Hey everyone, and welcome to another educational video by the Entropy System.
Today I'm going to talk about triggers in a hopefully non-triggering way.
Triggers can be hard to understand. Like many things in the mental health community,
they are often the butt of jokes or heavy criticism.
So firstly, what is a trigger? A trigger is something that sets off a flashback
of a trauma of some kind. As I'm discussing this I want to make it relatable to people who have not experienced
extreme trauma, so I'm going to use trauma in two different ways.
There's going to be lower case "t" trauma, which is something that just about everybody experiences to some degree,
and then there will be upper case "T" Trauma, which is the big trauma that causes disorders and all that stuff.
So let's talk about triggers in the case of lower case t trauma.
How many of you have ever heard friends say, "Oh man, yeah, I went to that one restaurant
and I got food poisoning. I was sick for like two days.
Now even the smell of shrimp makes me want to throw up."
The smell of that shrimp is a trigger.
So why does that happen, though? It's because your body experienced a lowercase "t" trauma
so your brain had it programmed that, okay, what made us sick? That shrimp from that restaurant.
Anytime I feel like we're encountering shrimp, we're going to expel that
and get us away from that as much as possible. Now, some people can eventually overcome that
by going and eating another meal and being fine.
But there are people who will be like, "Yeah, after that I have not eaten shrimp in like eight years."
It sticks with them. It's so uncomfortable that they don't feel the need to try to overcome it.
Now take that and apply it to a brain response that would occur because of an uppercase "T" Trauma.
With uppercase "T" Trauma triggers, a lot more usually happens
than just a little nausea that passes in a few seconds.
It can cause hyperarousal, which is when your body goes into super fear mode
and suddenly you're seeing everything and taking in all this data at once and it is exhausting.
Your body and muscles are tense 'cause you're ready to run at any second.
It can cause bouts of sobbing. It can cause physical sickness. Not just feeling sick but getting sick
because this capital "T" Trauma was so intense that the brain hardwired itself to say never again
and it will do whatever it takes to make sure that doesn't happen again.
If someone who got food poisoning can't smell shrimp without feeling ill,
imagine how it would feel if someone was in the kitchen cooking shrimp and had a severe,
violent trauma be done to them in that kitchen.
Imagine how the smell of shrimp would make that person react.
This is why people request trigger warnings on things.
At the top of blog articles. At the top of long Facebook posts.
You may have someone say, "Hey could you trigger warn that?" if you're talking about something that is
a common trigger. Something that's very severe.
Now, triggers can be anything and let's say hypothetically I have a trigger of dragons.
I'm not going to go to a Game of Thrones forum and start asking everybody,
"Hey, could you trigger warn dragons?"
It is my responsibility to take that hyper specific trigger and avoid situations
where people might be talking about dragons.
However, if my trigger, which is a real trigger for us, is sexual violence and I go on to a Game of Thrones forum
it is not unreasonable of me to say, "Hey could you please trigger warn this post that talks about sexual trauma?
because that is something that is a widely known and widely experienced trigger.
As maybe you're typing up a long rant or an article or breaking down a scene bit by a bit
because you're a cool nerd and you like to overanalyze things like I do,
maybe add at the top, "Hey, trigger warning. If you didn't like that one scene with Sansa
maybe don't read this article." And yes, the internet is full of people who hate
SJW's and are going to attack you the second you say the word "trigger".
There's a good way to avoid that. Just say at the top, "By the way, this post includes X Y and Z."
Leave it at that. All of us looking for trigger warnings will read that, appreciate your effort, and move right along.
Finally, in addition to all the broad-spectrum stigma against triggers and trigger warnings and all that stuff in general,
even people who are mental health advocates and allies sometimes fall into that category of belittling people
for their triggers simply because they don't understand.
And the hero of people who could put an example to this is Tumblr user Marauders4Evr.
Some time ago, and I don't know when because Tumblr doesn't put date tags on things,
an anonymous user sent Marauders4Evr an ask saying, "Do you have any triggers?"
and Marauders forever said, "Yeah. Jello, popsicle sticks, and soup broth."
And, oh, the hate began. People made harsh comments and Marauders forever handled this very eloquently,
just reposting with these comments and saying things like,
"Hey, this is legitimately a trigger of mine. I'm not joking about that. This is serious.
I know it sounds bizarre but please trust me."
Then it went from sarcastic comments to death threats and, finally, after dealing with this for an amount of time
she comes forward and gives the big reveal.
Her trauma is hospital based. She had a series of invasive surgeries that kept her in the hospital
for a very long period of time. After one of these surgeries, she was in the hospital for a whole month on a clear liquid diet.
What do hospitals give you to eat when you're on a clear liquid diet?
Jello, popsicles, and soup broth. So three meals a day, seven days a week for a month,
all she was given was jello, popsicles, and soup broth.
At the end she makes this beautiful statement explaining why she didn't just say any of this in the beginning
and why she endured hateful comments and death threats and unfollows and all that other bitter crap.
In her words, there were two reasons.
A) I don't have to. People don't ever have to explain why something is triggering to them. Once they say that it is it should just be a given.
and B) The comment above is right.
I am a disability advocate. And part of that advocacy includes advocating on behalf of people with triggers.
And so, you've all been a part of a social experiment for the past few hours -
an experiment to see how people react when they see someone that has really bizarre triggers out of context.
And I'm a bit sad to say that many of you have failed."
When I saw this post I lept for joy. I thought this was a great smack in the face to all those people
who gave her a hard time for being honest about her triggers simply because they didn't get it.
And that's the great thing about triggers. You don't have to get it all you have to do is respect the people who say
"Hey, this is a trigger. Please don't bring it up around me."
Honest to god, it's not that hard.
So, to summarize, trigger warnings are a good thing, triggers can be anything,
and it's important to respect people's triggers even if you don't get them.
So I hope that you arm yourself with this knowledge and go out into the world
spreading the good news of respecting triggers.
That's all for now. Have a great day.