Shrieking. I wake to my friend struggling in the dark and jump out of bed. She is collapsed on the ground, her arms over her head. Me standing over her causes her to shrink back, a sharp shriek of terror escaping her.
This is what can happen when someone who has PTSD is not given a trigger warning. Yes, it is this violent sometimes, and yes, she went into a panic attack because she saw one of her specific triggers on her newsfeed. No, she could not have helped what she saw, and no she could not have fought the panic attack.
I am sick and tired of people sharing, posting, or talking about horrible things without warning. I have watched many people go into panic attacks, or have to leave a room, because of the lack of trigger warnings. Somehow, trigger warnings are still a "debatable" topic. What are trigger warnings you ask?
A trigger warning is a statement at the beginning of a presentation, book, or post that is there to warn people that the topic they are about to learn about, can be triggering. What is the purpose of a trigger warning? To prevent attacks, pain, suffering, and harm. Putting a trigger warning on something is extremely helpful to those who know their triggers.
Now, not all triggers can be known. I have a phobia of lice, so when I see something that has to do with lice unexpectedly, I have an anxiety attack. It sucks, but I know what my trigger is and how to avoid it most days. I do not expect people to put a trigger warning on an article about lice, that's just ridiculous. But what should we put trigger warnings on?
We should put trigger warnings on things that we know cause PTSD victims panic attacks. (Trigger warning, mention of sexual assault coming up) See how I did that, it's not so hard! Anyway, we should put trigger warnings on things like r*pe, sexual assault, abuse, gunfire videos, gore, self-harm etc. Things that are kind of self-explanatory should have trigger warnings on them.
As for those of you who are rolling their eyes and saying that my generation is full of babies for wanting safe spaces and trigger warnings, listen up. Why would you want someone to suffer? Why is it okay to you, to let the world be full of hurt? Is it to make us tougher? That is ridiculous. Avoiding having a panic attack does not make someone weak, and asking for the world to do something as small as putting a trigger warning on something, isn't asking for much. Now if I asked you to put trigger warnings on every lice video in the world because it makes me uncomfortable, then I am being a baby. But that's not what we want. Trigger warnings are there to help people with PTSD survive another day without having a panic attack. Is that really so much to ask?
