i wish the general population never learned the word "triggered" because as someone who actually gets triggered and needs to communicate that, it's been watered down and almost sounds like edgelord nonsense now even when i have to use it.
let this be a psa to stop using that term unless you are actually talking about having a trauma response. i hate it and when people use it jokingly i feel uncomfortable around them
being triggered is like stepping through a trap door in my head and being rushed away to another place where i am in danger. i can feel in danger even when i am talking to a loved one who has always been safe, feel in my body through adrenaline and other body processes like i am in place and time where some event occurred, often like i'm a kid with no power.
getting triggered is almost always unexpected, sometimes i don't realize that's what's happening at first. it can ruin big chunks of time, sometimes even days of my life. i can say things i regret. it has strained and even ruined some of my relationships. i often need to apologize later. some people will never trust me again. even if it's mild i almost always need to try to explain what happened or excuse myself.
and "i was triggered" has become a joke that means "i was being an unreasonable snowflake about something"
"lol triggered" is usually around something the joker thinks people shouldn't be upset about. actual triggers can be so incredibly varied and can seem weird or silly to an outside observer because they might remind the triggered person somehow of some previous event or pattern of events. hell, often when /i/ get triggered i am also going "why am i getting triggered about this? this is ridiculous" and attacking myself on top of the triggered feeling. as if i need that too.
people with trauma need kindness, nonjudgement, and patience around the topics that trigger them.
adding this to the end which i said in the comments but a few people have suggested other terms instead, but the thing is
1. disabled people shouldn't have to keep dancing around people who want to dehumanize us every time our words get misused
2. if we come up with a new word, they'll turn that one into a joke, too
@forestine some people around me use schizophrenia as the joke word when like a message app mistakenly shows someone having read a message twice or if someone uses multiple accounts in the same chat room. aka if there are multiple "instances of the same person"
as a person living with schizophrenia, I tried explaining that schizophrenia isn't about DID but they just repeat this joke next time
@forestine it's an endlessly repeating pattern. they do it every time and of course they would, but then everyone else has to go and adopt their usage of the word. doesn't matter if those people use the right wing appropriated version sincerely or ironically, it normalizes it either way
i expect the scorpion to sting me. it's what it does. i'm all the more exhausted by supposed allies who enable it again and again, never learning, never caring
like people have ocd when they like their toilets to be reasonably clean.
@aperture @forestine yeah >->
its bad enough that doll gets unsure if it should say it might have ocd because its scared of being like them
..even when for it its stuff like morality trauma and contamination hell and it just isnt sure if its constant enough to be ocd actually there arent really any conpulsions that clear it up, itd probably just be obsessions if anything
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