An incomplete list of things that trigger me

[alias_sqbr]

Every now and then someone I follow on social media will post something I find so upsetting I am unable to articulate my distress, and often I find myself in the position of either putting up with being psychologically damaged every time they say this kind of thing or silently unfollowing them, because I cannot see any way to explain my discomfort without getting into an argument I'm not up to.

So I've decided to try listing out my triggers, in hopes that putting them in the context of a large and frequently contradictory list makes it clearer that I'm not necesarily making a moral statement etc, and so I have something to link to when I'm feeling too freaked out to explain things. Some of these things I do have an ethical/moral objection to, but my emotional reaction is totally out of proportion, and there are other things I have zero objection to as long as I can avoid them personally.

I am not up for arguing about any of these (and it's not like you can convince me not to be triggered! That's not how triggers work!), but I can possibly offer clarification.

WARNING: Contains a whole bunch of common triggers!

Since not everyone's familiar with them, and experiences/definitions vary: What I mean by being triggered is a combination of anxiety and a sick feeling. It is very unpleasant and makes it very difficult to think clearly, and if I keep being triggered I become increasingly incoherent and miserable, leading in a worst case scenario to a semi catatonic state where I am literally incapable of speech and take hours to regain anything approaching mental equilibrium. Being pushed on a triggery topic makes the topic more triggery, and can create temporary secondary triggers that hit me with flashbacks and negative thought loops for months or even years afterwards. In very bad cases some of these secondary triggers can become permanent.

My triggers are from a mixture of past trauma and an anxiety disorder, and I personally cannot draw a neat line between the two kinds of trigger.

Don't feel bad if you have sometimes said some of these kinds of things (unless you're, like, racist. Then you should feel bad :P) I am able to cope with a lot of triggery content a lot of the time, it's only when something hits me at just the wrong angle that I have to disengage. Many of these are value neutral or even good, and some are things I post from time to time. Even some of the ideas I disagree with are coming from a basically reasonable place. If I find your blog/conversation too upsetting and I think you might be able to make it less triggery I will try and tell you, or I'll just unfollow.

Apologies to anyone who finds their reasonable (or at least not massively unreasonable) point of view/preference being lumped together with bigotry etc upsetting, I thought about trying to separate them into sections but just couldn't.

And now, the list of things I often find triggering!

• The idea that if you trigger someone you are automatically at fault.
  
• The idea that people with triggers need to suck it up and deal, including in the context of "if you do not reblog this post you are racist, even if it triggers you" etc.
  
• The idea that the only kind of trigger that counts is a very specific sort of PTSD trigger.
  
• Intermittently: Depictions of sex or nudity (plus actual sex and nudity, but that comes up less online :))
  
• Kink shaming or sex negativity. I have seen discussions of sex negativity I could sort of agree with, but I still found them triggery, I guess because they emphasise the ways sex is unpleasant?
  
• Depictions of underage sex, or the sexualisation of minors. The odd bit of labelled fic I can scroll past, but art or lusting over too young characters I find too much.
  
• The idea that fictional depictions of underage sex/sexualised minors are morally equivalent to the kind of child porn made by raping literal children. Mainly because if you express an objection to this idea people go "so you're in favour of [graphic description of disturbing child porn]". I can deal better with more nuanced discussions of the complex moral issues around sexualisation of fictional minors, but still find it a bit triggery because it's discussing the sexualisation of minors.
  
• Positive depictions of rapists or rape. Sometimes, any discusion of rape at all though I can usually scroll.
  
• Anything accusing all people who create sexualised depictions of rape of being complicit with rape culture/morally equivalent to rapists/pro rape, especially if it ignores or talks over the many rape survivors who find catharsis from this kind of porn. The "So you're in favour of [graphic description of rape]" thing comes up here, too.
  
• Ethnic prejudice/racism, especially anti-Semitism and anti-Palestinian Zionism. (I avoid discussions of Israel)
  
• Arguing for the sterilisation/restricted reproduction/murder of "lesser" people. This usually comes up in the context of disability, race, and class eg "stupid people keep breeding"/arguments for letting refugees just die etc. Unfortunately, arguments against such attitudes are also often somewhat triggery, though I can usually just scroll past.
  
• Anything that basically says I (or to a lesser extent, other people) are inherently Tools Of The Kyriarchy/Bigoted Againts Myself for preferences that feel hard wired into my psychology/identity, and should just choose to be otherwise: being femme/butch, being cis/straight/lgbt (including "there's no such thing as being genderqueer you just have internalised mysogyny) etc, but also really minor preferences like tv shows.
  
• Bashing other fans for having the "wrong" faves/ships, even if it's against faves/ships I don't like much myself. Mainly an issue because it's SO MINOR that I feel silly telling someone how upsetting I find it. Worse if combined with other triggers eg "if you ship X/Y you are a LITERAL PEDOPHILE"/ "Anyone who ships EDI/Joker is ableist" etc.
  
• Arguing that women actually have more power than men.
  
• The kind of tumblr post that shows happy pictures of people and then it turns out to be about how they were horribly murdered by bigots, especially if they're the kind of bigots who might murder me.
  
• Anything about the kinds of people who'd like to murder me, really.
  
• Parasites and zombies.
  
• Certain kinds of discussion of suicide and self harm.
  
• Certain kinds of abuse apologism, especially anything erasing victim's experiences/accusing them of being liars/over sensitive.
  
• Any sort of rhetoric which defines some people as Beyond The Pale and thus deserving of no pity/respect/compassion, even if I think the person has done something bad. And this gets circular with abuse: I can't stand abuse apologism, but I also can't stand "this person is an abuse apologist and therefore should be SHUNNED AND HATED BY EVERYONE FOREVER". Especially when the argument for them being an abuse apologist is what they ship!
  

I know there's more but that will do for now! I tend to find any sort of bigotry upsetting (especially if the person I'm talking to is in favour of it, but also sometimes when people are criticising other people's bigotry), but the sorts I've listed are more likely to send me into a sudden brain-freezing anxiety.

You can see how certain conversations are intolerable for me because both sides trigger me. Including, ironically, discussions of trigger warnings.

This stuff comes up in real life too, but I'm not usually in a position to go "hey can I show you this post I made about my triggers".

EDIT: I am so glad dreamwidth added a "edit this post again" link haha. *keeps poking at post*

Comments

[lilysea]

*reads*

Please poke me to use lj cuts and content warnings if I inadvertently post any of these. ^_^

[alias_sqbr]

I don't think you ever have, but absolutely, and vice versa if I ever hit your buttons.

[kerravonsen]

I get how the seemingly contradictory ones are both triggers, because while they may be expressing opposite views, they are still discussing a triggery topic.

[alias_sqbr]

Yeah, I hadn't really thought about that until I write out this list but it's kind of obvious in retrospect. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to occur to a lot of people having these arguments, there's a lot of "my triggers are important, yours are inconvenient and you should just get over them" :/

[tree]

thank you for list. *makes notes*

[fred_mouse]

Ditto. Very useful, as things on this list that were not in my default 'triggers' list.

[alias_sqbr]

I am special and unique snowflake :)

[fred_mouse]

me too, given that my main triggers have to do with mothers, food, and abandonment/betrayal.

[alias_sqbr]

Thanks for taking note!

[lilacsigil]

Thanks for the list. And hooray, I'm not the only person triggered by zombies! I totally get how "positive discussion of [topic] that I actually agree with" is a trigger, because it can be for me as well around health, weight and medical abuse issues.

[alias_sqbr]

One day zombies will go out of fashion and it will be glorious.

Yes, those can get to me sometimes too. Lots of posts I look at on tumblr, think about reblogging, then have to click "like" and close the tab quickly and distract myself.

[moonvoice]

I'm completely with you on waiting for zombies to go out of fashion. Though the zombie train doesn't seem to be quite as intense as it used to be. *crosses fingers.*

[alias_sqbr]

I'm hoping vampires cycle back to cool again in time for my vampire game being finished :)

[mooreeffoc]

I will take note of these. Also, I 100% get that "both sides of the conversation are triggering" response - my own brain seems to check out at "oh, no, a bad thing was mentioned" half the time.

[alias_sqbr]

nods Makes the "triggering"="morally suspect" narrative very annoying.

[whatistigerbalm]

"Ethnic prejudice/racism"

Oh. Um... I think I tag mine with "balkan" and "uk" so you can add that to your filter if you haven't already. That whole topic is a lot of my RL work so it's gonna be inevitable. (Though, that said, I am 3000% out of any Israel & Palestine discussion because I can't detach any of it from personal experiences in the Balkans regardless of how much analogy there is or isn't.)

[alias_sqbr]

Thank you! As I recall your posts are the kind of thing I sometimes have to scroll past quickly but am very glad I read when I'm able to.

[bunny_m]

Thanks for posting this, I shall endeavour to not hit any of them.

[alias_sqbr]

Thanks! But it's totally ok if you do, sometimes (as long as you're not, like, "bwahahaha I shall deliberately trigger sqbr", which I am pretty sure you wouldn't be :))