[Kizzy]

As an advocate of free speech, I am an unlikely person to defend the current move towards “safe spaces” and “trigger warnings” on university campuses. And I am not going to. But I am going to tell a story to illustrate that words can be weapons, and that those weapons can cause great harm.'


I was being asked because of the memoir, The Scent of Dried Roses, I’d written on the suicide of my mother, Jean, in 1988. I had talked about it in the media many times, and talking about it had never had a knock-on effect. I wasn’t keen to revisit what was obviously a painful subject; but, as on previous occasions, I felt a sense of duty to contribute to the debate on what remains a taboo issue.

'Rather than gently examining the sensitive issue of whether mentally ill people have the right to take their own lives, the interviewer took 30 minutes to explore in great and unrelenting detail my own suicidal depression, when I was 30 years old – how I teetered on high buildings and the edge of tube platforms. He then sought a blow-by-blow account of my mother’s death: how many attempts she had made, what she did on that day, what method she used (“Hanging,” I told him, in a whisper). This culminated in the brutal question: “Do you think you could have done more to save her?”

'By the completion of the interview I felt tainted, guilty and sad. I felt that something had shaken loose inside me. Later, I contacted the producer and asked her to pull the programme. She agreed. But from that moment onward I began to sink into clinical depression. The trigger had been pulled, and the bullet had hit me straight between the eyes'

Can triggers ever be a good thing?
This man had written a book about the suicide of his mother, during an interview for a television show he is triggered into a depression.
To me that seems a good thing... for one reason, I feel it shows he hadn't dealt with her death.
far from restricting triggers should they not be faced and issues conquered?

http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...mment-64180775

[arista]

Yes Great Harm
but Life Goes On.

[DemolitionRed]

The man who wrote the book probably did so for cathartic reasons. He did so in his own words and on his own terms and probably found his Johari window opened and gave him a real sense of freedom.

When he was questioned about his mother he didn't have control and therefore when a question was asked that was intolerable to this man, he had nowhere to go and his trauma lay bare in front of him.

Although this interview triggered his depression, it was likely the realization that he didn't have the closure he thought he had and that in itself would of been very alarming and depressing.

Words can be dangerous weapons, even when uttered in a meaningful way and because we aren't professional therapists, we may think we are helping when we are in fact, making things worse.

Trigger warnings (PTSD ones) need to be managed under a psychologist who knows how to deal with them; someone who can journey with them through CBT and exposure therapy. Under such therapy triggers can be good because they are being professionally dealt with and often have a good outcome.