[CW: discussions of PTSD, anxiety, dissociation]
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You might be someone that rolls their eyes when they view a content warning, seeing it as the perpetuation of coddling future generations and making them unprepared for the harshness of the world. Some academic institutions like the University of Chicago, in their citation of freedom of expression as a rejection of trigger warnings, follow the same thought process.
But this is something I implore you to reconsider. Trigger warnings aren’t to stop people from being exposed to stress or pain: they are, in fact, a consideration of people that have already experienced it.
To suffer from PTSD, for example, is to re-live one’s trauma after the situation has passed. Encountering objects, situations or words that remind one of the events, i.e. 'triggers', cause sufferers to experience the intensity of the trauma. While exposure to the trauma is necessary for treatment, it's handled by professionals in a safe, controlled environment; a place that one has the chance to gather their bearings if reliving the experience proves too much.
I experienced some, at times, very intense dissociation as a result of an anxiety disorder, typically when I had a panic attack, but other times my disconnection and solipsistic, intrusive thinking appeared randomly. I could be watching a video or talking with friends when thoughts about my existence would suddenly creep into my head and cause intense paranoia about who I was, what the world was and whether anything was actually real.
At times, it was a particular topic or word that generate this response. A memorable example was a sort of ‘copypasta’ type post that people would comment in forums, something along the lines of ‘you need to wake up, this is a dream’. While it no longer has the effect it used to, and, in fact, I really rubbed it in the face of my paranoia by studying philosophy in order to expose myself to the ideas that frightened me, this approach was only possible after I began recovering.
When my paranoia was at its worst I was reduced to a depressive state; one in which I could not rid my mind of thoughts about reality that took away all meaning from my life. To even think about the philosophy behind reality would trigger this effect.
It’s different now, but that’s because it’s a different time. After treatment, I managed to gradually expose myself to the things that haunted me. Though I didn't experience trauma or mental health issues anywhere near the severity of conditions like PTSD, even this was incredibly frustrating and made me feel hopeless.
When I consider my mental health in retrospect, and what triggered my anxiety and panic attacks, I come to the defense of trigger warnings. In my recovery, if people had considered the benefit content warnings would have had for me and others that have experience with dissociation, they may have been more inclined to take this potential response into consideration.
But maybe not. We’re in a different culture now, where even the people that consider themselves progressives think it’s amusing to imply people are ‘triggered’ and are hypersensitive in this day and age of ‘PC culture’. The thing is, we’re not hypersensitive: we’re considerate. We have the ability to listen to someone’s experiences and take it onboard rather than reject it on the basis of it being ‘identity politics’ or an inability to deal with stress.
To warn students, friends or simply people you converse with that you’re going to discuss something known to be a sensitive topic isn’t coddling them, and most certainly isn’t an obstruction of your free speech. No one’s telling you to stop talking: they’re telling you to consider that what you’re talking about can be something far more distressing to someone else and that now isn't a good time for it.
People with experiences of trauma, or those with conditions that may be worsened in certain situations, already face a balance of life’s stresses along with conditions that can make it a lot harder.
It’s also why we need to end this mockery of content warnings because you're making it harder for people to recover, not just by invoking their symptoms but also making them think themselves as weak, or that getting help would make them such. Institutions like the University of Chicago who fail to take this factor of mental health into consideration cause more harm than good, and it's why many responded critically to their less than encouraging 'welcome letter.'
If you think throwing people into the deep end always helps, you risk more people drowning. If you want to help people recover, you leave it up to professionals that know how to safely expose people to their trauma. If you simply want to be able to say what you want without people complaining, try being a better person.
