Trigger Warnings — Personal Thoughts

Medium is a platform of competing voices. On practically any and every issue under the sun, people on both sides of the fence show up on Medium (and surely other platforms) and write about their particular stances. Some of them also take the time to respond to their opponents, and careful readers can watch debates unfold among the pages.

It’s an interesting process to watch, even though this particular platform doesn’t have the best commenting and response system. It gives a more intimate look on how strangers perceive not only only serious, world-altering problems, but fellow human beings and themselves as well.

Recently, I was following an article about trigger warnings and it got me thinking about the nature of the problem. In a wide-open world (like say here) where anyone can find their own little corner of the universe and write whatever pleases them, conversation can get hairy and difficult quickly and without warning at all. Innocent-sounding posts devolve into nasty commentary as quickly as mean-spirited, ignorant drivel is overtaken by kind-hearted strangers. In other words, everyone has a voice and by and large, all those voices are generally equal. Here, they’re curated through tags and recommendations, but again, there’s a whole world outside of Medium and every platform has its “like” buttons.

For most people, difficult conversation and uncomfortable imagery poses no problem whatsoever. Daily, we’re exposed to all kinds of material, good and bad, and we keep right on moving, often without a second thought. Hearing about a horrendous act (from rape to bombings) might make us sad and might scare us a little, but these reminders do not generally force us to relieve horrible experiences. We know the pain only at a distance. Yeah, our hearts might still go out to the affected, to the refugees and the victims, but we’re not burdened with terrifying memories and paralyzing fears.

But the thing is, some people are. Some people who read our words have to tiptoe around them. They have to take extra care with mentions of violence or reminders of rape. Because it happened to them. They got hurt, and that hurt didn’t just vanish — pain like that lingers, maybe even forever. It haunts its victims day after day. What I see as merely a red firetruck can remind someone else of a fire, of some event where this stranger lost his friends or family. Where hot, thick flames licked his ceiling, or she lay paralyzed as heat crawled up the walls.

I don’t know and you don’t know what lives in someone’s head. And there is no crystal ball by which we can know, and no magic pill to dull their pain. That’s the kind of world we live in, the kind of beings that we are. We’re human, messy and imperfect, and living each day with a lifetime of emotional baggage following us around. Some cope better than others, perhaps, but coping is all any of us can do. Living through the pain or avoiding it, like a million tiny pinpricks that never stop.

And if a trigger warning can save a person from even one of those pinpricks, then I kind of think it’s done its job. None of us can fully shelter a victim from the pain (of any kind) but if a couple of words at the beginning of a post help dull it a little, then maybe it’s worth it. Maybe it’s the kindest thing any of us can do?