[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