I'm Going to Experiment with a New Username and Avatar · 11:48pm Feb 26th, 2017
Hope you like it! Until or unless I go back, call me Trigger!
I'm using it because legitimate triggers and trigger warnings were for soldiers who went to war and got PTSD not only because their friends were killed, but because they had to deal with the fact that they killed other people. But now people who claim to have triggers have never underwent an even remotely similar experience and need trigger warnings for harmless things, mostly really mild bullying or even people who just didn't agree with them. Ironically, the Millennials who play the "appropriation" card are the most likely to appropriate serious issues and make them look sillier than they really are, and so I took up this username and avatar as a middle finger to this wretched debasement of an actual issue.
Basically, I'm just saying, "kid, I've seen people who actually need trigger warnings, my father being one of them, because the thought of taking another life can induce PTSD issues...you're not one of them, because you don't have PTSD, you never had to do that before. So stop appropriating their issues for your personal reasons." This is a protest to how some Millennials have appropriated actual PTSD issues, issues with dissassociative identity disorder, and even Autism.
I can't say that I've been to war. But as a rape victim, I did need trigger warnings for a very long time.
Anyway, who were you?
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Supreme Leader Grant
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Don't remember you.
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Just as well, I've lately made a point out of avoiding being rememberebed by everybody.
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Well, are you an anti-LGBT fascist?
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What? Oh, goodness no! I just am busy and can't handle any more attention than I already get.
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Then we got no problems.
Good on you Trigger.
If they decide to put trigger warnings on Huckleberry Finn for the use of the n-word, would that make it a "nigger" warning?
Remember the use-mention distinction...
So I realise I'm slightly over half a year late in responding to this, but I do feel it's kind of important to say something. I disagree, strongly; posttraumatic stress disorder is not a condition exclusive to soldiers, and given that terrorism and terrorist attacks are currently immediately relevant fears for people living in large, densely populated cities and urban areas it really shouldn't be that hard to imagine scenarios in which people might have to deal with such tragedies without actually enlisting for military service, something that's even pointed out on the US Department of Veterans Affairs' official page on PTSD. Civilians can end up in a wide variety of situations in which they can be personally threatened, forced to watch as other people are murdered or tortured, or even forced to do these things themselves, including but certainly not limited to terrorist attacks, as previously mentioned, natural disasters, hostage situation, physical and sexual assault, and even extreme cases of parental abuse and neglect. It is also recognised among medical and mental health professionals, such as those at the National Institute of Mental Health, that PTSD can even manifest in people who weren't personally or necessarily in immediate danger.
Moreover, posttraumatic stress disorder, as originally described in the DSM-III, was never considered exclusive to military personnel. While it is true that earlier diagnoses that led up to the inception of the concept of PTSD, such as "shell shock" and "battle fatigue," were conceptualised in response to patterns of intense stress and mental fatigue in veterans, it wasn't long before professionals started to recognise similar patterns in civilians, such as those who had survived Nazi "concentration camps." The phenomena of trauma and stress have never been exclusive to soldiers, and it is profoundly ignorant to suggest that the diagnosis of PTSD should be withheld from those who haven't served. This is not "appropriation" of veterans' issues anymore than a straight woman being diagnosed with HIV would be appropriation of gay issues.
I also find it rather telling that you talk about those who claim to suffer from PTSD triggered by events not explicitly related to military service as though they are all liars, regardless of whether or not they diagnoses from mental health experts. You even go as far as to say:
Really? Fucking really? Do you have any sort of legitimate citation or example of such cases of the term being abused? Or did you just pull this one out of thin air in a flaccid attempt to justify your derision of people who claim to suffer from PTSD without having served?
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I'm sorry; I misspoke. I didn't mean to imply it's not real outside of service. Those who were raped, especially as children, tend to suffer from it. I just feel that many are abusing this term these days, like how some claim they have PTSD from a silly nickname they had as children. I feel like it trivializes what rape victims and war veterans suffer from.
I'm still keeping my username because in truth, I picked it because it was funny and because I tend to upset both the hard Left and the hard Right, making them "triggered". That was the real reason why I picked this username. At the time, I was afraid admitting this would create a lot of trouble for me. So far I've been proven wrong, so I'm sorry about all of this.
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Okay, fair enough. It didn't look like it was just a communication error, but then I'm also not interested in arguing that bit any further when you've already conceded the point, nor am I interested in arguing about what username you use online.
That said, you've only doubled down on the bit that really irked me, the part where you claimed that there was a widespread abuse of the term by people who had only experienced "mostly really mild bullying or even people who just didn't agree with them." I see accusations like that tossed about a lot, but whenever I ask people for evidence that things like "trigger warnings" and "safe spaces" are being abused like that they never actually provide that evidence. At most they point me in the direction of any number of YouTube pundits who have made a career out of complaining about those concepts, and more often than not they just start spouting buzzwords at me, neither of which is evidence. As far as I can tell, the only people "trivialising" PTSD are the people who reduced such terms to buzzwords in the first place, deriding everyone who disagreed with them as being "triggered" or "snowflakes."