Trigger Warnings and the Assumption of Fragility

I have to assume that none of these college kids listen to any popular music recorded in the last 20 years. Blurred Lines needs a trigger warning.

I have PTSD and while certain common occurrences do trigger flashbacks, the culture of trigger warnings has reduced sufferers to fragile mental cases who can’t handle the real world. The whole point of recovery is learning to live with the world–a world that may be frightening or triggering. Avoidance is not the answer. After all, triggers are so diverse that if we somehow caught all of them, we couldn’t write a single word.

PTSD sufferers can and do thrive beyond their trauma, and we need to let them.

The problem is what we consider PTSD. It is a very real syndrome (ask any war veteran or sexual assault victim) yet nowadays it is diagnosed for just about anything.

Heck, I could probably could get diagnosed PTSD (and get a script from my doctor) for this horrible winter we’ve had. It’s like The Shining here…trapped indoors with children and dogs that get indoor zoomers, all of us with severe cabin fever, watching ridiculous amounts of bad Disney channel shows, grateful to have power but wanting to take an axe to the TV. Just the theme songs from shows like “Jessie” and “Dog with a Blog” could be my triggers. No, it doesn’t feel like a party every day, hey Jessie. It feels like another F@cking snow day every day.

@Steve Cournoyer
“you are kidding I hope”

I am. But I suspect there are people who would say the same thing, and aren’t kidding.

@BL: I laughed SO HARD at your comment “Saying or writing the word “trigger” is almost the same as shooting someone”! I understood it because I read this blog. Thanks for making my day!

Yep, it is thing now. There has already been few “scandals” over this and related issues. I have seen it come up only in female vs male context.

If you disagree with whatever they say, then you are labeled misogynist. Then of course trolls and real misogynist join the discussion and it all becomes messy.

Organizers of tech conferences were beaten hard for just allowing offtopic talk about sex and drugs http://adainitiative.org/2013/02/keeping-it-on-topic-the-problem-with-discussing-sex-at-technical-conferences/ Apparently, it harms women, never mind women was supposed to give that talk.

I’m kind of happy I see complain about it here, cause I started to doubt myself. I found myself disagree with “feminist” side in each controversy and I considered myself not to be misogynist.

The article that quote is from: http://www.shakesville.com/2014/03/triggered.html … sorry I didn’t get it in there, I thought I would get the chance to edit/preview.

I wonder: can someone be “triggered” by reading a trigger warning?

Hayley and Powers, Lenore isn’t trying to dispute the existence of PTSD or minimize its effects. She is saying that we should expect sufferers to know best how to handle triggers they encounter, just as we expect diabetics to know whether they should eat the cupcake or not. The warnings imply that we know they won’t be able to handle what’s coming at them. That seems less than respectful.

Trigger warning: apologies, mistakes, humility, spelling

Oh, sorry about the double post. Perhaps Lenore can delete the first one with its typo.

Wait a minute…if people are that fragile, wouldn’t simply the words “trigger warning” cause panic? “OMG, there’s a trigger warning! *I* have triggers because of ! Memories conjured! PANIC ATTACK!”

Like, for instance, the article mentions the use of abbreviations to indicate what triggers may be present (like SI for Self Injury). Wouldn’t simply seeing a warning about Self Injury content conjure up memories of the dark period during which a person intentionally injured themselves and cause pain and panic?

I am not trying to minimize the seriousness of PTSD, but it would seem to me that there is no way to completely avoid triggers without completely censoring everything of all possible triggers, so that no warning would be necessary. Since that is impossible, I would think the more logical approach would be to counsel people with PTSD to be able to deal with their triggers. You know, like we teach our children to deal with things like disappointment and failure. (and yes, I realize counseling doesn’t always cure the problem)

Plus, I think it’s a disservice to people who have PTSD to be categorizing every little thing that could bring up an unpleasant memory as PTSD.

These “trigger warning” people don’t want to stop at making you warn others, they actively want to shut down discussion they don’t agree with. In other words, they are book burners and we must stand firm against them.

Last year, Valerie Aurora of the Ada Foundation convinced a technical conference in San Francisco to shut down author Violet Blue’s presentation because it may have contained sexy material that radical feminists don’t want anyone to hear.

Down with book burners!

Nobody can be absolutely certain about what will or won’t trigger somebody else. Each person’s background programs them for how they will respond to something.

This idea of trigger warnings sounds like what I’ve been reading in
books about life in Red China under Mao. And we’re more than halfway there. Read WILD SWANS by Jung Chang. It will change how you perceive what is happening in this country. In fact a lot of what we talk about here deals with our society being unwilling to allow individuals to make personal choices. And it’s a very serious concern for a supposedly free society.

————-

Regarding PTSD

I find it fascinating that even though we have the internet and quick ways of finding new information, the general populace, including people here on this blog, apparently don’t realize that PTSD can be taken care of rather easily these days without medication. And I’m talking about lasting relief for very very serious abuse and war trauma. A number of modalities work well: EMDR, TFT, BSFF. But the one I use with my clients is Emotional Freedom Techniques, better known as EFT.

As an ADULT, she was capable of walking out if she felt uncomfortable. As adults, we all have

Yes, PTSD is a real condition. But so is OCD, depression, and anxiety. My mom had all 3 and needed accommodations. That doesn’t mean everyone and everything and every place had to accommodate her mental illness. In fact, doing so only increased her OCD. Instead, we worked to stretch her boundaries and comfort zone. If we hadn’t, she would have locked herself in her room and eliminated most human contact.

Yeah, and when I was a kid I got shot multiple times by my brother with a pretend gun consisting of his fingers…
And now, reading this blog, I get traumatised every time I see that gosh darned gun-shaped capital at the end of each and every post! How DARE you not trigger warn me for that!!

I think back to when I was a kid at school, and the old expression, “sticks and stones can hurt my bones, but words will never kill me.”

So much for free speech! Perchance you may “offend” someone and he falls over with a last gasp!

AND of course, the more there are “speech codes” and such, the MORE MISperceptions and mistaken hard feelings get generated.

Let’s hear it for the Thought Control Crowd! And their willing allies (anti-intellectual?) working in schools everywhere!

This is what is happening in education – it’s adopting a hodgepodge of ideas from other modalities (OT, psychology, counseling, etc.) without an understanding of the context, when they apply, and so on. It’s why teachers are all of a sudden being told to put velcro on the bottoms of desks – a tactic used in OT.

The trouble is – not everyone who is in school, or who is having trouble in school, is sick. In fact, only a sick person can really tolerate a school, but that’s another matter. We’ve medicalized everything that goes on in school, so we need medical means to deal with them – but teachers and administrators don’t understand when those things make sense and when they don’t. Not all students have PTSD.

I don’t have PTSD, so maybe I don’t know. But I do suffer from pretty severe, often crippling, anxiety (and crippling depression caused by the anxiety). It sucks A LOT.

Personally, I don’t want to live in a world where I can’t experience anything that causes me anxiety. That would be a boring, miserable world. At that point, I might as well just completely give in to my anxiety, because the world isn’t worth fighting through it.

What I want is a world where nothing I experience causes me (pathological) anxiety. That means changing ME, not the world. That’s what I’ve been fighting to accomplish my entire adult life.

I do appreciate when people are considerate of my anxiety (like the friend who checks on me every hour or so when we’re at a party, to make sure I’m not being overwhelmed). And sometimes I do hide away from the world when I can’t take it. But hiding the world FROM ME is the same as taking it from me, and that’s not helpful.

Puzzled, velcro under desks? Explain.

I guess as long as we can keep bashing rap music, and “Blurred Lines”, and demand more and more censorship of tv and movies then we’ll all be fine as long as no one takes away the ability to upset people with books and blog posts/sarcasm.

You know what? I skipped Anne Frank in school, my grandfather’s ill advised descriptions of the holocaust when I as too young were enough. I’m not irreparably harmed by being offered the choice, my life is not any less rich for not having read that book, I’m not a holocaust denier or ignorant of the holocaust, and to be frank: had I been raised a holocaust denier it’s highly doubtful being forced to read the book would have helped.

A trigger warning doesn’t take the choice away from people, it’s not prejudging them to be a victim, to be unable to take it, it’s simply offering them a choice. There’s nothing wrong with offering a choice. Yes, there are those that will abuse it to avoid everything, so they never have the chance to think and grow – the trade-off is the all too many people who have very negative memories from school from subjects taught to early, too graphically, too harshly, that have the potential to change how they feel about school, learning, or reading for a life-time.

I think we should treat graphic content as graphic content – whether it’s in books or video games. I think we can be adaptive, responsive, and kind, without being overprotective of our children or coddling the “others” we perceive as weak. Some students may be ready to learn from the Great Gatsby in grade 10, maybe some others won’t be until later. Maybe the college kid that moved from a women’s shelter to the dorm isn’t, even though they could have read it in grade 10.

It’s also not just about choosing not to read things, but it’s also about choosing when. Maybe someone would rather read the blog post with graphic violence at home, instead of on their lunch break, in case they need space. Maybe the college student struggling with domestic violence will do great with the material – but maybe doesn’t need to be around for the class where they may end up having to be advocate and educator (which gets tiring). Also, I’d like to remind everyone that college lectures generally aren’t mandatory to start with.

It’s a lot easier to make choices when you have information, and I can easily find exactly how many times the word fuck is used in a movie and a description of every act of violence but it’s far less easy to discover if a book is appropriate for my kids. So yes, let’s have “trigger” warnings, or let’s call them something else, but why not subject books, articles, and blogs to the same ratings we use for movies, music, and video games.

No, because the professor could give them a much longer or harder book to read instead of that one and that way you know if they are really having a PTSD issue or just trying to get out of work. There are alternate assignments in college all the time for various reasons and I don’t have a problem with that.

Warren you seem to think there should never be exceptions to rules but that is not how life works. A professor could say “No cell phones in class” but then allow one student to bring his since his wife is almost ready to give birth so she can call him if she goes into labor. There are exceptions and it would be up to the professor to decide whether they want to give them or not and I don’t have a problem with that. Especially because most professors don’t tolerate nonsense and they will make sure you are not taking advantage of them.

It goes back to do you trust the professors/teachers to handle their own classroom or not?

Dolly,
Really, letting an expectant parent to carry a phone is the same as letting someone opt of of classes due to triggers?

You are not comparing apples to oranges here, you are comparing apples to boulders. Way off.

If you are to mentally disordered to handle the material, take a different course. Because if you cannot handle the material in class you are sure as hell not going to handle it out in the world.

If things are triggers for you, then get some prof. help, and stop expecting the rest of the world to change for you.

IN OTHER WORDS, TOUGHEN UP CAUSE LIFE AIN’T EASY.

Actually I probably have traumatised dozens of students. I frequently make the cut throat gesture to my kids when they aren’t behaving in a civilized manner, haven’t done their homework, etc.,etc. Probably throwing out ‘triggers’ everywhere.

Good grief, can’t imagine why my students aren’t lying on the floor writhing in despair…. (well, some of them are, but that’s more to do with the inanity of some of the work I have to set them, rather than any PTSD ‘triggers’ in my words or actions, LOL!).

Warren,

People have opted out of parts of classes for as long as there have been classes. Full attendance is not mandatory in college. I ditched horror movie day of my film class in college because I detest horror movies. A few people opted out of watching A Clockwork Orange. The professor didn’t care.

For the most part, we are talking about art classes – film, literature – not medical school. Nobody absolutely NEEDS to read a specific book or see a specific movie to get by in life. We all make choices on those things based on our own tastes. I can name hundreds of classics of both that I have never watched or read. Some I will one day, but many I will not. I am still able to function fully in society.

So while I agree with you that you probably shouldn’t sign up for a human sexuality psychology course and expect the professor to just let you skip all the questions concerning pedophilia, rape, BDSM, etc. on the exam without penalty because you couldn’t read that material, it is no great accommodation to allow you to opt out of watching 1 of the 30+ movies viewed in whole or part during a semester. Nor do I think an unwillingness for any reason to watch 1 out of 30+ movies means that the entire class should be off limits. Literature class will depend on how focused the class is on that one book. If it is very incidental to the course, then who cares. If it is half the semester, you should probably take a different class.

Well Donna,

Then you wimped out. Don’t like horror movies then don’t take classes that have that material. So you miss out on some of the material you do want to study.

It is that sense of entitlement that is causing alot of the crap we see today. The whole yes I will take the course, but will only do the material I like, and still expect to get credit.

Someone working for me wanted to opt out of something because of not liking it, or it being a trigger……they would find their ass out of work.

The photo and your caption gave me a great smile. And I also recognised that the woman is probably the horse trainer. Thus her arm up is Trigger’s cue to rear.
As to the article. If someone or their friends believe they have anxiety disorder, an encouragement to professional intervention is very important, as the ‘looping’ effect of such anxiety makes it a constant dysfunctional state. Learning self management of being in front of ‘triggering’ material is more empowering than pre-empting what will trigger a person. My own anxiety triggers have sometimes been the simple raising of expectations by another. Emotional management and empowerment training is the key, not avoidance. While support is important (and don’t most of us need it?) avoidance would only be necessary for very unwell people and I think it would be doubtful such an unwell person would be able to fulfil academic learning requirements.

(Wow, I hope that Krystin girl will find out some day that future employers read social media too…)

It goes back to do you trust professors to handle their own classes and use their own judgment on whether they allow students to opt out of certain things if it triggers their PTSD? I trust professors to be able to make rational decisions regarding that. If the assignment was a huge part of the course, then I could see the professor being like “No, this part is required for all students.” Or being like “Well this other book is just as good, you can read that one instead.”

Let the professors run their own class as they see fit.

I had a college professor hand me a short story to do a paper on and it was a certain short story I really just disliked. I had read it multiple times for school in high school and we went over it in class and I just was over it. I asked nicely if she did not mind letting me do another one because I was burned out on that story. If she said “No, you need to do this one.” I would have sucked it up and done it. But she used her judgment and said “Sure and handed me another one.” I don’t see the issue there.

According to some of you though that professor sucked for running her own classroom according to her own judgment and not making every student do exactly as she tells them with no changes or alterations full stop. Which of course is ridiculous.

@mystic_eye ***A trigger warning doesn’t take the choice away from people, it’s not prejudging them to be a victim, to be unable to take it, it’s simply offering them a choice. There’s nothing wrong with offering a choice. Yes, there are those that will abuse it to avoid everything, so they never have the chance to think and grow — the trade-off is the all too many people who have very negative memories from school from subjects taught to early, too graphically, too harshly, that have the potential to change how they feel about school, learning, or reading for a life-time.***

Why should it be the professor’s responsibility to anticipate what might “trigger” unpleasant memories in some unknown student? Why shouldn’t it be the student’s responsibility to know what his or her triggers are and to investigate the course to find out if there’s likely to be a problem. A student whose mental health issues preclude even that should probably be focused on getting better instead of going to college anyway.

One of Lenore’s mottos is that you can’t child-proof the world. Well you can’t PTSD-proof it either. There is no end to the list of subjects that would become taboo, and God forbid you miss one when preparing your syllabus.

The drive in higher education to label everyone a victim and generate unnecessary drama never ceases to amaze. Perhaps tuition prices could come down if we got rid of the administrators who sit around dreaming this stuff up.

My question is, who the heck is supposed to write the “trigger” warnings on the syllabus? Would a British literature professor be required to also become an expert on PTSD? Should all books and materials have to be passed through the psychology department to identify potential triggers?

Lenore’s warnings aside… another issue with ‘trigger warnings’ is that increasingly they are used to silence speech that is about something disagreeable — or that the listener disagrees with. This has become very common on forums where the groupthink is geared toward political correctness (ie. “tolerance only for speech I agree with”).

So not only must the PTSD sufferer be shielded from ‘triggers’, but also anyone who might want to suppress discussion or argument… EVEN IF THE WORD IS NOT A ‘TRIGGER’ FOR THEM.

“M” is correct. You don’t develop tolerance (that is, become more able to cope) by avoiding the issue. You develop tolerance by facing the issue.

[And yes, I do also mean ‘with respect to free speech’.]

I was on one of the websites that started the trigger warnings (I actually chat-moderated there for a while). It was for survivors of sexual assault.

At the time, and this was over 6 years ago, I stated on the group that I thought they were being misused. It was turning from warning people of graphic descriptions of assault and abuse to warning people of anything that might possibly be upsetting. Upsetting is not triggering. Triggering means it triggers symptoms of PTSD.

It’s also worth noting that the point of therapy is to learn to cope with triggers. Because life is full of them, and avoidance usually just makes it worse.

Thanks for posting the great pic of Roy Rogers, his wife Dale Evans and Roy’s famous horse (or one of those so named) Trigger. They lived very near to me in a small town in the desert. The pic was probably taken on their property.

I’m not sure why Donna’s last post was aimed at me, but whatever.

On the topic of grading attendance in college, profs have a lot of freedom. Many of them do indeed take the “you are an adult” position. Others do not. I remember one prof – the class was Art Survey (basically art history plus a few other things, all of which you could read in the textbook). The prof (part-time) was a laid-off high school art teacher, and he treated us like high school art students. Idiot. He graded attendance and had a lot of other ridiculous demands that had nothing to do with learning or demonstrating knowledge. And this was at a non-traditional campus where most of the students were significantly older than he was.

And in my law school, attendance counted. Most teachers said on day 1 that attendance was 10% of the grade, presumably because there was a lot of classroom “discussion.” This one teacher, with whom I had a 7:30am class 4 days per week, would make a big show of it EVERY day, and when you walked in a few minutes late, she’d stop her lecture to write you down as tardy. And I can attest that the grades did reflect the fact that I am not a morning person. Blah.

Warren,

I don’t know what kind of 100% mandatory life you lead, but I definitely feel sorry for you if that is true. I can’t imagine having no options in life whatsoever.

Personally, I opt out of things I don’t want to do all the time. In my personal and professional lives. It is the best part about being an adult and being essentially my own boss. There are certainly things in my life, personal and professional, that are important and can’t be avoided no matter how much I want to and things that aren’t and can easily be. A successful well-balanced life and career hinges on the ability to know the difference.

Frankly, one random college class just isn’t important. If you can’t pass after ditching one class, you weren’t going to pass anyway. I’m just not going to worked up about a rape survivor not wanting to watch a movie in a film class depicting a graphic and brutal rape. Or, heck, any person not wanting to watch a movie depicting a graphic and brutal rape. Now if it starts being several classes and several movies, then there is a problem. (Although I have classes on my college transcript that I never attended between collecting the syllabus on the first day and the final exam so how much of a problem will depend on the class and the person).

You know what’s a massive trigger that all kids are required to deal with every year? The MLK day lesson. The in-your-face reminder that not long ago, government institutions were set up to accommodate the prejudices of large populations, basically adjudicating the “fact” that people of color are inferior, stupid, filthy, evil, less than human, etc. Kids of color walk away from this thinking (subconsciously at least), “well, if practically everyone was OK with that, there must be some truth to it.” Or, “white people all hate us. Damn white people.”

The other thing I have noticed since becoming an adoptive mom is how much great literature is about orphans and their f’d up beginnings. Kids’ movies, too. Every so often I see a “PSA” on the adoption forum about a movie that has an objectionable scene, such as the time one of the characters chose “you’re adopted” as an insult. “Tangled” had a scene that was a “trigger” for my normally very mellow daughter (then 4) – the scene where Rapunzel yells at the witch that “you’re not my real mother, you took me from my real parents and I’ll never speak to you again bla bla bla.” Due to my kid’s reaction, I had to ban that movie in my house for a long time. But that was a rare incident.

Generally, we just read/watch stuff and talk about it if questions come up. It’s actually good to have a somewhat remote example to try out tough subjects. Like in The Ten Commandments, when Moses realized who his birth mother was, he was conflicted about how to think of both of his moms. I didn’t know this was coming, but when it came up I explained his dilemma in kid-friendly language and let my kids process it. No biggie.

I should tell you that the surname “White” is a trigger for my eldest. This is because the first time she played Clue, it was Mrs. White, in the kitchen, with the candlestick.

From now on, I demand a trigger alert attached to anything containing the word “white.” Or “Weiss” or any other word, English or foreign, that could be related.

Warren, this is odd. You are usually the person saying you are going to do what YOU want and everyone else in the world can kiss your a$$ if they don’t like it. Now all of a sudden you are standing at attention waiting for the next order?

If it’s true that you haven’t had a US college experience yourself, then why do you insist on telling US college graduates what US college is really like?

Speaking of trigger warnings who went and triggered Warren?

SKL
I have never said what college is really like in the US. Maybe had you gone, you would have understood that.

And I have never said I do what I want when I want. I just do what I do, and do not give a rats ass what you think or feel about it.

Also, I have always stuck to the ideal, that we have to stop accomodating, altering and changing for every freaking special interest whining group out there. And that includes those that want to do that to course material.

So SKL, take your attitude and shove it up your ass.

@SKL “Kids of color walk away from this thinking (subconsciously at least), well, if practically everyone was OK with that, there must be some truth to it. Or, white people all hate us. Damn white people.”

That is very badly organized then. How come teaching about exploitation of blacks in the past end up with “it was ok to mistreat them” message?

German kids have to go to see concentration camps for precisely opposite reason, so they learn that bad things really happened.

“How many attorney’s get to say no I won’t represent this offender?”

Every.single.attorney.in.private.practice! Every single one. In fact, it is mandated by bar ethics. You must turn down any case that you don’t have the know-how to handle or don’t have the time to dedicate to properly representing the client. You also must turn down representation of any client that you don’t think you can properly represent for any reason. Failing to do these things can result in disbarment.

Obviously public attorneys employed by government agencies (public defenders, DAs) have to take any case that qualifies, but private attorneys pick and choose their clients every day. That said, even as a public defender, I could talk to my boss about him taking over a case that I felt that I couldn’t handle for some reason. We want to give clients the BEST representation and that does not include an attorney who doesn’t feel that s/he can do her/his best. And since we handed some of our cases off to coworkers for trial, I definitely picked and chose which ones I kept and which ones gave away based on whether I liked the case and the client. In fact, one of my biggest regrets as a public defender was opting into a case I should have opted out to a coworker because I hated the defendant by trial time.

Last week alone I turned down to cases that the court tried to appoint to me because the court dates conflicted with my vacation. I took a 3rd because I knew I could easily change the court date.

I think there’s a middle ground. Exempting someone from reading a book with “offensive” content is too much, but sometimes, people can legitimately be traumatized by something. For example, right before I started university, I got sexually assaulted. It didn’t progress to full-on rape (although, he did coerce me into kissing, masturbating on him, and letting him suck on my chest), but that was only because I was able to break free of the guy’s grip on my wrist, and run away. So, I went to university as normal, but still had flashbacks, especially at night. Anyway, during my first semester of university, I took a drama class as an elective. At the beginning of every class, we’d lie on the floor and do a guided meditation, I guess to let go of our “real life” selves, and our inhibitions, so it’d be easier to “become” whatever characters we were playing that day. Sometimes, I’d get flashbacks during meditation, and have to open my eyes and come out of it. So, I told my prof, and he told me that I didn’t have to participate in the meditation if I didn’t want to. I still participated in all of the other aspects of class, and eventually, with some time and counselling, I was able to get through the meditation as well. I still earned my credit in that course, and I still eventually graduated from university. My point is, not everything is black and white. I wasn’t a bad student; I was a good student who was having a difficult time. I didn’t use this as an excuse to get out of anything and everything I didn’t want to do, and in fact, the following year, I started volunteering at the university’s Women’s Centre, and I participated in a production of The Vagina Monologues. If I’d simply been told to “take it or leave it,” and gotten kicked out of that class, or even out of university, because I had flashbacks from lying in the dark, then that would have been a permanent solution to a temporary problem that ended up resolving itself within a few months.

Warren, I only brought that up because you were arguing about what college is like and this and that about college and as someone who never went, you are probably not the expert to be arguing about it.

Your triggers are when anyone disagrees with you. You must be pretty fragile.

Dolly,
then you read about as well as SKL. I never said anything about how college is. I have only argued about how we need to stop the weak and fragile from graduating.

When we start censoring books in college we are in trouble. Part of being educated means dealing with material that might be offensive. People have to learn to deal with their own problems. Because someone may have PTSD doesn’t mean we alter college curriculum for everyone else. Freedom of speech involves the right to be offensive.

Well, back to the point, I think adults in college are old enough to deal with their own issues and quirks on a one-on-one basis. Most of the time, no accommodation is needed. If it is, you are an adult, you go to the prof and talk about it. Or you skip the work and deal with the consequences.

When I was a teen / young adult, I was a little rebellious, and sometimes I would refuse to do something because I felt it was arbitrary. I took some Bs and it didn’t kill me.

When I was 20, I took a writing course where the teacher required the students to read their work to the class so it could be critiqued. Though an exceptional writer, I was too self-conscious to read / show my writing to the class for criticism. I wanted to, but I could never bring myself to do it. I turned all the papers in on the last day and took a B.

A B (or even a C) isn’t the end of the world. I think maybe people are a little too hung up on perfect grades these days. This could be another symptom of our newfound “fragility.” Though I remember my mom being really upset (probably still is) over getting the one and only B of her college career. LOL. And that was 25 years ago.

Wow, amazing how many people can’t distinguish between “debilitating trauma” and “feeling uncomfortable”.

Hint: Trigger warnings are for the former, not the latter. They are intended to allow sufferers — those, I should point out, who have not /yet/ had sufficient therapy to ‘deal with’ their trauma to the point of being able to cope with their triggers — the fully informed choice of whether to continue reading or watching the material. /That’s all./

They are not there so that people can avoid material they find uncomfortable. They are not there so that people can avoid getting help for their PTSD or anxiety disorders. They are there so that people who are healing can make the choice about whether they have healed enough to deal with the material.

It’s about self-sufficiency and not forcing people to unexpectedly encounter material that would cause significant anguish and pain. A lot of people with PTSD can deal with triggers if they know they’re coming, but not if blindsided with them.

Why would you deny them the opportunity to make that choice?

Powers, in real life, what are some actual examples of a college student undergoing “debilitating trauma” over encountering class materials? I can’t think of any. And honestly, if someone is so fragile that she is not going to be able to survive an encounter with course material, then she should probably take a semester off to get some therapy.

I really don’t think that’s what this “trigger” rule is about, because such a condition would be incredibly rare.

And if you are in that very tiny population, you can always check out the book list (which will be on the class syllabus and at the college bookstore well in advance), and look up the books on Amazon.com to find out what they are about; or ask on your favorite social media forum, “hey friends, is there anything in these books about ___”?

Because let’s get real, every serious book is going to have something uncomfortable in it. Death, sex, whatever. I was 16 when I went to college, and I hated the way they had to talk about sex all the damn time. But it’s college. It’s for adults. It’s supposed to prepare people for real life. It’s not supposed to be a treatment center for people having emotional breakdowns.

@BL: Sorry. I abuse the comment section here sometimes to comment on things going on on Twitter.
Re Anne Frank: that question was retorical…

Well, I don’t know what happened to my last post. Sorry if this is duplicative.

Powers, the extreme reaction you are talking about must be very rare indeed. I have never heard of it happening to anyone. The only person I ever saw losing it on a college campus was the nanny student who had come to the realization she’d participated in a drunk sexual orgy with multiple men. And it wasn’t a book that made her upset.

If you are in such a fragile state, only you know what your triggers are going to be. You don’t look to the profs to protect you from your own mind. You get the booklist and check out the books on the internet and decide whether they are OK for YOU.

@maggie, “Yes, PTSD is a real condition. But so is OCD, depression, and anxiety. My mom had all 3 and needed accommodations. That doesn’t mean everyone and everything and every place had to accommodate her mental illness. In fact, doing so only increased her OCD. Instead, we worked to stretch her boundaries and comfort zone. If we hadn’t, she would have locked herself in her room and eliminated most human contact.”

Yes. There are a myriad of mental illnesses that affect people. I have panic disorder that, in college, often resulted in just being in a classroom setting–I situation that I interpreted as hard to “escape” from without causing myself embarrassment–being difficult. The burden was on ME to deal with it or negotiate accommodations, not for all of my classes to be changed to online sections lest I have to venture outside my comfort zone.

But, there is good reason to think that PTSD has been too broadly defined and overdiagnosed. I know that several studies have been done showing that, if diagnostic criteria isn’t very rigorous, pretty much anybody who has suffered any trauma or loss can be diagnosed, because really the only thing that differentiates PTSD from typical grief responses is the interference with normal functioning. And, there’s good evidence that the best treatment involves encouraging a person to NOT dwell on their trauma but to move forward and focus on performing the tasks of daily living they need to perform. As a person with an anxiety disorder, I can attest to the necessity of focusing on the tasks at hand rather than your thoughts. It does seem like that, at least online, there is a culture of PTSD that is incredibly unhealthy, with people being encouraged to continually reexperience trauma, to dwell obsessively on their thoughts and feelings, and to accept the idea that they are permanently damaged. I don’t think we are doing anybody any good with those ideas.

@Papilio
“Re Anne Frank: that question was retorical”

I wondered about that. You said you hadn’t read the book, but then again you knew the title in Dutch …

Yeah just what this country needs more people on welfare because they have PTSD and were capable of overcoming it through therapy while they went to college at the same time with a few minor adjustments, but nah, let’s just pay them to sit on their butts and collect a welfare check.

FYI my Stepfather is severely PTSD plus has physical health issues and he cannot even get full disability and he is a veteran! He only gets 50%! So yeah, I am sure this country can afford to pay for all these people. Oh wait, we are not even taking good care of our veteran who have PTSD because we sent them off to war! Oops!

This also makes me wonder, as a college instructor, of a common-but-dreaded assignment: presentations. If you want to talk about something “triggering,” tell a class they need to give a 10-minute presentation. Public speaking is the #1 fear of many people.

Should public speaking assignments be barred, lest a student feel anxious? I mean, sure, if a student has a documented issue–maybe a severe speech impediment or a severe case of social phobia–then accommodations can be made. But, again, the onus is on the student to seek both documentation and appropriate accommodations (and generally they come up with those accommodations in conjunction with a therapist, not based on personal preference), not on the instructor.

Talk about an arrogant bitch. Dolly, you are saying that without college one ends up on welfare?

Give you a clue, didn’t go to college, but do have college grads working for me. I would also bet that my annual income far exceeds alot of college grads.

Like I said Dolly, if you are what US college grads are like, no wonder your country is screwed.

I had problems with depression, anxiety, etc., etc. until I started attending a self-help group that taught me how to minimize my symptoms in situations that “triggered” them.

The group is called Recovery International. Its website is http://www.lowselfhelpsystems.org. I strongly urge people who feel they can’t bear the idea of facing strong symptom producing events to explore this program. I remember some of the first meetings I attended, people spoke of having to leave theaters, shopping malls, markets, you name it — anything could trigger symptoms (and in RI, we usually didn’t discuss our diagnosis).

I can see both sides of the argument, but if we consistently coddle people’s symptoms, especially young adults about to start college, they will never learn how to bear an uncomfortable situation and will treat their symptoms as dangerous when they are not. For instance, a panic attack is not dangerous once you learn how to manage the symptoms, which is taught in RI. I’ve had some pretty good ones and lived to tell the tale. I made a fool of myself several times, but I survived nonetheless.

Sorry this is so long, but I don’t often get the chance to promote this program, which I have attended for the last 15 years and has changed my life so dramatically, I can’t help but shout out its praises.

I also had an extremely hard time speaking to a group. Even when I was doing my MBA in my early 20s, I remember shaking so much during a presentation that I put my hand on a table to steady myself, and instead the table started shaking. At some point I learned how to control that. Though I still hate speaking in front of a group, I accept that I am going to go do a mediocre job and be done with it, rather than have an extended panic attack over not being perfect. I have also noticed that it’s a lot easier to talk about a topic I actually care to share with people. It might also vary with whether it’s a full moon, whether I’ve had enough sleep, whether it’s morning or evening…. Anyhoo, I really sympathize with the feelings people have about presenting, but I think the thing to do is get up there and do it. We can’t all be great at everything, and we need to get over it.

One of my kids gets stage fright. She can’t stand being up there. I put her in activities that occasionally require her to be up there. In the kiddy theatre last summer, she (then age 6) did great in the 2 weeks of classes, then couldn’t say her lines or sing up on the stage. It wasn’t the end of the world, at least she got up there and the other kids covered for her. In church, when they’d make the little kids sing in front, she used to just stand there. Eventually she would sing. Last year (nearly 6yo) she volunteered to sing a “solo” (actually it was 2 kids singing together). When it came time to sing, she just mouthed the words. It was a good thing they had 2 kids up there. About a month later, they did the same song again, and this time her voice rang out and she was applauded. She’s still shy, but it’s a process and I think that once it really matters, she’ll be better off than I was.

So I’m agreeing that even though it’s very unpleasant for someone like me to have to get up there and talk, it needs to be done. At least the person needs to realize that it won’t kill them. 😉

anonymous mom – I guess that I don’t see the rational behind forcing people to speak in public who have no interest in doing so. Do we all have to learn how to play the piano and ballroom dance too? It is simply not a skill that one absolutely needs to be successful in life anymore than playing the piano or ballroom dancing is. It isn’t a skill that the vast majority of the population even uses in life beyond high school. Besides we have enough loud mouths in this world who won’t shut up and I have no desire to create more.

SKL – Why does it have to be done (speaking in public)? I know many people who live very happy, completely fulfilled lives without ever getting on a stage or speaking to large groups of people. If it is something that you WANT to do and feel less than because you can’t, it is absolutely a hurdle that you should work to overcome, but why exactly should EVERYONE work to overcome it if public speaking is something that they have no desire to do?

What other skills MUST we all have despite the fact that we have no interest in them whatsoever?

Donna, I’m not sure what is meant by “speaking in public.” No, I don’t think we all need to be prepared to go stand in a football stadium and give an inspirational speech. But yes, there are times when we have to present to a group.

Don’t you have to give closing arguments in jury trials? That would be one example.

I’ve had to do it many times. In my professional job, when I was specializing in a particular type of tax consulting service, I had to present the concept to the rest of the tax and audit managers/partners so they would be able to promote it to their clients. When I was in negotiations with the IRS or Revenue Canada, involving rooms full of people from various parties, I had to present my argument as to why the taxpayer’s allocation of income was reasonable. When I was volunteering for a literacy organization, I presented to elementary school kids on career day, and I presented my dad’s story of dyslexia at a volunteer appreciation banquet. As a member of an international professional group, I presented on international tax considerations that might be of interest to the members. If I wanted to promote change in the community or school system, it would be good if I could get up and explain myself in a town meeting. If I’d invented a new product or process that could help others, it would be good if I could present it to a group. The time when my brother had to go to court for his kid’s zero tolerance suspension, he had to talk to a roomful of strangers. The time his son had to accept his Eagle Scout decoration, he had to speak. When someone very close dies, you might even need to speak at his funeral. It’s a life skill.

@SKL: I currently teach the first in a two-semester technical communications sequence required of all college of engineering students at my university (which includes all of the engineers, as well as the comp sci majors and a couple of business programs). My course is about written reports, the second is about giving individual and group presentations. Now, if I were to think of a career path that didn’t need public speaking, I’d probably put engineering and comp sci high up on the list, but apparently the college of engineering, which determined the standards, felt that public speaking was an important enough skill in the field to warrant a full semester class.

Much of what we do in school is artificial. Students also won’t be writing research reports very often, if at all, in the workplace, but we assign them because they will gain skills that will transfer. In many positions, I’d say that presentations more directly transfer than many other skills. I have never, in the workplace, been asked to write anything that resembled the papers I wrote in school, but I have been asked to give presentations very similar to ones I gave.

Now, do I think people need to give hour-long speeches to hundreds of people? No. I also don’t think they need to be able to write 250-page research studies. Those are things most people will not be doing in their careers, and we don’t need everybody to do them. But, is the ability to communicate in a clear and coherent way to groups an important skill in many jobs? Yes, just as much as being able to write clearly and coherently (and perhaps moreso). While a class presentation is a somewhat artificial way of learning that skill, I’d say it’s no more artificial than many of the other ways we teach skills in school.

@Donna, on a side note, there are also legal issues with accommodations like allowing somebody to not do an oral presentation. I ran into this one term when I was teaching a class that required an oral presentation and I had a student with a very severe stutter who was obviously going to great lengths to avoid having to speak in class. I was wondering aloud to a colleague if I should offer him an accommodation, so that he wouldn’t have to do the presentation, and she told me absolutely not, that unless he came to me with a documented disability, either offering or allowing an accommodation could be seen as discriminatory as well as unfair to the other students, who are bound by the syllabus as written.

Anyway, I’m certainly not tied to the idea of every class needing a presentation component–I very rarely include them unless required to–but I also see the rationale behind them and think that, when they are required, it’s nearly always best to give the students the support they need to successfully complete them, rather than exempting them.

And, just so you know that I’m not a monster ;), that semester, due to that student as well as a few others who approached me letting me know they really, really didn’t want to do a class presentation, I ended up making the presentations optional for everybody. Because, I’m a huge pushover. However, I don’t think it was like the objectively right choice, and I do think that the students would have been better off if, instead of taking the easy way out, I’d provided them with some support and guidance in tacking the presentation.

But when I was in school myself, I would have been the happiest person if I never had to do a presentation. 😛

@Donna: I don’t think anybody is suggesting that we should be showing The Human Caterpillar in English 101 courses. That’s not what’s at issue. Nobody is being forced to watch graphic depictions of rape.

The complaints are about things like being asked to read The Great Gatsby. If somebody is so delicate that they cannot handle reading Gatsby without falling to pieces, then frankly they probably do not belong in college, at least at the current time in their life. The complaints are about colleges having statues of men in underwear (which makes me think of Greek art). If somebody cannot view an image of Michaelangelo’s David without spiraling into panic they can’t pull themselves out of, then, again, they probably don’t belong in college at the present time.

That’s not cruelty. If you are dealing with trauma that recent or psychological issues that severe, you are not going to be getting much out of your education, anyway. You are better off taking a leave and developing some coping skills, and then returning later. Because, college life is triggering. People discuss serious things. Classes tackle tough topics. Students read books that are hard, both intellectually and emotionally. That’s how it should be. Yes, professors shouldn’t expose students to gratuitous materials just for kicks, but that does not seem to be what’s happening.

What seems to be happening is students objecting to depictions of sex, violence, suicide, and nudity in what we’d consider classic films, books, and works of art. I don’t think it’s expecting to much to say that, if you have such a level of fear that you cannot read The Great Gatsby or watch a classic film about the Holocaust without trauma, you need to either take steps to overcome your anxiety or leave college.

“Don’t you have to give closing arguments in jury trials? That would be one example.”

Absolutely. I speak in public all the time. I don’t have a great fear of public speaking. I’m nervous at first but once I get rolling, I’m fine. But being a criminal defense attorney or a litigator or even a lawyer is a choice. It is a choice that would not interest you in the least if you have no interest in public speaking on an almost daily basis.

The fact is that ALL the things you mention are choices, not mandatory parts of life. You can live a perfectly happy life without doing any of them. Heck, I’m not afraid of public speaking but I still haven’t done most of the things you mention because I have no desire to do them.

As I said before, if your fear of public speaking bothers you or if you feel that there are things that you would like to do that you can’t, you absolutely should work to overcome your fear. But it seems like a waste of time to spend a lot of it working to overcome a fear to allow you to do things you don’t want to do anyway.

Nor do we stop evolving at 18. I used to be far more bothered by public speaking than I am now. I was in my 30s before I decided to become a public defender and realized that would require regular public speaking so I worked on it then. I didn’t need to work on it at 14 so that I could decide 18 years later to be a public defender.

SKL – The original complaint in the letter was from a woman who claimed that she was made to watch a video of a rape in a class of some sort. And, as I said, we watched A Clockwork Orange in our film class and that involves a pretty violent rape.

That said, I am not advocating trigger warnings. I think they are stupid and should not be done. I was responding to anonymous mom’s statement that the treatment for PTSD should be exposure to the stimuli. I don’t think it would be the prescribed treatment in the case of a serious trauma like rape, especially right away.

That’s interesting that The Color Purple is one of the concerns. When I was 18 was around the time that book came out, and my mom bought me the book for Christmas. I’m pretty sure she didn’t know some of the stuff that was in the book. I read the book, but I didn’t particularly like it. I don’t think it would be a good college assignment but whatever. Profs have a lot of freedom, because they are dealing with adults who are there voluntarily.

I also read the Great Gatsby for my high school term paper at age 16. I am not sure what the fuss is. At all. Maybe I’m just dense.

I use trigger warnings on my wall. For the reason that I have some friends who I know are still in that immediate stage after something horrific (for example, a sexual assault). Some days they will be feeling strong enough to read what I post. Some days they will not and this gives them an opportunity to skip past the post.
PTSD rates amongst paramedics is, according to some recent studies, higher than that in the armed services. I think only police are up there with us. So, we do sometimes need a bit of extra care. Although that doesn’t mean plastering TRIGGER WARNINGS everywhere, it means sometimes your colleagues will go “Hey, I’ll take this job” or park their car around the back after a colleague goes to a horrific car accident with the same colour make and model as yours for a few weeks.

I have PTSD. I know my very specific triggers, and I have successfully been able to put the fear to one side to do my job (although I was a wreck for a few weeks afterwards). My specific triggers are not covered by common trigger warnings, and that is ok for me. I am not in that acute phase, it is just something I need to live with now. However, I know paramedics in that acute phase at the moment, and triggers during that phase can cause a regression in progress.

Public speaking in school is the basis for a life skill. Those that are too shy or too scared to speak infront of groups will not be heard, and be passed up for alot of things.

Donna you want another skill that should be mandatory….swimming.

And what in the blue hell are you talking about with the Czech story? Way off base, and moronic even for you.

SKL –

I don’t really have a problem with presentations. I loved them in school. A written paper required actual work. An oral presentation I could do on the fly with minimal effort.

I also think public speaking is a good thing to know. I don’t think it is a skill most people really need very often, but it is not a bad skill to have just in case.

But I do think this group can be as quick to foist the banner of mental illness on others as everyone else in the world. People should stretch their limits, but no amount of stretching is going to make some people give oral presentations and many of them are fine with that. While it is certainly a phobia (just like my fear of falling and Warren’s fear of snakes), I don’t see a need for them to spend hundreds of dollars and countless hours in a psychologist’s chair so that they are able to do things that they have no interest in doing in order to please other people or live up to someone else’s standard. Unless they feel limited by it, it isn’t a problem. The fact that you think that they should feel limited is truly irrelevant.

Donna, then you’d be wrong. You must have heard of test anxiety. My eldest daughter cried all through a recent written test (science or social studies), even though she aced it. On the other hand, she welcomes spoken presentations. I also have a very charismatic, successful friend (former classmate) who would freak out over having to write an essay (her dad wrote her papers when she was a kid and young adult). For that matter, she freaks over having to write an email that is more than a sentence long. Everyone has their own issues.

I didn’t say anything about people getting counseling so they can embrace spoken presentations. I don’t even think everyone has to be good at it. I think it’s a part of life and people just need to get through it once in a while. Kinda like going to the doctor. Believe me, I was one of the most adverse to it when I was young, so if I could get over it, almost anyone can. I still don’t like it and I still get nervous and I definitely don’t go looking for an opportunity to speak. For that matter, I get anxious if I have a conference call coming up in the next 24 hours. I’m a loon when it comes to that. But I would not advise a student to avoid the occasional speaking task. I’d acknowledge the feeling but advise her to get up there and just do what she can.

Just to add, learning to manage fear and anxiety is an extremely useful skill that many people lack. I think there are far less useful things students can learn at school, and the fact that we now have college students demanding “trigger warnings” before reading classic literature or watching PG-13 movies leads me to believe that learning to manage one’s emotions, particularly anxiety, is a skill we should be more directly teaching young people.

I am going to have to agree with others about public speaking. Sorry it is a skill everyone needs to have some practice and experience with. I don’t understand and just want to yell at people to get a grip when they freak out over public speaking. I could get up right now and talk in front of 100 strangers. Just start rambling. Because I have been on stage and been the center of attention since 3 years old. That is one thing people bash about pageants but they teach little girls how to be not afraid to get up on stage in front of people and talk. I always nailed the interview questions.

Public speaking is a pretty important skill. Yes, I guess you could kinda slide through life without ever doing it, but honestly let’s just face that it happens a lot in life so you better just learn how to do it. Whether it be giving a best man toast at your brother’s wedding, speaking at church, speaking at a business meeting, etc it does come up and people need to feel like they can do it and it is no big deal. Or at least be able to do it even if it makes them nervous.

What I am more worried about is like this one episode of Road Rules I watched once. One guy was just having a disagreement with one of the girls and he barely even raised his voice. It was fairly civil and she started freaking out and screaming “I was almost RAPED!!! AHHHH!!!!” Like that was her get out of jail free card. Like that excused her from ever having anyone disagree with her or argue with her or tell her “No” ever. Nope, does not work that way. Go to therapy and deal with it. People can certainly not make you watch a movie about someone being raped if that will bother you really bad, but you don’t get to get out of doing anything or everything you might not want to do because of it either. If you are that incapable of functioning you need to go to a mental hospital.

Basically college courses should be held to the same standard as employment.

An acceptable reason to miss work = an acceptable reason to miss class. It is that simple.

And I hold my employees to a higher standard for missing work than alot of people think is acceptable.

Interesting topic.

I second the assertion that as adults you can choose to do something (or not) based on your level of comfort and the consequences that you face.

A perk of living in a wealthy, Democratic country. It’s not life and death. Certainly not that big a deal.

Also that professors rarely care about class attendance.

This post should have had a trigger warning. Why so upset? JEEZ.

Yes Warren, as adults, we can certainly choose to do or not do something, and then make the commitment in accordance with that decision.

I think you’re catching on now.

Natalie,

Yes I do understand how college works. Does not mean I have to like the fact that they are bending over backwards to make accomodations for every little whiner out there.

For every person that an exemption is made because of feelings, triggers or sensitivities we are just one step closer to becoming the weakest species on the planet.

I know all the touchy feely ones in here hate to hear it, but there is something to be said for being told to suck it up Princess. Once you are an adult, if you cannot either get the help to overcome issues, then toughen up and get over it or drop out. Either of the three is completely acceptable to me. What is not acceptable is always wanting to be treated as special, and wanting the world to accomodate you. Try accomodating the world for a change.

@Papilio–I loved that cartoon about bad grammar; particularly the part about the “alot” as a mythical creature. Thanks for sharing it. 🙂 Funny story, when I was in grade seven, our teacher had had enough of students in the class (other than myself) writing “alot” as one word instead of two. Just so this makes sense, we had blackboards all the way along the front wall, and one side wall. So, he wrote a giant “A” that was over a foot high, on the furthest corner of the side blackboard, and a similarly sized “lot” on the furthest corner of the front blackboard, then he got all our attention, and read “A” out loud, in a very exaggerated tone of voice, RAN all the way over to “LOT,” and read it in the same tone of voice. He repeated this process probably about two or three times, until he was sure that everyone understood.

@papilio-
I like the dude with the Emo haircut next to the “Alot” monster.

Also, it took a few attempts to evade my auto correct to write “a lot” as one word.

When I was young, I used to think that people with perfect attendance at college classes must be the dumb ones. Or the OCD ones. Because nobody with any brains needed to have perfect attendance in college, except in the odd class taught by anal retentive teachers. So if you were freaky about attending every class, you must be either hoping the teacher would feel sorry for you and bump up your grade for “effort,” or afraid to miss one single word lest that detail make the difference between passing and failing the next test.

Law school was a different animal. And I can’t speak for any other specialty. I know when I taught a grad school tax class, most of the students were pretty conscientious – they would at least tell me if they were going to skip. And the dumb guy – he was a model student. Early every class, showed excessive respect, asked questions (to no avail), made his presentation, turned in every homework, did his (pathetic) darnedest on the tests. I have to admit I did bump up his grade.

In a college media law class, we were given a trigger warning that we would have the option to view child porn magazines in the 2nd half of the class. If we wanted, we could leave the 2nd half of class with no penalty. The professor told me later that I was the only student in 5 years of teaching who left the class – kind of creeps me out to know that everyone else looked. Moral of the story – glad the professor gave this trigger warning, but can’t think of anything else I was every exposed to in high school or college that would have needed a trigger warning.

I urge everyone who hasn’t read all of the comments posted to Jarvie’s article to read the ones by the poster “anonymousmom” who makes the really important point that making it easier for sufferers of severe anxiety disorders (she has panic disorder herself) to avoid anxiety-inducing stimuli does not help them; it actually worsens the disorder.

@SKL –
I agree completely.

College is a huge exercise in time management because unlike gradeschool – attendance isn’t mandatory, or expected (in most situations).

I remember frequently skipping a lecture in class A because I needed to study for a quiz in class B. Then I just copied the notes from class A and tried to catch up before the next lecture. for me, it was a good strategy.

Stuff happens. I think that realizing that these imaginary “rules” don’t exist is part of becoming an adult. Determing what’s important and what isn’t. Managing time. managing tasks. Determining what is more urgent, what is less urgent, etc. What’s more important, what’s less important.

Doing everything so anal retentively… just because… why? That’s not how the world functions at all.