Yes, they are a legitimate thing, and many times they can be goofy to other people, but the thing is you’re supposed to overcome them.
Let me tell you a little story about myself and a rather severe (and in retrospect, stupid) phobia I had as a teenager/young adult.
I was terrified of lobsters. As in I tried to avoid the seafood section of a supermarket because of the lobster tank. And if I perchance saw a lobster in said tank, I would scream so goddamn hard that the entire store could hear me. When I went to my grandma’s in Maine and they had a lobster boil, I had to sit inside of the house and eat my vegetarian food (as I was a vegetarian back then) lest I start screaming and running around like a chicken with my head cut off. And I hated it. I was embarrassed to be scared of something I knew could not harm me, to the extent that I freaked out whenever I saw something with lobster print on it. My parents thought it was funny, and so, every Christmas for a long time, they got me at least one thing lobster-related. (The pinnacle of which was a realistic plastic singing lobster in the style of Big Mouth Billy Bass, which I was terrified to even touch even though I knew it was animatronic and covered in plastic.)
The thing is though, looking back, even though my parents sounded like they were doing something abusive by Tumblr standards, I ended up eventually being desensitized to the little bastards. My parents helped me get over my trigger, and I myself would force myself to stand in front of the lobster tank without panicking. Eventually I quit being vegetarian due to a little problem called “too much carbs and terribly easy weight gain” and I found out those little buggers are delicious, which I think ultimately put the nail in the coffin of my phobia.
The reason I go after people with “ridiculous” triggers is that they seem not to want to get over them like I did, they don’t seem to be embarrassed by them, and (I might be a bit judgmental here) they seem to not affect them off of Tumblr. Human beings often get scared of, or reminded of trauma by, really stupid shit. Not wanting to get better so that you can be functional in your everyday life is denial at best and a tool for manipulating others into doing your bidding at worst. I really hope people with legitimate triggers and/or phobias can get the help they need to overcome them; otherwise I’m going to look at you as being manipulative and spoiled.
Tag: triggers
Self diagnosers are literally the reason why no one takes triggers seriously anymore. Hell, even I don’t, and I fucking have ptsd (which, if I might add, just now flared up for the first time in a while, which makes me incredibly furious with myself). You don’t get post-traumatic stress disorder from the internet, or seeing a dog get kicked, or breaking your pinky toe. You get it from real life trauma, such as getting shot, or raped, or, in my case, waking up on the wrong side of the operating table as I like to put it.
It’s not fun.
Try having flashbacks in the middle of Target, or nightmares, or, ooh, the most fun – mother fucking hallucinations. Try feeling yourself slowly spiral into this mess of confusion and fear and self-hatred all because you don’t know why your brain is being so horrible to you, and try reaching out to someone only for them to tell you you’re just being an attention seeker.
Try having that person be your own mother.
And, later, a psychiatrist.
And do you know why they get that idea?
People like you.
People who scream about being triggered by grass and blankets and dog food.
People who fake panic attacks to avoid responsibility.
People who have created such hysteria surrounding the disorder that no one takes it seriously.
So shut the fuck up about how “self-dx isn’t ableist” and “self-dx doesn’t hurt anyone” because you are wrong. You are so wrong.
Time to bring this back because nothing disgusts me more than retards on here faking mental illness for attention.
THIS. THIS. THIS.
*cringes at the moron who tried to justify their friend’s use of a callout blog on mental illness and blames me for being arrogant when I laughed at them*
How Trigger Warnings Are Hurting Mental Health on Campus
I want every single person on Tumblr read this. This is important, this is what SJW are doing. It’s not just a Tumblr issue and that’s simply terrifying.
– Emerald
I’d just like to add that this doesn’t condemn trigger warnings, it condemns the overabuse of trigger warnings which makes them appear defunct and take away the seriousness of their implications
Think people who self-diagnose themself with depression or schizophrenia because they think it makes them edgy or cool
It’s important that we be provoked. The world is a dangerous and strange place and we’ve got to be able to deal with that.
If you sterilize a child’s environment, physically, they will form allergies to things because their body doesn’t know how to deal with foreign things being around. Thus, if you sterilize a child’s mental environment, they won’t know how to deal with things that upset them or seem strange. We are, as a generation, becoming ‘allergic’ to emotional response and the reactions are becoming disproportionate.
Social justice, at its nature, is a good thing. Feminism, pro-gender and sexuality, and the push towards better understanding of mental illness are all good things that we as a people need to get a grip with and integrate into our society to be a better people.
However, this… dramatic overreaction to anything deemed remotely offensive, this hypersensitivity to concepts we may not necessarily agree with and at worst, the complete refusal to understand or analyze them, is dangerous and backward.
A phobia is not treated by isolation, it is treated by slow exposure and an acquired respect. You don’t have to like things, but you do have to be able to understand them and be able to discuss and analyze them like adults.
The right to provoke intellectually, and to be provoked, is necessary to any artist, educator, scientist and thinker. Because there will be times when your world view is wrong and there is no castle, no ivory tower of structured thinking, that is not worthy of being challenged.
I am now naming my blog Vindictive protectiveness
“It’s important that we be provoked. The world is a dangerous and strange place and we’ve got to be able to deal with that.“
“A phobia is not treated by isolation, it is treated by slow exposure and
an acquired respect. You don’t have to like things, but you do have to be able to understand them and be able to discuss and analyze them like adults.““If you sterilize a child’s environment, physically, they will form
allergies to things because their body doesn’t know how to deal with
foreign things being around. Thus, if you sterilize a child’s mental
environment, they won’t know how to deal with things that upset them or
seem strange. We are, as a generation, becoming ‘allergic’ to emotional
response and the reactions are becoming disproportionate.“I just thought these bore repeating, especially the last part. Unfortunately, the more “habitually offended” members of tumblr were likely very sheltered themselves as children. These are fundamentally WEAK INDIVIDUALS. They’re also likely to be very unsuccessful in life overall.
http://gmwilliams.hubpages.com/hub/Sheltered-ChildrenUnsuccessful-Adults
http://www.succeedsocially.com/relatedfactors
http://www.healthguidance.org/entry/15721/1/How-Overparenting-Affects-Your-Child.html
http://www.babble.com/parenting/the-case-against-sheltering-our-kids-too-much/
http://hellogiggles.com/bad-news-overprotective-parents-youre-really-messing-up-your-kids/
http://www.science20.com/rogue_neuron/dont_shelter_your_children_coping_stress_child_develops_resilience_and_emotion_regulation_adult
https://homeschoolersanonymous.wordpress.com/2013/03/16/sarahs-story/
We will never be able to “sanitize” society so that every individual is “comfortable”. Why? Because every individual is different. You love big dogs? Well, I feel uncomfortable around big dogs. Does that mean that every large-breed dog owner has to keep their pet indoors where they can’t “bother” others? Jesus fuck, no. It simply means that people like myself need to just accept that big dogs exist, and try our best to stay out of/remove ourselves from situations they may be encountered in, while respecting the rights of the owners to enjoy the company of their pet on their own terms.
Similarly, no matter how much has changed, or how progressive we become, problems like racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. will likely always exist, because flawed human beings will always exist. Murder, rape, and other violent crime may plummet dramatically (which it has from decades past), but is also never going to disappear completely. “Social justice warriors” and “feminists” never take into account that human beings are not a hivemind: Violent human beings require many circumstances to come together to enable their creation. It is not any one, single aspect that creates a violent person. Human beings are like soup: It depends on what’s put into us that makes us who we are. Less carrots make a difference. Spices make a difference. Heat makes a difference. Most importantly, the competency of the cook makes the biggest difference of all. But, even taking this into account, a person could suffer through experiences that have nothing to do with their upbringing that cause them severe psychological damage: Incidents that could not have been prevented, and were certainly never expected. The world is not a “safe” place. It will NEVER be a “safe” place for all people as long as all people are different.
Our society is ignoring the individual in favor of pleasing the “moral majority” (i.e., the people that buy the newspapers, watch the news, and watch the commercials). We as a species seem unable to accept personal responsibility, whether it’s for our own actions, or the actions of others. It’s much easier to place the blame elsewhere than to accept that maybe some people on this planet just plain suck at life. Likewise, people are generally uninterested in knowing how safe they are. They don’t want to hear about positivity, because that’s not interesting. It’s not thrilling. Sensationalism sells because it is thrilling. People seem hellbent on having something to be afraid of these days, and it’s not healthy.
Judging by their actions and behavior, far too many of these tumblr “activists” appear to be little more than spoiled, sheltered,
privileged brats that refuse to accept that the world doesn’t revolve around them, and that they have to share it with other people that don’t look, think, or act exactly as they do.To avoid prattling on any longer, I’ll just provide a few more sources pertaining to these matters:
https://queerguesscode.wordpress.com/2013/10/29/why-you-shouldnt-be-politically-correct/
https://scientiasalon.wordpress.com/2015/05/28/the-false-dichotomy-of-trigger-warnings/
http://www.psmag.com/health-and-behavior/hazards-ahead-problem-trigger-warnings-according-research-81946
http://www.stirjournal.com/2014/09/15/trigger-what-why-trigger-warnings-dont-work/
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-trigger-happy-generation-1432245600
http://www.anxietycoach.com/exposuretherapy.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11459387
http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/anxiety/exposure-therapy-anxiety-disorders
http://www.helpguide.org/articles/anxiety/phobias-and-fears.htm
PiraticOctopus 