By Maria DiPasquale, Staff Writer, Emerson College
*Trigger warning: could be triggering for survivors of abuse, sexual violence, self-injury
On the Emerson campus, a conversation is starting regarding the nature of the content professors should be allowed to discuss in class. This comes after a few students launched complaints about the discomfort they felt in classroom discussions on sensitive subjects last semester. A few different professors are currently being investigated about these incidents, and staff have been warned via email to be wary of the content they discuss in the classroom. In the aftermath, professors have begun having conversations with their students about the nature of their classroom discussions.
I have had these kinds of discussions in two of my classes so far. The discussions have been fairly productive. However, they have also raised a lot of issues we have as a student body when it comes to discussing sensitive topics. This was especially apparent when students began stigmatizing those who had launched the complaints in the first place. Some claimed that students are simply oversensitive. Others said that since we’re all adults, we should all be able to talk about such sensitive subjects as abuse and suicide. In my opinion, what this campus needs is a quick lesson in trigger warnings: what they are, why we need them, and how they can allow us to continue discussing sensitive topics without trapping our classmates in conversations that could be emotionally devastating.
In my fiction workshop, we decided that if someone felt uncomfortable by the content of a story we were discussing, they should be allowed to leave the classroom or not participate in discussion. However, if a student decides to walk out of a classroom while we’re discussing a story about something like sexual assault, the implications of that action itself could be embarrassing and emotionally devastating for the student. This messy subject could be easily solved: require professors to put trigger warnings next to readings with potentially triggering subject matter, and require students to put them on material handed in for class workshop. That way, students can work out their issues with the professor ahead of time, scheduling any necessary alternate assignments and days they won’t be attending class. Students won’t be forced to confront such sensitive topics in front of their peers.
Let me break down why I think trigger warnings are the appropriate solution. First of all, some of the opinions shared in my classes reflect the overarching societal attitude toward mental health: stigma. It is clear that many people simply cannot imagine why talking about these subjects in class could be emotionally damaging; as a result, they have stigmatized such victims, even if it wasn’t on purpose.
Most people who would feel compelled to step out of the classroom during a conversation about a rape scene or an instance of abuse have experienced such events in their own lives. Such survivors often suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Survivors of a variety of traumatic experiences can develop this anxiety disorder. One of its most prevalent symptoms is the trauma trigger. A trauma trigger, according to psychcentral.com, “is something that sets off a memory tape or flashback transporting the person back to the event of [their] original trauma.” These triggers are very personal to each individual and his or her experience. However, triggering these memories can have devastating consequences. Most people with PTSD have physical and emotional reactions to triggers, such as increased heart rate, muscle tension, and panic attacks. Therefore, someone who has a traumatic event in their past might have very good reason to step out of the classroom while reading a scene that details a similar experience.
To fight for the mental health of survivors of such traumatic experiences, many online activism communities place “trigger warnings” at the top of articles containing sensitive material. These are meant to give victims a heads up that the content of the article could potentially trigger a flashback, allowing victims to then decide for themselves whether or not to proceed. Because PTSD and trauma triggers are so personal, the trigger warning gives readers the opportunity to decide for themselves whether or not it is wise to continue reading.
These trigger warnings have mostly existed within the activist and feminist blogosphere. However, according to a 2013 Slate.com article entitled “The Year of the Trigger Warning,” “the trigger warning became a mainstream concept in 2013.” The article points out an episode of the highly popular show Scandal that was heavily criticized for failing to place a warning at the beginning of an episode in which a main cast member was raped. This generated a discussion about television and the need for warnings before episodes that include highly graphic scenes of such abuse.
In my opinion, it is incredibly important for the concept of the trigger warning to become mainstream in both a media and classroom context. According to psychologytoday.com, about 7.7 million American adults suffer from PTSD. It is likely that you know someone who suffers from it. As a result, we should become more sensitive to these peoples’ experiences.
But if we’re going to integrate trigger warnings into our life, how far do we go? This takes me back to the debate my workshop class had: where do we draw the line? According to my professors, Emerson College might prefer educators to avoid discussing such topics in class altogether. But ignoring sensitive subjects is detrimental. These topics hurt, and they’re hard to read about or watch on a screen, but they are an unfortunate reality in our society. After all, the reason that the concept of a trigger warning became popularized through the activist blogosphere is because many of these topics are interlaced with systems of oppression. Even while trying to dismantle the systems of oppression that allow these traumatic events to occur, we must be sensitive to the experiences of those who have suffered. When done correctly, media that discusses issues of abuse, sexual assault, violence, self-injury, eating disorders, suicide, and myriad other potentially triggering experiences is incredibly important. It allows us to understand the experiences of these victims and begin to pinpoint what allows these things to continue to permeate our society so that we can try to fight back and stop it.
This all becomes difficult because of the highly personal nature of trauma triggers. We can never put a trigger warning for every single detail of a story that could potentially trigger someone, because honestly anything can trigger a memory for someone. On one blog dedicated to trigger warnings, there is a list of common triggers that many people would never have even thought to warn against. The list includes such commonplace practices as swearing, vomiting, and blood, in addition to the more obvious triggers of violence, abuse, and suicide.
So how do we add trigger warnings to our lives without going overboard? In my opinion, the best rule of thumb when deciding whether or not to place a trigger warning is to put yourself in the place of a victim. Read through the content of a writing piece or watch the content of a video. Pretend that everything depicted in the piece has happened to you in the past, and then ask yourself: how would you feel watching this played out on a TV screen in front of you? How would you feel reading a detailed account of a situation similar to one you’ve been in? If you could understand such a person being uncomfortable with anything written there, it’s safest to provide a trigger warning. Of course, you could go through this process and still accidentally trigger someone. That’s not your fault. Triggers are so personal that a tiny detail completely unrelated to any sort of violence or abuse could cause someone to have a flashback. The important thing is to understand your power. Once you go through the process of understanding that what you put on a page or on a screen can have a deep psychological impact on someone, you can begin to become sensitive to others’ experiences in every facet of your life. In my opinion, if the makers of media could begin to use this process, survivors and people with PTSD would have an easier time navigating their media-saturated lives.
We cannot stop talking about uncomfortable experiences altogether. This would make these people and their experiences invisible. But we must realize that it is important to be sensitive to these issues in all aspects of our lives. One of the least talked about issues in our society is the stigma against mental health. When we call people oversensitive for wanting a trigger warning before a scene of domestic violence, or tell students to grow up and talk about a rape scene because they’re technically “adults,” we gloss over the very real experience of people living every day with PTSD. It’s important to understand how widespread these experiences are in our society and act accordingly. Without respecting those who have already suffered, we cannot truly begin the process of dismantling the systems that allow this suffering to happen.
Maria DiPasquale is a sophomore Writing, Literature, and Publishing major at Emerson College with a concentration in fiction. She is working on minors in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Post-Colonial Studies. She owes a lot of who she is to Maplewood, New Jersey, the liberal and diverse commuter town outside New York where she grew up. She wants to dedicate her career to writing stories that draw on equality issues. For now, she can be found ranting about feminism, racism, or her love for velvet.
Image: Corbis
*Trigger warning: could be triggering for survivors of abuse, sexual violence, self-injury
On the Emerson campus, a conversation is starting regarding the nature of the content professors should be allowed to discuss in class. This comes after a few students launched complaints about the discomfort they felt in classroom discussions on sensitive subjects last semester. A few different professors are currently being investigated about these incidents, and staff have been warned via email to be wary of the content they discuss in the classroom. In the aftermath, professors have begun having conversations with their students about the nature of their classroom discussions.
I have had these kinds of discussions in two of my classes so far. The discussions have been fairly productive. However, they have also raised a lot of issues we have as a student body when it comes to discussing sensitive topics. This was especially apparent when students began stigmatizing those who had launched the complaints in the first place. Some claimed that students are simply oversensitive. Others said that since we’re all adults, we should all be able to talk about such sensitive subjects as abuse and suicide. In my opinion, what this campus needs is a quick lesson in trigger warnings: what they are, why we need them, and how they can allow us to continue discussing sensitive topics without trapping our classmates in conversations that could be emotionally devastating.
In my fiction workshop, we decided that if someone felt uncomfortable by the content of a story we were discussing, they should be allowed to leave the classroom or not participate in discussion. However, if a student decides to walk out of a classroom while we’re discussing a story about something like sexual assault, the implications of that action itself could be embarrassing and emotionally devastating for the student. This messy subject could be easily solved: require professors to put trigger warnings next to readings with potentially triggering subject matter, and require students to put them on material handed in for class workshop. That way, students can work out their issues with the professor ahead of time, scheduling any necessary alternate assignments and days they won’t be attending class. Students won’t be forced to confront such sensitive topics in front of their peers.
Let me break down why I think trigger warnings are the appropriate solution. First of all, some of the opinions shared in my classes reflect the overarching societal attitude toward mental health: stigma. It is clear that many people simply cannot imagine why talking about these subjects in class could be emotionally damaging; as a result, they have stigmatized such victims, even if it wasn’t on purpose.
Most people who would feel compelled to step out of the classroom during a conversation about a rape scene or an instance of abuse have experienced such events in their own lives. Such survivors often suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Survivors of a variety of traumatic experiences can develop this anxiety disorder. One of its most prevalent symptoms is the trauma trigger. A trauma trigger, according to psychcentral.com, “is something that sets off a memory tape or flashback transporting the person back to the event of [their] original trauma.” These triggers are very personal to each individual and his or her experience. However, triggering these memories can have devastating consequences. Most people with PTSD have physical and emotional reactions to triggers, such as increased heart rate, muscle tension, and panic attacks. Therefore, someone who has a traumatic event in their past might have very good reason to step out of the classroom while reading a scene that details a similar experience.
To fight for the mental health of survivors of such traumatic experiences, many online activism communities place “trigger warnings” at the top of articles containing sensitive material. These are meant to give victims a heads up that the content of the article could potentially trigger a flashback, allowing victims to then decide for themselves whether or not to proceed. Because PTSD and trauma triggers are so personal, the trigger warning gives readers the opportunity to decide for themselves whether or not it is wise to continue reading.
These trigger warnings have mostly existed within the activist and feminist blogosphere. However, according to a 2013 Slate.com article entitled “The Year of the Trigger Warning,” “the trigger warning became a mainstream concept in 2013.” The article points out an episode of the highly popular show Scandal that was heavily criticized for failing to place a warning at the beginning of an episode in which a main cast member was raped. This generated a discussion about television and the need for warnings before episodes that include highly graphic scenes of such abuse.
In my opinion, it is incredibly important for the concept of the trigger warning to become mainstream in both a media and classroom context. According to psychologytoday.com, about 7.7 million American adults suffer from PTSD. It is likely that you know someone who suffers from it. As a result, we should become more sensitive to these peoples’ experiences.
But if we’re going to integrate trigger warnings into our life, how far do we go? This takes me back to the debate my workshop class had: where do we draw the line? According to my professors, Emerson College might prefer educators to avoid discussing such topics in class altogether. But ignoring sensitive subjects is detrimental. These topics hurt, and they’re hard to read about or watch on a screen, but they are an unfortunate reality in our society. After all, the reason that the concept of a trigger warning became popularized through the activist blogosphere is because many of these topics are interlaced with systems of oppression. Even while trying to dismantle the systems of oppression that allow these traumatic events to occur, we must be sensitive to the experiences of those who have suffered. When done correctly, media that discusses issues of abuse, sexual assault, violence, self-injury, eating disorders, suicide, and myriad other potentially triggering experiences is incredibly important. It allows us to understand the experiences of these victims and begin to pinpoint what allows these things to continue to permeate our society so that we can try to fight back and stop it.
This all becomes difficult because of the highly personal nature of trauma triggers. We can never put a trigger warning for every single detail of a story that could potentially trigger someone, because honestly anything can trigger a memory for someone. On one blog dedicated to trigger warnings, there is a list of common triggers that many people would never have even thought to warn against. The list includes such commonplace practices as swearing, vomiting, and blood, in addition to the more obvious triggers of violence, abuse, and suicide.
So how do we add trigger warnings to our lives without going overboard? In my opinion, the best rule of thumb when deciding whether or not to place a trigger warning is to put yourself in the place of a victim. Read through the content of a writing piece or watch the content of a video. Pretend that everything depicted in the piece has happened to you in the past, and then ask yourself: how would you feel watching this played out on a TV screen in front of you? How would you feel reading a detailed account of a situation similar to one you’ve been in? If you could understand such a person being uncomfortable with anything written there, it’s safest to provide a trigger warning. Of course, you could go through this process and still accidentally trigger someone. That’s not your fault. Triggers are so personal that a tiny detail completely unrelated to any sort of violence or abuse could cause someone to have a flashback. The important thing is to understand your power. Once you go through the process of understanding that what you put on a page or on a screen can have a deep psychological impact on someone, you can begin to become sensitive to others’ experiences in every facet of your life. In my opinion, if the makers of media could begin to use this process, survivors and people with PTSD would have an easier time navigating their media-saturated lives.
We cannot stop talking about uncomfortable experiences altogether. This would make these people and their experiences invisible. But we must realize that it is important to be sensitive to these issues in all aspects of our lives. One of the least talked about issues in our society is the stigma against mental health. When we call people oversensitive for wanting a trigger warning before a scene of domestic violence, or tell students to grow up and talk about a rape scene because they’re technically “adults,” we gloss over the very real experience of people living every day with PTSD. It’s important to understand how widespread these experiences are in our society and act accordingly. Without respecting those who have already suffered, we cannot truly begin the process of dismantling the systems that allow this suffering to happen.
Maria DiPasquale is a sophomore Writing, Literature, and Publishing major at Emerson College with a concentration in fiction. She is working on minors in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Post-Colonial Studies. She owes a lot of who she is to Maplewood, New Jersey, the liberal and diverse commuter town outside New York where she grew up. She wants to dedicate her career to writing stories that draw on equality issues. For now, she can be found ranting about feminism, racism, or her love for velvet.
Image: Corbis