History UsefulNotes / Trigger

Triggering overlaps with TooSoon (when an event such as a national disaster or extreme crime makes the mention of it or anything reminding of it triggering to a large amount of people, see the NuclearWeaponsTaboo for a specific example also). Playing with known triggers, however, is a large element of BlackComedy and CrossingTheLineTwice.

See TooSoon and the NuclearWeaponsTaboo.

{{Troll}}s tend to delight in trying to force people into viewing triggering content on shock sites or by posting nonexistent or [[BlatantLies misleading]] warnings. A FlameWar can erupt when a FanFic writer or NewMedia artist refuses to provide proper warnings as warning for triggers is considered proper Netiquette and knowingly forcing someone to view them is considered {{Troll}}ing, yet at the same time some people are genuinely unaware of the concept. InternetBackdraft often results when the necessity of trigger warnings itself becomes a debate.

It's also a [[FlameWar rather hotly debated question]] of ''where'' exactly trigger warnings belong. Blogs? Comics? Literature? TV? Movies? College syllabi? [[UsefulNotes/MediaClassifications Ratings systems]] and ContentWarnings do usually provide some help, but even those aren't as specific as some would like. (The easily triggered will know they may want to stay clear of a film that's rated R "for intense graphic violence," but a movie rated PG-13 "[[VaguenessIsComing for some thematic elements]]" isn't quite so helpful.) Or if a professor is teaching ''Literature/HuckleberryFinn'', should the syllabus include a trigger warning for its [[NWordPrivileges racist language]], even though the book itself is anti-racist? As you can see, [[RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment this can get very complicated very quickly]].

Anger triggers, while somewhat less potent in most cases, are more commonly depicted in media and have their own trope, the BerserkButton. That said, in some cases they ''can'' be potent enough to result in physical violence against the person who invoked them (the "fighting words" defense for assault in common law systems relies on this, that what someone said was ''so'' recognizably enraging that they became an AssholeVictim and the person who punched/slapped them was entirely justified in doing so, e.g. someone who does not have NWordPrivileges using the word to someone who ''does'' and getting punched for it or a man who calls a woman the word referenced in CountryMatters and gets slapped may not only not have a case in court, but the police may even refuse to press charges viewing the assault as "he got what he deserved" or the person who said the "fighting words" as agreeing to mutual combat by doing so). Unfortunately, in rare occasions an anger trigger may even lead to homicidal behavior (and even one of these is recognized under law--"voluntary manslaughter" in the US legal system occasionally covers homicides where someone was arguably driven beyond any rationality or sense into a blind killing rage in the moment--the textbook examples being when someone walks in on their spouse cheating on them and violently assaults the other man/other woman, or happens upon someone abusing an animal or child and, instead of calling the police or nonviolently ending the crime, kills the abuser)

This page is an overview of the concept of "triggers," for those who want to know more about triggering in a meta sense for their own writing or for understanding the concept of triggering in RealLife to some extent. If you want to read or talk about fictional examples, please go to TraumaButton.

There is one other type of suicide trigger that has nothing to do with depicting suicide or depression itself--this one consists of something that purports itself to be anything from compassionate. Instead, religious groups, [[Social Darwinist]]s and proponents of ToughLove "realness" say something on the lines of "You people should pull yourselves up by the bootstraps, and if you don't, you are WEAK" as if to reinspire a will to survive. All psychiatric studies agree that this form of treatment on suicide backfires horribly: the sense of contempt, guilt tripping, and sanctimony only becomes a ''REINFORCEMENT'' for suicidal behaviour, justifying self-destruction instead of curing it. This most affects people the most if they suffer from low self-esteem/never feeling "good enough" or "real enough" (such as depression, anxiety, anorexia nervosa, and some forms of OCD), and those who once lived in situations such as abusive religious groups or the like, because someone who feels like they CantCatchUp may well think suicide is relieving the world of themselves, or "taking responsibility" in the only way they can. In fact, [[Social Darwinist]] societies like NaziGermany and modern-day Japan are ''notorious'' for having some of the highest suicide rates in history; virtual [[Martyrdom Culture]]s where the slightest imperfection was a moral impetus to off oneself.

There is one other type of suicide trigger that has nothing to do with depicting suicide or depression itself--this one consists of something that purports itself to be anything from compassionate, ToughLove "realness" or "life advice" or religious precepts all the way to a truly hateful, bitter rant. The common thread in this trigger (which can take forms such as "You people should pull yourselves up by the bootstraps, and if you don't, you are the lowest human scum," or even a list of "life goals that must be accomplished by [[NoTrueScotsman "real"]] adults," where one has to be a certain race/sexuality/gender/socioeconomic status to be "real") is the sense of contempt, guilt tripping, and sanctimony. While most/many people can brush such things off or laugh at them, they ''can'' inspire suicide/suicidal behavior, especially in those who suffer from conditions where part of the condition itself is low self-esteem/never feeling "good enough" or "real enough" (such as depression, anxiety, anorexia nervosa, and some forms of OCD), and those who once lived in situations such as abusive religious groups or the like, because someone who feels like they CantCatchUp may well think suicide is relieving the world of themselves, or "taking responsibility" in the only way they can.

Triggering overlaps with TooSoon (when an event such as a national disaster or extreme crime makes the mention of it or anything reminding of it triggering to a large amount of people, see the NuclearWeaponsTaboo for a specific example also) as well as DudeNotFunny. Playing with known triggers, however, is a large element of BlackComedy and CrossingTheLineTwice.

Depiction of the death of a loved one and its related grief and loss is a big one here - it rides the line between suicide trigger and PTSD trigger, depending on how badly someone has been personally impacted by these things. (Of course, it could also just be a BerserkButton if the person who reads it finds the experience nothing like theirs or insulting to theirs). Nevertheless, this also needs to be directly warned for because of its suicidality risk.

That said, ''not everyone'' who ''is even depressed or suicidal'' is triggered by any or all "non-therapeutic" depictions of depression or suicide - for some, it is actually a vital part of healing, to recognize that they are not alone in how they feel and others have experienced their emotions and feelings, and for others, such depictions are a way of allowing themselves to get in touch with their emotions. ''Warning'' for depression or suicide triggers is important - but self-censoring or censoring depictions of them and/or insisting that only depictions of depression/depressing themes/suicide that end in a therapist's office and finding hope via official means are "ethical" is problematic in its own way, for precisely the above reasons, because what might trigger one person and push them over the edge is the same thing that might make someone else realize they are not alone and there are people who understand.

There is one other type of suicide trigger that has nothing to do with depicting suicide or depression itself - this one consists of something that purports itself to be anything from compassionate, ToughLove "realness" or "life advice" or religious precepts all the way to a truly hateful, bitter rant. The common thread in this trigger (which can take forms such as "You people should pull yourselves up by the bootstraps, and if you don't, you are the lowest human scum," or even a list of "life goals that must be accomplished by [[NoTrueScotsman "real"]] adults," where one has to be a certain race/sexuality/gender/socioeconomic status to be "real") is the sense of contempt, guilt tripping, and sanctimony. While most/many people can brush such things off or laugh at them, they ''can'' inspire suicide/suicidal behavior, especially in those who suffer from conditions where part of the condition itself is low self-esteem/never feeling "good enough" or "real enough" (such as depression, anxiety, anorexia nervosa, and some forms of OCD), and those who once lived in situations such as abusive religious groups or the like, because someone who feels like they CantCatchUp may well think suicide is relieving the world of themselves, or "taking responsibility" in the only way they can.

[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PTSD Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder]] is a very complicated mental injury beyond the scope of Wiki/TVTropes in and of itself, but one interaction between PTSD and fiction is the concept of the PTSD trigger. Someone suffering from PTSD may be triggered by many things - and sometimes, sadly, some things in fiction may induce this trigger response. Someone who has been triggered by a trigger may go through more emotional discomfort than fiction is supposed to produce, physical discomfort, terror and depression beyond what the story was supposed to induce, {{flashback}}s to their experience of the traumatic event, or even a full HeroicBSOD or FreakOut.

* Depiction of a specific disaster or type of it (e.g. a tornado, a plane crash) can trigger people who have disaster-related PTSD. This can even extend to things only tangentially related to the disaster - e.g. the sound of the EmergencyBroadcast System or tornado sirens or seeing a similar plane/hearing a flight attendant's safety briefing. [[note]] Sometimes this trigger response is actually ''relied upon'' in [[InvokedTrope getting people]] to act to protect themselves in the event of a disaster - emergency broadcast alarms and tornado/civil defense sirens, for example, are ''intended'' to make people frightened enough to take a threat seriously. [[/note]]

Anger triggers, while somewhat less potent in most cases, are more commonly depicted in media and have their own trope, the BerserkButton. That said, in some cases they ''can'' be potent enough to result in physical violence against the person who invoked them (the "fighting words" defense for assault in common law systems relies on this, that what someone said was ''so'' recognizably enraging that they became an AssholeVictim and the person who punched/slapped them was entirely justified in doing so, e.g. someone who does not have NWordPrivileges using the word to someone who ''does'' and getting punched for it or a man who calls a woman the word referenced in CountryMatters and gets slapped may not only not have a case in court, but the police may even refuse to press charges viewing the assault as "he got what he deserved" or the person who said the "fighting words" as agreeing to mutual combat by doing so). Unfortunately, in rare occasions an anger trigger may even lead to homicidal behavior (and even one of these is recognized under law - "voluntary manslaughter" in the US legal system occasionally covers homicides where someone was arguably driven beyond any rationality or sense into a blind killing rage in the moment - the textbook examples being when someone walks in on their spouse cheating on them and violently assaults the other man/other woman, or happens upon someone abusing an animal or child and, instead of calling the police or nonviolently ending the crime, kills the abuser)

MoralGuardians and the BluenoseBowdlerizer tend to assume that ''nearly everyone'' and anyone under a certain age automatically suffer from being triggered and often use this as a part of NewMediaAreEvil and YouCanPanicNow, which often leads to people assuming the legitimately triggered are in league with them - which is not the truth, for the most part. A legitimately triggered person merely wants to be warned of and avoid the triggering content, while MoralGuardians or the BluenoseBowdlerizer are actively opposed to its mere ''existence''.

* Overlapping with the above group, the group that often ''causes'' people to view trigger warnings as just that - those who conflate being "offended" or "upset" with being "triggered" and are demanding warnings for content that at most makes them angry but capable enough to go into great detail in a comment about how angry and offended they are.
* To make things even more complicated, there are things which appear entirely innocent but which are triggering to others--the classic being a backfiring car sounding like a gun shot to someone triggered by gunshots. A more contemporary example is posting pictures or descriptions of FoodPorn, which appears innocent but which can be triggering to people with eating disorders, or an image of a potted daisy, which may be triggering to someone who is reminded of a sexual abuser.

* And of course, the {{Troll}}, the StrawMisogynist, and others who really ''do'' want people to be hurt and don't really care if anyone is hurt - and blame the victims for being online in the first place.

The BanOnPolitics is arguably an attempt to deal with a nigh-universal BerserkButton.

The (very simplified) difference between {{squick}} and a PTSD trigger is this: {{squick}} is staring at a fictional [[{{Gorn}} disemboweled corpse]] and going "Ewww, I didn't need to see that." A trigger is staring at the same corpse and remembering the RealLife maiming and death of someone so vividly you can still see it in your head, still hear it in your ears, and revert to that same emotional pit in an instant. Triggers may be described as hyper-personalized {{Squick}} [[XMeetsY meets]] hyper-personalized NightmareFuel.

* {{Lolicon}}, {{Shotacon}}, ParentalIncest, BrotherSisterIncest, {{Twincest}}, and IncestIsRelative. Any of these can be triggers for PTSD for rape and sexual abuse victims, and a BerserkButton as well.

'''Do not put trigger warnings on any TVTropes pages other than FanFicRecommendations.''' Works that have full pages should already indicate the existence of triggering content in the description or trope list in a natural way, and a trope's description should be a good indication of whether or not there will be any significant triggering content in its examples.

[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PTSD Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder]] is a very complicated mental injury beyond the scope of TVTropes in and of itself, but one interaction between PTSD and fiction is the concept of the PTSD trigger. Someone suffering from PTSD may be triggered by many things - and sometimes, sadly, some things in fiction may induce this trigger response. Someone who has been triggered by a trigger may go through more emotional discomfort than fiction is supposed to produce, physical discomfort, terror and depression beyond what the story was supposed to induce, {{flashback}}s to their experience of the traumatic event, or even a full HeroicBSOD or FreakOut.

Anger triggers, while somewhat less potent in most cases, are more commonly depicted in media and have their own trope, the BerserkButton. That said, in some cases they ''can'' be potent enough to result in physical violence against the person who invoked them (the "fighting words" defense for assault in common law systems relies on this, that what someone said was ''so'' recognizably enraging that they became an AssholeVictim and the person who punched/slapped them was entirely justified in doing so, e.g. someone who does not have NWordPrivileges using the word to someone who ''does'' and getting punched for it or a man who calls a woman the word referenced in CountryMatters and gets slapped may not only not have a case in court, but the police may even refuse to press charges viewing the assault as "he got what he deserved"). Unfortunately, in rare occasions an anger trigger may even lead to homicidal behavior (and even one of these is recognized under law - "voluntary manslaughter" in the US legal system occasionally covers homicides where someone was arguably driven beyond any rationality or sense into a blind killing rage in the moment - the textbook examples being when someone walks in on their spouse cheating on them and violently assaults the other man/other woman, or happens upon someone abusing an animal or child and, instead of calling the police or nonviolently ending the crime, kills the abuser)

This page is an overview of the concept of "triggers," for those who want to know more about triggering in a meta sense for their own writing or for understanding the concept of triggering in RealLife to some extent. If you want to see ONLY fictional examples, please go to {{Trigger}}.

* To make things even more complicated, there are things which appear entirely innocent but which are triggering to others--the classic being a backfiring car sounding like a gun shot to someone triggered by gunshots. A more contemporary example is posting pictures or descriptions of FoodPorn, which appears innocent but which can be triggering to people with eating disorders.

Some PTSD triggers are neither {{Squick}} nor NightmareFuel. They may even be NightmareRetardant to anyone but the triggered individual. For some, a white sheet on a bed or hearing a sob can be a trigger.

* Overlapping with the above group, the group that often ''causes'' people to view trigger warnings as just that - those who conflate being "offended" or "upset" with being "triggered" or are just {{troll}}ing and demanding warnings for content that at most makes them angry but capable enough to go into great detail in a comment about how angry they are and how offended they are.

The BanOnPolitics is arguably an attempt to deal with a nigh-universal BerserkButton.

* Depiction of a specific disaster or type of it (e.g. a tornado, a plane crash) can trigger people who have disaster-related PTSD. This can even extend to things only tangentially related to the disaster - e.g. the sound of the EmergencyBroadcast System or tornado sirens or seeing a similar plane/hearing a flight attendant's safety briefing. [[note]] Sometimes this trigger response is actually ''relied upon'' in [[InvokedTrope getting people]] to act to protect themselves in the event of a disaster - emergency broadcast alarms and tornado/civil defense sirens, for example, are ''intended'' to make people frightened enough to take a threat seriously. [[/npte]]

* Depiction of a specific disaster or type of it (e.g. a tornado, a plane crash) can trigger people who have disaster-related PTSD. This can even extend to things only tangentially related to the disaster - e.g. the sound of the EmergencyBroadcast System or tornado sirens or seeing a similar plane/hearing a flight attendant's safety briefing.

The (very simplified) difference between {{squick}} and a PTSD trigger is this: {{squick}} is staring at a fictional [[{{Gorn}} disemboweled corpse]] and going "Ewww, I didn't need to see that." A trigger is staring at the same corpse and feeling oneself being disemboweled and tortured to death in RealLife or else remembering the RealLife disembowelment and torture of your best friend next to you. Triggers may be described as hyper-personalized {{Squick}} [[XMeetsY meets]] hyper-personalized NightmareFuel.

* Depiction of or ability to engage in games of chance/LevelGrinding. These can be a trigger for gambling or MMORPG addicts. [[note]] At the same time, though, the ability to play a game of chance with no real-world financial consequences ''can'' serve as a form of AddictionDisplacement and HarmReduction for ''some'' gambling addicts for whom total abstinence doesn't work (e.g. it's better to spend a relapse with just a few wasted hours and points than with an actual financial loss), and LevelGrinding that teaches real-world skills such as coding skills or writing skills or a language can serve the purpose of teaching someone addicted to the process useful skills. [[/note]]

* To make things even more complicated, there are things which appear entirely innocent but which are triggering to others--the classic being a backfiring car sounding like a gun shot to someone triggered by gunshots. A more contemporary example is posting pictures or descriptions of FoodPorn, which appears innocent but which can be triggering to people with eating disorders

* Depiction of or ability to engage in games of chance/LevelGrinding. These can be a trigger for gambling or MMORPG addicts.

* The presence of brutal, commanding, and/or domineering authority figures, ''especially'' law enforcement or military or religious figures, can trigger PTSD if one was abused by authority figures or knows someone who was, and can trigger anxiety, OCD, outright paranoia, or other fear-based behavior. This applies not only to fiction but to their appearances in RealLife, which is how the appearance of police or military can actually ''escalate'' a nonviolent or slightly threatening situation into an openly violent one.

* War depictions/combat/military-related depictions or tropes, which can trigger combat-related PTSD
* The ScreamingWoman

The BanOnPolitics is arguably an attempt to deal with a nigh-universal BerserkButton.