claiming to want to help us.

[maxbond]

Part of what I'm asserting though is that it would be generally useful to people, because they may be filtering for what others are filtering against. Say that you have a phobia of frogs. You can filter out frogs, but someone researching them can filter for them .

I mistook how AO3 works. I guess I'm thinking more like Tumblr or Flickr. Say it isn't centrally organized. We're just tagging them likes we sees 'em. So someone creates the frog tag because they want to use it and it doesn't exist. Then they tag something because it has a frog. It never crosses their minds that someone may have a frog phobia; the filtering is done by the frog fearer themselves, so it isn't disclosed to bullies who might use it against them, or anyone else they want to keep it from for reasons of their own privacy.

There's still problems here, one person may read `frog` and another `frogs`, mistakes can be made, things can be mistagged deliberately, etc. but I think there's promise to the approach.

If you have resources to recommend on library science, I'd be keenly interested.

[im3w1l]

Apologies if I misunderstand, but what you describe sounds like envy. And it is a pretty common thing, and something that people are in my experience willing to make certain accomodations for. "Flexing" too much on the less fortunate is considered to be in poor taste. Maybe they aren't willing to go as far as you'd need though.

[Mezzie]

Personally, I've learned to deal with it. (Not saying everybody else should, but that I personally have coping mechanisms in place precisely because there's no way anybody could guess my triggers).

It's not envy. It's a trigger because one of the women who abused me was really into socially appearing to be a good mother and therefore that was part of the 'act' and I was forced into acting like part of those happy families. So I tense and have emotional reactions because my brain is fucked up and therefore reads the depictions as abusive.

(I have a great deal of envy - I'm working on it - but that means I definitely know the difference!)

[lanyard-textile]

TW, possible depictions of loving families & depictions of unwanted contact:

Nobody should be arguing against any kind of trigger warning in those spaces. If someone is pushing back, they should be removed from the space -- They're actively working against the point of the space.

>Which nobody is ever going to warn for.

I will now in those kinds of spaces.

Anecdotally I've also seen trigger warnings for father's day and mother's day, which seems like a trend in this direction.

>I have no idea what makes violence or sexual related cross the line into needing a warning

Well, nobody can know for sure :) Many of us have to guess when we put the trigger warning in, more so if we can't relate to the trigger. That can be much harder when you're dissociative but it's hard in general.

What's helped me is to mentally flag any potentially unwanted contact, physical or verbal, and find the best trigger warning that captures the text. Sometimes that means leaving a warning for just that, unwanted contact -- Sometimes I can refine that further to a kind of abuse, e.g. sexual or physical abuse.

[Mezzie]

I appreciate that, but I don't think it's necessary. It's more a commentary on the fact that trigger warnings are so varied and personal that accurately making them for all of us PTSD sufferers puts a huge mental burden on people. Sometimes, that's appropriate - I have no problem asking my friends, remaining family members, or therapist/other medical providers to accommodate my desires, but I think asking strangers on the Internet to do so in public spaces is placing an undue burden on them. And for healthy people, that might not not a big deal, but a lot of people without PTSD might still be depressed, anxious, bipolar, ADHD, etc. or just plain exhausted and it may represent a prohibitively difficult thing to ask of them. Never mind once we get into things like cultural differences.

In my experience, the people who are most zealous about enforcing content warnings are people who like the social power it gives them over others and who lash out when they're made uncomfortable, and that's not acceptable. Being uncomfortable or triggered is obviously fine and you can't control that, but that doesn't give us the right to lash out at others or expect people to just 'know' what might set us off.

[kayodelycaon]

I think that the people in the middle don’t stand out. I’m in a group of writers. None of us are jerks about “trigger warnings”. We just put some obvious content warnings (rape, suicide, etc) before the main text and call it a day.

You’ll never be able to put in every trigger. For example, angry drunk people. I’d never expect anyone to warn me about that in any form of media. (Goodfellas is awesome, btw)

There is a reasonable middle ground here. A short list of the most common issues better than nothing while not being onerous. Is mentioning your story includes a graphic depiction of rape difficult? I had a rather frank discussion with a fellow author who gave me that one without warning me.

Obviously the most vocal will never be happy. They can go hug a cactus.

[Mezzie]

> Is mentioning your story includes a graphic depiction of rape difficult? I had a rather frank discussion with a fellow author who gave me that one without warning me.

My point is that there are conditions where yes, that's difficult. What counts as 'graphic' versus any depiction? I would genuinely have no idea because I'm so desensitized. Getting a 'frank discussion' over it and acting like I'm that way on purpose is just telling me not to be in the group because I don't share the invisible sensitivity level. It's the invisible part I object to, by the way. If there's a list of things to warn for and guidelines, I have no problem with it. But most people/groups won't do that because they like to pretend that there's something objective about what they chose as sensitive subjects rather than admitting 'hey I think we need some cultural boundaries around what's acceptable in a public space, let's discuss it' because they know it opens the discussion to other (usually more conservative) cultural boundaries.

For example, those spaces warn for suicide but not blasphemy. Or how about explicit consensual sex? Sex involving trans people? (Depending on the sex act/how it's treated, it can be triggering to some people's dysphoria)?

The middle ground is still a value judgement. Just admit it instead of dancing around that it's for the disabled. It's not. Stop using us as a shield for what is considered moral or not moral or disturbing or not disturbing. Just say "Most people find rape abhorrent to read about, so warn about it".

[catiopatio]

> I'm often triggered by depictions of loving families.

What does “triggered” actually mean, specifically?

Regardless, that seems like a serious mental health issue.

You are responsible for and in control of your own emotions. If you don’t feel that’s true, you need to spend more time in serious therapy, not demanding “trigger” warnings.

[Mezzie]

I generally agree.

I mean 'triggered' in the PTSD sense of the term since I have PTSD. I'm nominally the population served by trigger warnings, but I find the cultural practices around them not helpful because they assume a common experience when PTSD triggers are very personal and in addition trigger warnings are accompanied by a 'walk on eggshells' culture which clashes with the desensitivity/disassociation that also accommodates PTSD.

And I am in therapy, thanks. You should probably take some reading comprehension classes though.

[TheGhostOfBoris]

Its disappointing on HN to see posts like yours voted down, presumably because somebody disagrees with it, rather than them taking the effort to post a sensible rebuttal.

[Mezzie]

I downvoted because before the comment was edited, it contained a snide 'that sounds like a you problem'.

Others may have been reacting to that as well as it's not a productive addition to the discussion. (Also why I was snarky in my reply, which I will not be editing.)

[catiopatio]

I removed that line within seconds, in an attempt to communicate more productively.

Frankly, I now wish I hadn’t.

If you actually get triggered by seeing “happy families”, that’s absolutely a serious mental illness, and not only is it not anyone else’s concern, but by advertising it, you almost certainly are reinforcing it.

Being unwell is not something to celebrate or wallow in, and the creation of spaces that encourage such self-destructive antisocial behavior — tumblr comes to mind — has been to the detriment of society at large.

[Mezzie]

Yes, I am seriously mentally ill. I'm in therapy, on medication, and currently orienting my life to focus on getting better (I stepped back from career progression). Do you think I introduce myself as, "Hi, I'm Mezzie, my triggers are X, Y, and Z?" I mentioned my illness in this context because it's relevant. Talking about something in a matter of fact way when it's relevant to a discussion =/= 'advertising' it, 'celebrating' it, or 'wallowing' in it.

I also mention my Multiple Sclerosis when it's relevant. Is discussing my spasticity 'wallowing' in it?

Why is your first instinct to shame the suffering person for talking about it? We shouldn't celebrate it, but nor should we ban any discussion of it socially because it makes you uncomfortable. I'm sorry that you clearly have emotional reactions to frank discussions of mental illness; are you in therapy for that?

And again, work on your reading comprehension. I'm arguing against trigger warning culture because even if I take its assertions at face value, it doesn't help the people it purports to help. It's a refutation of the argument that 'trigger warnings help people with PTSD'. I have PTSD, which is relevant to refuting that argument. That's why I mentioned it.