I have triggers. Really, I do. I will not be arrogant enough to compare them to those of others. One of my triggers is abuse by peers in childhood; another is abuse on the job. I start talking about the job from hell, if I go too deep into it, my heart starts pounding and my blood pressure starts rising. I am not making light of anybody’s trigger when I note that I do not loudly eschew fictions that use these as story elements, nor would I approach a professor to ask him to stop teaching fictions that use these as story elements. Part of this is because I know that fiction is a means of dealing with trauma. Part of it is because I know that if I need protective padding, I have no cause to order everybody else to, let alone steer entire courses of knowledge away from that which personally upsets me.
Some people will say, “Your triggers clearly aren’t as powerful as those of people who suffered worse, you are wrong to equate,” and so on. Quite likely. Indeed, probable. It is also possible that, to the extent mine exist, I am by addressing mine, and not protecting myself from anything that might activate them, chosen a better way to move on. I show no disrespect to anybody’s experience. But perhaps when you’re too upset to take classical mythology, you are protecting your wound too much to let it heal?
There’s another point.
I read and write horror. I read and write sometimes violent fiction. I watch some extremely violent films. I am warned again and again, by folks who would seek to demonize such fictions, that they are “desensitizing,” that it becomes possible for us, with over-exposure, to remove our capacity to react to such things. I think this is bullshit. It’s not the nature of the violence, it’s the nature of the call to empathy. In film we can watch Los Angeles be destroyed by an earthquake, with millions of people being buried in rubble, and feel nothing but a thrill; but let a character we like get slapped in the face, let alone shot, at a sensitive moment, and it will upset us. But fine, for the sake of argument, let us say that depictions of violence are desensitizing. My point is that it’s hard to reconcile that argument with the one made by the same people, that they’re triggery. These are opposite positions. If depictions of violence are that desensitizing, then wouldn’t it follow that opening yourself up to triggery material will eventually desensitize you to whatever your trigger is?
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