How We Deal with Trigger Warnings

How We Deal with Trigger Warnings

by Alexis Barad-Cutler

One of the phrases I say often here, is “you are not alone.” Usually, it is in the context of helping those of us who feel isolated in our experiences know that they are part of a larger story — and connected to so many others in shared experiences. But there is another side to “not being alone” — and that means recognizing that others may have different reactions, feelings, and triggers than we do to certain kinds of content. I am so grateful for the overwhelming empathy that came through in our discussion about how to handle Trigger Warnings on (nsfmg).

I love where we landed: that for each new subject, we will introduce it explicitly as “New Topic: (name of topic)”. This way, no topic is given more emotional weight than another (or brings up shame) — which was one of the concerns that kept coming up.