sonnywortzik:

i’ve mentioned this here before, but it will remain one of the most ideologically influential experiences of my life: when i was in fifth grade i did a report on post traumatic stress as manifested in veterans of the vietnam war, and my father did me the huge favor of connecting me w/ a vietnam vet friend of his who was diagnosed with PTSD, assuring him that while i was only ten i was bright and curious and he should be as honest with me about his experience as possible. 

i remember entering his office with my tape recorder, sitting in a chair that was too big, and asking him questions about war, and his life after war, while swinging my legs over the edge of the chair. i remember being very, very quiet as he spoke of pulling the car over on the highway for fear of crashing when his hands would shake uncontrollably in response to song on the radio or a smell that he couldn’t be sure was real or sense-memory. and of ruined relationships and anger and american hypocrisy. 

and i also remember that was the day i learned what “valor” meant. he used “valor” in a sentence and i didn’t know that word, and when i asked him to explain “valor” he became very quiet. and i can’t remember precisely what he said, if he ever offered me the dictionary definition or not, but i do remember him looking very sad, and saying something about our country’s idea of “valor”, and also something about a broken promise. and there was an edge to his words that i couldn’t parse at the time that i would later come to understand was bitterness, that he sounded bitter. 

to this day i can’t hear or read the word “valor” without seeing sunlight coming through his office window at a slant, close-to-sunset light, and feeling the kind of quiet, confused, completely internalized panic a child feels when they sense that a grown up is trying very hard not to weep in their presence. 

starwrought:

libertineangel:

mirach:

unnamedelement:

starwrought:

I just love so much that one of the first things we see Aragorn do is have a ptsd flashback, with a panic attack during their initial meeting in Bree 

‘You can do as you like about my reward: take me as a guide or not. But I may say that I know all the lands between the Shire and Misty Mountains, for I have wandered the over them for many years. I am older than I look. I might prove useful. You will have to leave the open road after tonight; for the horsemen will watch it night and day. You may escape from Bree, and be allowed to go forward while the Sun is up; but you won’t go far. They will come on you in the wild, in some dark place where there is no help. Do you wish them to find you? They are terrible!’ 

The hobbits looked at him, and saw with surprise that his face was drawn as if in pain, and his hands clenched the arms of his chair. The room was very quiet and still, and the light seemed to have grown dim. For a while he sat with unseeing eyes as if walking in distant memory or listening to sounds in the Night far away. 

‘There!’ he he cried after a moment, drawing his hand across his brow. ‘Perhaps I know more about these pursuers than you do. You fear them, but you do not fear them enough, yet.’ 

which is like, he is having a flashback so bad that he is feeling the pain again, he grips the chair tightly to ground himself/it’s a reaction to the adrenaline, and then disassociates hard enough that the hobbits/onlookers can see that he’s not seeing them/isn’t mentally there. he breaks himself out of it, but at that point has panicked hard enough that he has to wipe (presumably sweat off of) his brow. 

and, like, yes this is what a panic attack can look like to onlookers because it is often very tight/restrained/drawn inward and while you feel like your heart is racing so fast you might die you might look like you’re just gripping your chair/yourself/the wall/your bag and your eyes are distant 

and for that to happen in the second chapter of meeting Aragorn means so much to me because here is a tall, strong man with years of experience, one of the best fighters in Middle-earth, and he’s having a panic attack as one of his introductory actions

and it’s like so nice to read that after today when I had a panic attack bad enough that I had to take medication so strong that my friends go oh hmm be careful with that because no one seems to understand what is happening inside of me because it looks like that outside. I’m clinging to my own arms and staring at the wall but it feels like I’m dying again 

it just means so much to me. like look at Aragorn he’s so brave and strong, right? he has ptsd flashbacks and panic attacks, and he’s still brave and strong. because breaking down doesn’t make you weak

Okay, so this would be the kind of opportunity in which me pulling on my “trauma researcher” hat and going on and on about how amazing this is using scientific texts would actually be really interesting to other fans and not just me BUT instead… I’m exhausted and my brain is dead-tired, and so all I can do is add a screenshot of what I already screamed in the comments because @starwrought blew my damn mind and, especially after a recent comment on one of my fics, I just feel SO VALIDATED that this is in the source material

There is some trauma in Moria as well:
‘I too once passed the Dimrill Gate,’ said Aragorn quietly; ‘but though I also came out again, the memory is very evil. I do not wish to enter Moria a second time.’

Tolkien was in the trenches in WW1, he knows full well that the brave experienced soldiers would have more than their share of evil memories to contend with on dark nights, I think this goes hand in hand with the central point of the book, that heroism comes not from battle or some grand victory but from quietly determined compassion and just doing what must be done because someone has to.

this is really well put and exactly why ‘well Aragorn (or any of the other heroes/soldiers) were brave and strong and therefore never had any weakness, never were deeply hurt by the sacrifices they made to protect others,’ and ‘Frodo was weak and failed because he was too deeply hurt to destroy the Ring and continue life in Middle-earth’ are such hurtful sentiments.

Because the strength of the world does come from continuing to do what is right, even if it feels like that will lead nowhere or is hopeless.

Frodo does all that he was able to, physically as well as mentally, and he couldn’t save the world alone because no one can

Every story of every hero comes back to love and that love being enough to keep going, even if it seems hopeless

No one makes it out of any of the battles completely unscarred, either physically or mentally, and it is realistic in a way that hurts because of how human it is. How the heroes aren’t brave because they never cry, never weep openly, never despair, never curse their fate, never say I wish this hadn’t happened to me, never break down, never face fears, never are defeated, but because they keep going for the love of the world, for the love of their friends. All of it is for love

And yes I think Tolkien’s experience in World War I really shaped that perspective because he saw people break down, because he lost all h is friends, because he didn’t write that bravery is never screaming out in pain because bravery can be breaking down and then needing someone else to help put you back together

Bravery can be continuing to live even if you know you’ll never be fully healed

And I don’t see that enough in literature, in movies, in shows. The definition of bravery keeps circling back to ‘and they were beaten and tortured but they never broke, never cried out, never sobbed’ and ‘then his wife died and he shed a single tear before he went to inflict violence in a Strong Manly Brave Way’

So when you read something else where the pain is too much to bear sometimes for even the bravest of the heroes and where you don’t have to do everything alone because there are people around the world doing what good must be done no matter how small it might be, it stays with you forever

cannondisabledcharacters:

Today’s disabled character of the day is Elim Garak from the Star Trek series, who has claustrophobia 

hobbitsaarebas:

fabulousworkinprogress:

micchi-monster:

bpdzoldyck:

A note on the topic of trauma that I personally found helpful in accepting the idea that I am a trauma victim is that one of the most widely accepted facts in the field of trauma research is that abuse is often not the common factor in whether somebody will develop ptsd. 

Many people can go through awful things without developing trauma based disorders as long as they receive compassion and support in processing those events as they happen. The most common factor in developing something like ptsd is emotional neglect. And emotional neglect on it’s own can be enough. 

Whatever you went through was enough I promise, you’re not overreacting. Abuse and neglect are traumatic at any level, you don’t need to have gone through the worst possible experience you can think of to develop ptsd. If it hurt you then it hurt you.

…..oh.

And to support that, the number one determining factor on how badly something affects a person is how they’re treated afterward, not how objectively bad the event was. They’re called resiliency factors.

It looks like this:

Horrible brutal traumatic event + Family and community support + legal amelioration + closure and therapy and help 

ONE MILLION TIMES MORE LIKELY TO RECOVER THAN

Event that the sufferer may think “seems minor” compared to what others have been through + Family neglect and abuse (you deserved it, name calling, support the abuser) + no legal means + denial and stifling and no therapeutic support

I have been raped, I have been abused by someone who was supposed to be family to me, and I have recovered and gotten my life back together. I have psychiatrists, psychologists, best friends, lovers, and family who support me. I did not get legal justice, but I got the person(s) out of my life.

My friend was repeatedly verbally abused by his step-parent, and when he was abused and hurt by others he was blamed for it by that parent. He had no support and no one to talk to about it for over 10 years.

He still feels guilty for even being affected by it and I’ve had long talks with him about how it isn’t “nothing compared to” what I went through. 

You are not wrong to be upset. You are not wrong to feel the effects of trauma. Your hurt cannot be measured against anyone else’s. Your resiliency is your own and your situation is valid to you. Perception is everything. The worst thing that ever happened to you might ostensibly be less bad than the worst thing that ever happened to me - but it still is what happened to YOU.

Trauma is so predictable that we can make tidy little equations out of it. The ones above are good, but the ones I’ve seen are a little simpler. Something like: 

Overwhelming Experience + Isolation + Shame = PTSD

drhanniballectermd:

For anyone speaking to someone who has depression, anxiety or PTSD

They not they are not alone in experiencing those emotions, don’t automatically assume they think ‘woe is me’. They know many other people experience it, and deal with similar problems or have it worse than them. Just because you point this out to them, it is not automatically going to change their perspective and make them ‘happy’ or cure their problem/mental illness.

Some days these feelings come out of the blue, and bad days it is all too easy to fall into a thought process that is counter productive. If someone has low self-esteem or little regard for themselves, don’t simply point it out to them and tell them to stop feeling that way. Don’t guilt them because of those emotions because it makes them feel so much worse.

Don’t presume they don’t care about others, and their actions with others. Most people who have depression, anxiety or PTSD care deeply about how they affect others and will retreat at times because of the emotions they feel. They will withdraw from people or say things to make that person go away because they think that person will be better off without them. 

There is already enough stigma about mental illness from the past, don’t keep adding to it.

If someone you know is suffering, try and actually be there for them. To help them through the feelings if you can, if you don’t want to talk about certain things let them know, as you will find they value you more and will avoid talking about those things that trigger you.

Most importantly, try to change their way of thinking. If they are really upset, use a distraction by talking about something you both enjoy!

Don’t automatically criticise their actions, if you see them as being upset, ask them what upset them. You may find understanding then as to why they could be upset over something.

During an episode, sometimes things are said that they don’t mean. It is the illness talking, and if they do apologise for their actions you will find mostly that they truly mean it. Don’t hold them accountable and give them an opportunity to make up for those actions. If you can’t, at least be an adult, explain why you may not wish to speak to them again or tell them what they did that upset you as they can take this to heart and it can be a good opportunity for them to change their actions and even seek help because they can see how it is actually affecting their life!

shadowcharmed:

Let’s talk a little about PTSD. Since this will be a theme on this blog, I want to dispel some misconceptions and myths. Hopefully this will help people understand such a complex disorder.

–

1) PTSD not what you think. It is not what the media thinks. You can have it and not know it.

2) Trauma is not what you think it is. Trauma is not what the media thinks it is. Trauma does not have to be a death; it does not have to be explosions; it does not have to be cancer; it does not have to be a near death experience, and it does not have to be witnessing a horrific thing such as gang rape. Trauma can be someone yelling at you; trauma can be someone ignoring you; trauma can be intense humiliation; trauma can be deep rejection, and trauma can be horrible betrayal. Trauma is that which wounds us so profoundly that we are permanently changed creatures.

3) There are two types of PTSD: Complex PTSD and PTSD. C-PTSD results from multiple traumas or multiple forms of abuse. PTSD is typically centered around just one event. C-PTSD is an accumulation.

4) You can get PTSD (or C-PTSD) from emotional abuse. This is possible. There are studies backing this up. Just because you weren’t “abused as badly” or “it was just words,” it doesn’t mean that you aren’t at risk or possibly suffer from PTSD. You can get it without being physically hurt.

5) Flashbacks don’t really work the way most people think they do. Every flashback is different. Sometimes you see things and sometimes you hear things. Sometimes a traumatic memory is played on a loop in your head, and the thoughts and feelings consume you for days. Sometimes you just feel like you’re emotionally re-experiencing the traumatic event. A lot of survivors of traumatic events don’t recognize those feelings as a flashback and therefore do not process upsetting events very well.

6) One of the most prominent symptoms of PTSD is avoidance. This can manifest as avoiding a single person or location. This can also be doing things like constantly distracting yourself so you don’t have to dwell on very upsetting memories or developing unhealthy habits such as constant drinking. This can lead to things like agoraphobia or other anxiety disorders.

7) PTSD develops because you experienced a very real threat to your safety and your brain wants to protect you from experiencing that again. It’s trying to remind you so you can avoid being in harm’s way again. This is your body’s attempt to save you. Don’t resent it too much. It’s trying to help.

8) People with PTSD startle easily and are hyper-vigilant in seemingly benign situations. This is because, as stated above, your brain is trying to protect you. Don’t get too upset or frustrated with yourself when you experience this. Respect your body. It wants to help.

9) Respect your trauma. Respect. Your. Trauma. So many people feel guilty bringing up something “benign” because “someone has it worse.” That is a normal reaction. People - and the media - tend to minimize things like emotional abuse or neglect. Those have scientifically been proven to be very traumatic. Respect your trauma. Just because someone has had a shittier situation, it doesn’t mean that yours isn’t shitty as well. Respect that. Know that your pain is real and your trauma is real. This is how healing from PTSD begins.

10) You don’t have to be a soldier to have PTSD.

If you constantly think about a traumatic encounter, constantly /avoid/ thinking about that encounter, have triggers such as seeing someone or going to a certain location, have anxiety or panic attacks when thinking about the event/person, feel unsafe all the time, or are easily startled, please see a mental health professional. You might have more than “just” anxiety. Your quality of life can be improved with treatment and medication. Respect your body. Respect your trauma. Respect your healing. Respect your worth.

naamahdarling:

naamahdarling:

lireecrirerever:

8prometheus8:

feministingforchange:

apersnicketylemon:

anti-feminism-pro-cats:

apersnicketylemon:

The real irony of the people who make jokes about being triggered is that they tend to idolize the military/veterans as if combat related PTSD isn’t a real thing that also has triggers. Y’all make fun of the people you call hero’s when you’re making fun of the teenagers with PTSD from non-combat related issues, you can’t separate the two.

Most of the people making fun of triggers are making fun of all the bullshit “”“triggers”“”, as in the people calling a mild uncomfortable feelings triggers.

The problem with making fun of a trigger is you genuinely do not know whether they are ‘mildly uncomfortable’ or if that is a thing that is genuinely causing severe anxiety, depressive episodes, or stress responses. Most of the “““““bullshit”““““ triggers I’ve seen being made fun of are actual trauma survivors who have their trauma associated with something unusual or strange. Because the thing that triggers their PTSD or panic is odd, people, not unlike yourself, are writing them off as “whiny babies” or “triggered sjws” or call their trigger bullshit because they cannot understand the association.

For examples: Sirens are one of my triggers. When I hear sirens I get an immediate panic response. This was due to being in an active war zone as a child (The response is significantly worse if it is an air raid siren or sounds too similar to an air raid siren.). If you didn’t know I was in an active war zone though, it might seem silly to see an adult panic and attempt to get to a safe place because an ambulance, fire truck, or police car went past them.

I have a manager who is triggered by the presence of police. Specifically police, other uniforms are fine (i.e. security in the mall does not set off her panic response). Her trigger is severe, if a police officer talks to her, she starts panicking and sobbing and cannot control it. This is because when she was young, two police officers threatened her repeatedly and psychologically abused her for 6 hours while they tried to find out where her brother was (yes, this was illegal. Her parents were not home at the time, and were unaware she was alone as the brother in question was meant to be watching her). If you didn’t know that story though, it might seem silly to see an adult woman burst into tears and have a panic attack because a cop said ‘hi’ to her.

I have seen posts by an abuse survivor talking about how the sound of a garage door triggered them, due to abuse by a parent. They associated that sound with the abuser returning home and the abuse beginning. The sound became a trigger because their mind associated it to that. I saw another post by a rape survivor talking about how she was triggered by the sight of eggs because she made eggs for her rapist after he’d raped her. Her mind associated eggs with the trauma due to the two being connected at least in her mind.

Brains are weird. Trauma doesn’t make sense. The point is, YOU do not know if someone is ““““bullshitting”“““ or not. You do not know how someones trauma associated itself with something odd, which is something trauma really does all the time and making fun of trauma survivors because you don’t understand the association between their trauma and the item that triggers their ptsd or anxiety is absolutely wrong and absolutely hypocritical if you think any other form of trigger is acceptable or okay. You don’t get to decide other peoples trauma triggers. They didn’t even get to decide them, and to tell someone that you’re okay to make fun of them because what upsets them doesn’t make sense to you is absolutely not okay.

I should note too: Phobia’s are real triggers too. People have panic attacks when exposed to their phobia’s in the wrong way. I need certain pictures tagged because I am absolutely terrified of heights, which is a pretty common phobia. People can have serious phobia’s to everything and anything though, and there are things I am not afraid of that others are that may seem strange to me, but to them are very real and very frightening. Just because it seems odd to you, doesn’t mean it isn’t still real to the person experiencing it.

This post needs a zillion more notes. As a Complex PTSD sufferer I truly hope that people will someday stop policing others’ triggers and health problems as if they have a single clue. 

Just BACK OFF and let people LIVE.

And PTSD has ALWAYS had odd triggers, this isn’t just a modern thing. My grandmother couldn’t do anything with the reservoir on the back of a toilet because when she was nine, she was gangraped. When her attackers were in their stupor, she took all of their guns and put them in the reservoir of their toilet, and ran through the street naked until someone helped her. Having to put the weapons she KNEW they were going to use on her behind the toilet stuck in her mind, that was what became a trigger for her brain- along with being unable to go outside in her bare feet ever again. 

One of my closest friends is triggered by someone touching his hair, because one of his stepfathers swung him around by his hair and smashed him into things. Now any time someone touches his hair, he gets so badly panicked he just vomits on the spot. 

And then you have people with conventional ptsd triggers like me- it’s hard for me to see blood and violence in certain contexts. Oddly, it’s fine in video games, but in movies or TV shows- ESPECIALLY if it’s suicide- it triggers me. Because through my suicide prevention work, I’ve WITNESSED suicides, so as a result it triggers my ptsd. 

Brains are strange and unpredictable in what they associate a situation to, and what becomes a symbol of trauma. But it’s not anyone’s job to gatekeep the subject, because it does absolutely no one any good. When someone says something triggers them, you need to respect it. And you also need to respect that triggers can generate different responses. My grandmother would get quiet and skittish when triggers. My friend vomits when triggered. I get enraged and frustrated when triggered- an unconventional response to a conventional trigger.

Some people cope so well that they only get ‘uncomfortable’. I’ve even seen one person who would get a ‘high’ because their body would try to release a shitload of dopamine in response to it, and then they’d crash. Shit’s weird, and all you can do is respect what someone says about their own boundaries.

Also, there’s a common misconception that trigger warnings are always about avoiding the trigger. That’s just not the case. A lot of times, a person is able to view a trigger and be perfectly fine if they were warned beforehand and allowed to mentally prepare. I’ve heard it compared to the fact that people can get used to and tune out a noise like a smoke detector beeping if it happens in a regular and predictable way. But random, unpredictable beeps cause immense psychological distress to almost anyone if you are forced to listen to them long enough. Letting people know a trigger is coming often helps mitigate the reaction.

This is such excellent commentary.

Two things to add.  Perhaps @anti-feminism-pro-cats might appreciate this specific thing.

I was once asked to please tag cats.  And I was like “Oookay, bud, I’ll try, but like, ¾ of my life IS cats, so I can’t promise anything…?”  Because that just seemed really weird to me.

And then, even though they didn’t have to, they actually wrote back and said, basically, “Hey, the reason I’m asking is because I had to witness people torturing cats in a situation I couldn’t escape, and now I just … can’t.” 

Oh shit.

So I said “Hey, holy fuck, I’m sorry. Do you need me to tag all cats, or just housecats? What about cartoon cats?  I just want to help you out, friend.”

And again, even though they didn’t have to, they came back and said “Cartoon cats aren’t too bad, but what I really can’t handle is seeing kittens.”

Fucking … fuck.

And I’m not gonna lie, that fucking hurt and chilled me to read.  Just … the story there.  I don’t want to know it.  It makes me sick just imagining it.  So I now tag for cats.

It’d be easy to say “It’s stupid to be triggered by kittens.”

But, uhh, I really don’t think that situation is “stupid” at all.  I think it’s fucking tragic.  And that person had the guts to ask, knowing that they might get made fun of for it, and then they were even kind enough to explain, and I’m grateful to them because it taught me something I intellectually but did not yet viscerally understand.

A healthy person, or even just someone with different triggers, can’t understand the significance behind triggers.  And triggers can be really fucking weird or even seemingly inappropriate.

So I got to make a choice.  I could say “If you can’t handle cats, seriously, I’m not the blog for you.”  Understandable, I suppose.  Or I could say “JFC that sucks, and the rest of the goddamn internet is flooded with untagged cats.  Maybe … maybe I can do this one thing so that they will feel safe reading my blog? Maybe I have the power to actually … help a little?”

And obviously, I made the latter choice.

Here’s another thing.

Recovery is a process, and eventually a lot of people move away from needing trigger warnings.  They are a helpful tool to protect yourself during a certain stage of healing.  That healing might take a really long time, and it might never be complete … or … it might only be necessary for a few months or years.

So you aren’t “coddling” people by tagging for [x thing you think shouldn’t be a trigger], you’re enabling them to engage on their terms.  Engaging on your own terms is literally the only way to make progress, therapeutically, so asserting that trigger warnings hinder progress is just not factually a correct statement at all.

You personally may choose not to tag for anything, and that’s fine.  You are absolutely allowed to run your personal space however you want, and people shouldn’t bug you about it.

But what you don’t get to do is decide what a “stupid” trigger is (hint: there isn’t one, there’s only fucked up situations that leave fucked up scars) and whether or not someone is experiencing severe or mild discomfort.  You can’t know that.  Their reaction isn’t even a good guide to how they are feeling inside.  They may seem only mildly uncomfortable.  You don’t see them losing their shit later because something hit them way worse than they thought it would, and they thought they were okay at the time but … hahaha, nope.

I guess … a lot of people seem to think that there’s this whole category of “special snowflake” people wandering around saying “I know how to get sympathy and validation: I’ll ask a total stranger to tag for cookware because I’m ‘triggered’ by spatulas!”  Just as if that’s liable to elicit the kind of validation truly lonely and desperate people need.

Or maybe … maybe they think there’s all these people who are so unacquainted with “real” pain or fear that they think their mildly uncomfortable feelings about Furbys compare to, and this is so often the example used and I think that is so wrong, combat vets who can’t handle fireworks.

What it comes down to, it seems like, is trying to extrapolate a story from the trigger so that you can say “Stop crying, you don’t have it that bad!”  Which is ridiculous.  As someone above pointed out, triggers can seem nonsensical even within the context of the instigating trauma. I remember the eggs post.  The things that stick with you about trauma are not always just the things you expect.  You can’t actually guess anything about a trauma from a seemingly inexplicable trigger beyond “Wow, fear of paintbrushes, plastic cups, and raisins … I bet that’s a story.”

And if that story that they imagine doesn’t match what they think is a “valid” trauma narrative, then they feel justified in dismissing it.  Completely missing the fact that there’s no such thing as a “valid” or “invalid” trauma narrative, because trauma is a really strange and subjective thing.  Also completely missing the fact that it’s not okay to try to make that judgment to begin with.

A lot of people seem unwilling, for some reason totally alien to me, to make that empathetic leap and say “Okay.  I don’t need to know more.  I believe you.”  They want to police other people’s experiences.  And that’s just one of the worst impulses of humanity.  It’s really nasty, and it gets applied in so many horrible ways to mental illness of all kinds.  It needs to stop.

Ultimately, it costs you nothing to be cool about it.  It costs you nothing to take what people say at face value, or to believe strangers and not comment on their mental health issues.  It costs you nothing to say nothing, even if you don’t believe them.  Because you are inevitably going to be wrong, and why risk making yourself look like a clueless, deliberately oafish asshole?

I’m really confused as to why this is an issue, except certain segments of the online community take great pleasure in being critical of other people’s attempts to cope, because they have invested a lot of their self-image in being “smart” and “discerning” and “no-nonsense” and “not gonna be fooled” … and they really enjoy tearing down people who are saying “these things are unfair” or “these things are hard for me.”

“You aren’t really hurt/traumatized/oppressed!” is a truly unpleasantly common thing to hear these people say.  Often they will even say it outright.  Other times, it comes across indirectly.

It’s not at all surprising for anti-feminists to also be anti-trigger-warning, and I think this is probably why.  I know it was the case for me for a very long time.  Then I kind of … grew up, I guess?  Enough bad shit happened to me and to people I know that I acquired sympathy.  And realized that, actually, my own traumas have left me with some pretty weird issues, things that make me uncomfortable but which other people are unlikely to consider inherently threatening.  So I had no room to judge.

It’s sad, because it’s actually a whole lot less effort to believe people when they talk about their experiences than it is to sit there, smoldering with disdain and resentment over the person who really can’t abide milk, of all things, and asks that it be tagged for.

If you’re angry about trigger warnings and are lashing out about it, just … go ask a mutual friend for a hug or something.  Go do something self-affirming.  Because the trigger warning thing is not about you or for you.  You might as well spend your energy doing something nice for yourself.  You’re lucky not to have to wrestle with a fear you very well know is ridiculous.  Enjoy that and move on.  Don’t waste your time thinking about how many people are wrong to feel the way they feel.  Just let it go.

I also want to emphasize something said above:

A lot of times, a person is able to view a trigger and be perfectly fine if they were warned beforehand and allowed to mentally prepare.

This is huge.

I can engage with my triggers.

I can do it voluntarily on my own terms, and the effects can, depending on circumstance, be pretty minimal.

I can do it with warning on someone else’s terms, and depending on circumstance I can be mostly okay to messed up but still mostly functional.

Or I can do it without warning at all, and depending on circumstance, fall apart a little, or a lot.

If given control of the situation, I can get away with a “yuck” feeling and then move on.  If not, I may need medication to bring me down.  It can fuck me up for a couple of days if I was not allowed to choose when/how/whether to engage.  If I am, hey, wow, look at that, I’m mostly all right.

This is not evidence that it’s not that bad.  Like with a lot of illness, disability, and mental health stuff, just because I can do it sometimes doesn’t mean it’s okay all the time.

This is how these things work. Period.  This is actually what recovery from trauma looks like, this is how it works, this is what you have to accept if you want to accept that any trauma at all is valid.

It really is a useless endeavor to try to draw conclusions about someone’s trauma from whether or not they ask for, use, or need trigger warnings.

And tbh, even if they come right out and say “I don’t have PTSD, I just hate seeing pictures of dogs, I’m so triggered lol”, that’s them being horrendously disrespectful of mentally ill people.  It’s not an excuse to then be even more disrespectful by using that to draw conclusions that allow you to dismiss the very concept of trigger warnings as stupid.

There are people who fake entire illnesses, okay?  Who lie about having cancer or whatever.  But we don’t take those people as evidence that people who have, you know, actual cancer must be lying and pretending to be special snowflakes.