Pals, I’m gonna tell you one of those hard truths, and I hope that you can read this and think about it in the spirit in which it’s intended.
The vast majority of you do not have “triggers”, you have “squicks”. If you learn the difference, I promise you will be happier and healthier, and you will feel much MUCH less as if all media is attempting to personally attack and traumatize you.
It is ABSOLUTELY LEGIT to dislike something in a piece of media, or to feel disgusted and revolted by it, or to have an aversion to it for any reason and to any degree. That’s normal! That’s absolutely normal, and if that has happened to you, then you are normal too.
But… Words matter. Words have power. There is a difference between “disgust” and “trauma response” – if a person without PTSD or other forms of trauma calls something that disgusts them a “trigger”, they are giving that thing undue and dangerous power over them. You do not have to legitimize your disgust, because your feelings are already valid. But saying “this triggers me” if it doesn’t actually trigger you in the clinical definition means that you are voluntarily giving up some of your own power and agency to the thing you dislike. It means that you are allowing the thing to have a disproportionate impact on your life, that you are giving it power to affect you and get under your skin and stay there. You are building it up into something much more terrifying and monstrous and serious than it deserves to be. Calling it a “squick” makes you bigger than the thing that’s grossing you out – it makes the gross thing into something that you can have power over, that you can vanquish and reject and entirely discard from your life according to your own whimsy. (For those of you who aren’t familiar with the term “squick”, it’s something you don’t like which causes that icky squirmy “ew! no thanks!” feeling. Here’s the Fanlore page for more detail.)
We live in a society that wants to take power away from so many of us at all costs. Nobody hands you power or agency or confidence or strength – you have to claim those for yourself. If you have the ability to take control over something that squicks you, do it. Stand up for yourself and your media experience, and use the word that gives you power. You can turn your back on a squick and walk away without more than a lingering “ugh” feeling; it is almost impossible to do that with a trigger. A trigger ruins your whole day (ask me how I know!).
Words have power. Disgust is a normal human emotion. Your feelings are valid even when they’re not severe and catastrophic.
it’s legitimately so fucked up and heartbreaking that in this society
the ability to just like…relax and have fun with friends and loved
ones is like…considered something you have to earn or make time at
your own expense for. it should be regarded as one of the inalienable cornerstones
of being human. i’m not joking, like the fact that having fun and
chilling with your buds is considered an expendable frivolity instead of
a vital core need is heartbreaking. not that capitalist society has ANY
vital core needs that it’s not prepared to gate behind a monetary cost
though lmao.
“It was because of my anxiety. Working out, I would just feel better. It was never about losing weight, it was always about becoming strong and giving myself as much time every day without my phone. I got quite addicted to it. I work out two or three times a day. People are shocked because I didn’t share my ‘journey’. They’re used to people documenting everything on Instagram, and most people in my position would get a big deal with a diet brand. I couldn’t give a flying f**k. I did it for myself and not anyone else. So why would I ever share it? I don’t find it fascinating. It’s my body. People have been talking about my body for 12 years. They used to talk about it before I lost weight. But yeah, whatever, I don’t care. You don’t need to be overweight to be body positive, you can be any shape or size. You know a hundred per cent of the stories written about me have been absolutely fake. The people that came out being like, ‘I trained her,’ I’ve never met in my life. It’s disgusting. I cannot get over it. Some Pilates lady I’ve never met in my life! And I haven’t done any diet. No intermittent fasting. Nothing. If anything I eat more than I used to because I work out so hard. And also, that whole thing of like, ‘Gets Revenge Body’… Oh my god. Suck my d*ck!” she yells into the empty museum. “It’s ridiculous. I think it’s that people love to portray a divorced woman as spinning out of control, like, ‘Oh she must be crackers. She must’ve decided she wants to be a ho.’ Because what is a woman without a husband? It’s bullsh*t.”
ADELE photographed by Steven Meisel for BRITISH VOGUE (November 2021)
Gertrude Cordovana, an Italian nun executed in 1724 for claiming to have had sex with god, a claim she refused to retract after twenty five years of imprisonment and torture.
Francesco Calcagno, an Italian friar executed in 1550 for being kinda atheist, mocking the church, and suggesting that Paul “condemned sodomy in his writings because he enjoyed the practice and wanted to keep it to himself”.
also while i’m ranting about gender i always see debate about whether girls are rewarded for being tomboys or not and it’s like. actually girls are rewarded for mirroring whatever the situation demands of them. girls can’t be too prissy and refuse to play in the creek, but girls also can’t show up to girly events covered in mud. girls can’t have makeup art as a hobby or else they’re superficial, but if they never wear makeup they’re a slob and dumpy, etc. it’s not that girls are universally rewarded or punished for being tomboys, they’re rewarded for bending over backwards to always be exactly right for any given situation and punished for breaking those boundaries. so yes a classically pretty girl who cleans up nice is rewarded when she can ALSO be a tomboy. but a girl who is a tomboy all the time is definitely punished for never being able to achieve that prerequisite feminine side. this debate is over now thanks
when i was in middle school our teachers told us that you can’t “make up” hours of sleep after not getting enough, and i thought that meant that if i didnt get enough sleep one night i would be tired for the rest of my life. and then i was
