As the wife of a gun expert in a previous life, I know that some triggers are set off with barely a brush, while others practically require a fat-fingered tug.
In recent years, though, a trigger has become more than a mechanical device that initiates an explosive action on a firearm, as they were in my 1866 novel.
These days, the term “trigger” is metaphorically used as an onramp back to something unpleasant in one’s past. Today’s trigger could be an event or description in a short story, a film, a blog article, an image, a scent or even a glance. “Don’t look at me that way: your frown is triggering me!” a student might shout at his teacher.
Trigger warnings now regularly appear before classroom discussions, on social media posts and college syllabi, and in the preface of books. It’s considered proper etiquette to allow others to choose beforehand whether they want to enter a potentially upsetting experience
Is this a sign of our propensity for drama today? Or the egocentrism of our society? Are we more fragile creatures now than in the past?
Used to be– in the Midwest, anyway– traumatic events made people tougher. Or so we were told. Hit in the head by a bat while playing baseball in the backyard? “Shake it off, kiddo!” Set yourself on fire while using gasoline to burn the trash? “You’re tough, shake it off!” Teased mercilessly by kids on the bus? “Sticks and stones … Just shake it off!” Molested by a family friend– “Uhhh, let’s not talk about it.”
Back then if something reminded you of a previous trauma, it wasn’t called a trigger. It was called a bad memory. One best forgotten, not lingered upon.
Now, don’t misunderstand me. I know that trauma is real and often intrudes at specific times.
But lately, I’m wondering if what qualifies as trauma today isn’t overblown. I mean, who hasn’t had trauma today? Just ask around. I’m starting to wonder if it’s too easy to slip into a traumatized victimhood these days.
Case in point:
Last month while on a cruise, an older woman sat down in a corner lounge and began chatting at my husband and me. Never mind that I was quietly writing on my laptop and he was reading his Kindle, neither of us appearing the slightest bit social. But to be fair, maybe I smiled … or my husband looked up.
Taking that as encouragement– or perhaps assuming that most people are more sociable than we tend to be– she began her overshare. Yes, she was a native Californian, and on Day 35 of her string of back-to-back cruises! And without her husband: he was a truck driver. “Tahiti was wonderful!” she said, tossing her long gray braid. Why, of course, she knew most of the waitstaff in the dining room by name, and they expected her to come in late for breakfast each morning. She should be going soon. Oh, and by the way, my MacBook cover was triggering her.
Triggering her? “What?” My eyes darted to the left as they always do when I’m missing something.
I tipped the lid down to check. Yep, the cover still looked like an old-fashioned composition book, speckled black and white. (I mean, I AM a retired English teacher.)
“You’re making me remember my high school English class trauma,” she accused me.
“Oh,” I laughed. “That bad?” I chuckled, unintentionally inviting her to elaborate.
“Yes, it was my teacher. With her large brown bun and swooping bangs that covered her forehead. She paced around the classroom reading Faulkner aloud. It was horrible!”
I smiled, thinking of my own distaste for Beowulf, taught by an eccentric professor. I tried to be attentive to her husky voice during lectures as she hiked herself onto the front table and fanned away the smoke from her Chesterfields. I didn’t care about Grendel or Old English, and I prayed I’d never have to teach it.
But had the strange professor TRAUMATIZED me?
No. I was tougher than that.
The cruiser across from us misread my smile and began to elaborate… of course, about herself.
“It wasn’t that I wasn’t smart. You know, I was one of those gifted kids who read all the time. I even wrote poetry. But I just didn’t want to read or write what the teacher wanted me to.” The woman smiled in self-satisfaction.
“Now my brother, he wasn’t nearly as smart as me, but he got better grades,” she laughed, tossing her long gray California braid. “You know what I mean?”
My lips tightened, and I nodded once. Yes. I knew the type. And I was starting to wonder who traumatized whom, the student or the teacher.
I stared at my screen to stop my eyes from rolling and to disengage from her continued rambling. It didn’t help. She droned on without transitioning.
It was a graphic account of how her visiting grandkids had recently witnessed cows having trouble giving birth on the farm next door. She kept thinking about its similarities to their mother who was hospitalized having a hysterectomy at that very moment.
I couldn’t help it. I had so many questions. How old were these children? And who would think of comparing her daughter-in-law to a cow? Well, in terms of anatomical functions. That sounded more traumatizing than listening to Faulkner.
I glanced at my husband, then fanned myself and fidgeted with my backpack. I didn’t need this much information or detail from a stranger. I just wanted a quiet place to write.
The woman was finishing her story without a pause. “My son thanked me for not mentioning it,” she said, shrugging. “But it seemed like the perfect teachable moment to me.”
I closed my eyes and began to breathe deeply as she raced on to a new topic. We couldn’t edge in to bow out.
Thankfully we didn’t have to. The captain’s voice interrupted the minutia of her memoirs with a weather announcement. When he finished, the woman checked her watch and gasped. “Oh, I’d better hurry. Breakfast will be over soon,” she told us. “Nice talking with you,” she called back at us.
She swooshed off to find an elevator, and I exhaled, left with an unsettled feeling.
Had I just been traumatized?
This woman had attacked her former English teacher for reading literature aloud, accusing the educator of traumatizing her students. That was practically an attack on me! She implied that she was smarter than her teacher, too. Was she calling all teachers dumb? She also painted a graphic scene of bovine gynecological distress and had admitted to exposing it to her young grandkids. Any one of those could be traumatizing.
Would I be able to shake off this woman’s rudeness the next time someone mentioned composition books, or William Faulkner, or cows giving birth? Had I just been marginally traumatized? Would I now join the ranks of those triggered by the mere mention of something distasteful?
Naw…
That’s not to say that the experience wasn’t uncomfortable and one I’d rather forget. But it wasn’t traumatic.
And, I suspect our fellow cruiser’s English class wasn’t trauma-inducing either.
Maybe it’s a result of my shake-it-off upbringing or my age, but I say we dishonor others who have experienced legitimate trauma when we claim to be triggered so easily.
And that’s not a trigger. It’s just common sense.
