On CWs, TWs, PSAs and "safe spaces"

I get very triggered by the topic of cancer. Even seeing the word can throw me into a paranoid frenzy. But I've learned that, no matter what, I will never be able to shelter myself from the topic. By not facing the anxiety, I'm telling my anxiety that "Yes, you have something to fear. This paranoia is valid", and it's not. TWs are a short term solution that helps in the moment but hurts in the long run.

Short take: in small groups (less than 15 people), mediating word usage is fine. In the wider public, mediating word usage is impractical save for the handful of serious known topics that have already been discussed. If you're legitimately triggered by an unusual word, seek therapy/psychiatric assistance for coping strategies (potentially medication) just as one would if they were triggered by the more common trigger words. Don't rely on or expect the world to shield you from your issues.

In a similar vain to what Dust was talking about, larger groups (i.e. the public) can reasonably handle a small number of highly applicable accommodations (with difficulty), but when you start piling on the Xers, Xer 2.0, Xi, Fi, Himahers, and 3000 other genders that only apply to a handful of individuals, the line is drawn.

The public already has a hard time identifying a lion from a tiger. Is it truly necessary to complicate life further by introducing 9k trigger words everyone needs to be conscious of and alter their speech patterns around at all times just because there's a very small chance someone might be triggered?

(i dont know if this is repeating on something so sorry)

i honestly think that trigger warnings are bad. trigger warnings do help a lot of neurodivergent people not get upset, and no one likes to be upset ya know? like it can be a small thing to us but some people get really upset about like idk bugs or clowns or whatever. i dont think they get upset about like "oh its conflicting with my views" but they are more like this has bad effects on my body and mind so please put a trigger on it.

i think most influential people online with larger groups of people they talk to, get the "you didnt put a trigger warning for ___ and thats upsetting." i definitely get why you'd be mad about that of course. id just think that youre human, you cant account for everyones triggers, so id honestly just do a tw for the main talk of the post like idk, bugs if you are talking about an ant farm.

i think those triggers arent ment to like, alienate peoples ideas? like yeah the media sjw safe space thing is a tad different. i think safe spaces are the ones that are toxic because that is really keeping people with the same thoughts in a bubble where they cant get ideas from the outside world. but triggers are different. they can really cause damage for multiple reasons.

im just saying that try your best and you cant please everyone. but just know that some things trigger people and thats valid no matter how odd the trigger is. same for pronouns! just try your best

I think HoneyCombPup nailed it on their opinion.

Quote:TWs are a short term solution that helps in the moment but hurts in the long run.

There are certain topics that make me extremely uncomfortable, sometimes to the point of shaking and hyperventilating. But I have never asked anyone to censor it, and sometimes engage in conversations about it myself. (And I won't say what the topic is so as to not alienate people from talking to me about it). I think exposure to things you fear are good in healthy doses.

That being said, I do understand TW's for general explicit material that are unsettling to the majority of people.
I'm not totally sure how safe spaces work but from what I can tell, general ones can be good. Like having a safe space to talk about whatever you want without fear of judgement seems great.

I think this circles to a broad issue with social media. We are bombarded with news constantly and pressured or sometimes even forced to feel like we should care about every single issue. The reality is that caring about everyone and everything is tiring and emotionally draining and it simply cannot be done for every single issue.

There's a lot I agree with and a lot I disagree with in this thread.

I think that content warnings are not a bad thing, nor a hard thing, to a reasonable degree. Very specific and personal discomforts are of course quite unreasonable to expect an entire public forum to remember and label, and such things you'll have to learn to handle on your own instead of expecting the world to change for you. But I feel like most of us would know what topics might be a whole lot to just stumble upon without warning, like graphic descriptions of violence or assault, or blood/gore images, etc. There are certain things that are completely understandable for people to not want to see without warning, and providing a warning for these things is just a matter of being considerate, so that someone can decide for themselves if they're up for seeing that at the moment.

I do agree that "safe spaces" are actually extremely uncomfortable to be in, and that's coming from a disabled queer person as well. You can't always be expected to know what might set someone else off. But I see some of y'all complaining about pronouns in general, which is really not that hard. No one should be attacking you for getting them wrong, and I'm sorry if that's happened. And neo-pronouns are a lot harder (xe/xer etc), I have trouble with those too. And I think if someone has specific pronouns they'd like you to use, they should put them in their signature where they can be clearly seen. But suggesting that anyone who has preferred pronouns is just making it up to mess with you is pretty backwards imo, and I'd expect better from a site about alternate identities.

Courtesy goes both ways. No one should hassle you over their own personal problems, and you should understand that certain topics or images are pretty universally shocking or upsetting, and putting up a couple words of warning beforehand is not hard. Once the warning is up, the responsibility is on the other person to follow it or not follow it.

I'd also like to point out that the "real world" and "learning to ride a bike" argument goes both ways as well -- the real world will not always accomodate you, and you need to learn how to handle yourself, but in the real world, you also have to be considerate of other people, and that in itself is a learning curve, which you yourself are responsible for. IMO only ever using the "real world" argument to justify harshness and unkindness is unrealistic and its is its own form of hiding.

Like I said, I agree and I disagree.

Quite interesting to read since for topics like these people have so many different opinions.
I'll be quite honest, Content and trigger warnings are mostly just annoying to me. Especially for very mediocre things. It probably also has to do with the fact that I hate censoring myself. Being uncomfortable with something isn't a trigger and I'm pretty tired of seeing people use TW for every little thing.

I've seen so many people attacked because they chose NOT to put a trigger warning on something, e.g. I saw a person on TikTok get absolutely blasted because they didn't put a TW for a plastic razor which they used to scrap off some stickers. I sincerely doubt it could have been that triggering when they had time to write several comments and keep interacting with said content..
TW for characters, shows, people are all stuff in my eyes which just crosses a certain line. If you can't handle a certain thing you shouldn't keep seeking out said content and expect everyone will bow to your will to put trigger warnings on everything they see. There comes a point where you'll be so used to the CW/TW that you'll be shocked when you see something without one, and thats not healthy. Like some other people have said here, if a certain word is enough to trigger you, you should seek out help. I know I might sound really rude, but I ain't tryna be. If you have straight up panic attacks over a word, you need to seek out professional help. I know getting the help you need can be hard and can take time, but until then you need to protect yourself and remove yourself from these situations. You can't always blame someone else for when you're feeling triggered about something. Especially if the content was already "problematic" beforehand and you still actively looked out for it (like shows/games/books...ect. that are 18+ for a reason)
Trigger warnings often don't make stuff better but worse...

I'll admit, I have one of the most stupid and weird triggers in the world, but I would never blame someone else if they bring me into contact with it, because they don't know. If they'd show me this stuff on prupose it'd be a different story, but there aren't many people who will show you stuff that upsets you just cause. Hell, the 1st of december used to be a trigger of mine because of trauma, but the solution was trauma therapy, not a trigger warning for the last month of the year. I'd still be miserable if I hadn't worked on that.

There are certain things where I do see it as okay though, like being in a small group chat with someone and you know they can't handle a specific thing I believe it's very reasonable to put a content warning, just giving the person a heads up or put the thing you wanna talk about in a private chat with the person you're talking to. And of course I do understand other certain warnings, like a youtuber mentioning when they'll talk about a explicit and heavy topic. I listen to a lot of true crime stuff so that came to mind.

It also maybe just be me, but every time I see these "safe-spaces", the "triggering" content always comes up the most in these spaces? Maybe it's just me, but it's a pattern I've noticed. I've never seen so much "drama" than in those safe-spaces.

I hope I didn't sound too rude and all over the place-
I'll just say that there's a line between warning people over topics that are genuine upsetting to most people and putting a trigger warning on literally everything, making most trigger warnings basically useless. Lots of people will get used to having a TW on everything, not taking the warning seriously anymore and then will run into genuine triggering material because they got so incredibly used to the TW's for stuff that really doesn't need a TW.

(2021-03-01 22:28)DustWolf Wrote:  I assume from the example that this is, at least in part, intentional.

I've found if you for example give people an option to fill something out about themselves on an Internet forum, they will create some kind of preference and stick with it, even if it's something they never even considered beforehand.

We've seen it with pronouns. Some people are trans and have a genuine emotional need to be recognised. Most people however see it as an arbitrary label they can choose and force other people to validate.

These triggers are no different. There are a few people with PTSD, who can act unpredictably when triggered. And then there's everyone else who sees it as some kind of arbitrary preference thing they can choose for themselves -- and then bully people who do not comply with their demand to be validated on their arbitrary preference.

I can't help but feel that a lot of this is caused simply by the lack of adults in certain social groups.

LP,
Dusty

Completely agreeing on this one. It's mere attention-seeking and nothing else. Another good example is how some younger people tend to shout that they have Dissociate Identity Disorder while they are completely misinformed about it. They think it's some sort of gate to heaven in which they can pretend to be their own OCs for example. Not only is it plain stupid, but it's also incredibly disrespectful to systems that actually suffer from DID.

In PD's Discord server we have a plural kit (a bot that allows you to talk through different generated accounts), and I have already encountered a couple of people who have "misused" (in the end it's just a bot and we don't authorize it, but it is our server) the bot by creating a system with their OCs or to indeed pretend as if they have headmates of any form.

The problem is also that all hell breaks loose if one decides to speak up about it. Should I tell people "Uhm, you only get DID due to repeated trauma in your early childhood, not because of one scary moment when you were like 12", you probably will get a crazy amount of backlash from misinformed kids who genuinely believe the person has a system (I literally saw this happening once, the person later confessed to me that they made the system up).
So it can even form into pure manipulation.

(2021-03-29 16:14)Kyra Wrote:  The problem is also that all hell breaks loose if one decides to speak up about it. Should I tell people "Uhm, you only get DID due to repeated trauma in your early childhood, not because of one scary moment when you were like 12", you probably will get a crazy amount of backlash from misinformed kids who genuinely believe the person has a system (I literally saw this happening once, the person later confessed to me that they made the system up).
So it can even form into pure manipulation.

It's a sticky situation, that's for sure. I've been harassed for pointing out things such as "typing quirks" which seems to be the new hip and cool trend on the net. One person in a server that I'm in has their alter, or as they call it, "headmate" replace letters with numbers making the words hard as hell to read. When I asked them to type normally I was told that "they can't control it" and that I was gatekeeping.

It's things like this that make me skeptical of every person I meet who says that they have alters. I know there are people out there who really do have DID, and to those who do, you have my condolences, having to deal with fakers and liars and all. I suppose this is kind of swaying off topic, but I do find that the people who fake having alternate personalities and the people who require that you use CWs and TWs tend to be in the same crowd.

(2021-03-29 23:23)Saoirse Fiain Wrote:  

(2021-03-29 16:14)Kyra Wrote:  The problem is also that all hell breaks loose if one decides to speak up about it. Should I tell people "Uhm, you only get DID due to repeated trauma in your early childhood, not because of one scary moment when you were like 12", you probably will get a crazy amount of backlash from misinformed kids who genuinely believe the person has a system (I literally saw this happening once, the person later confessed to me that they made the system up).
So it can even form into pure manipulation.

It's a sticky situation, that's for sure. I've been harassed for pointing out things such as "typing quirks" which seems to be the new hip and cool trend on the net. One person in a server that I'm in has their alter, or as they call it, "headmate" replace letters with numbers making the words hard as hell to read. When I asked them to type normally I was told that "they can't control it" and that I was gatekeeping.

It's things like this that make me skeptical of every person I meet who says that they have alters. I know there are people out there who really do have DID, and to those who do, you have my condolences, having to deal with fakers and liars and all. I suppose this is kind of swaying off topic, but I do find that the people who fake having alternate personalities and the people who require that you use CWs and TWs tend to be in the same crowd.

"They can't control it" rubs me the wrong way. For a person who is genuinely not in control of their own mind and actions, it is very distressing. They should be trying to address this problem but ignorant/irresponsible people might prefer to avoid it.

If a person has DID and is serious about about treatment, then any (capable) alter is responsible for the system. They are responsible for their alters' actions even if they cannot control or cannot remember. They are responsible for learning to gain better communication and cooperation and helping the ones that have trauma/behavior issues.

Different alters in a system might have different language styles and different levels of skills at typing. But I think someone using numbers instead of letters and refusing to type clearly because "they can't control it" is just being an ass. There could be some genuine reason the alter likes to type in a cryptic way, but even if it's genuine they're clearly not trying to figure it out.

Another thing I feel is important to point out is that if *you* are not in control of your mind, then you might be easily controlled. People who get triggered and think it's normal could be turned into rage-bots screeching and getting violent to fulfill someone's agenda, too.

There are problems with a few topics I had, mainly adult in nature which I won't relay here but it seems like it sends me into panic mode when such a situation occurs, even so, bad that I have dreams about not being in control of the situation.

That is all I will say on it, sorry if you saw my previous post, I just wanted to make it more lite and kid-friendly.