two highly recommended warnings essays

[seperis]

As This Is My Life

So apparently, someone doing roadwork cut through our cable line, and we have a.) no cable, b.) no internet and c.) no phone. Which means tonight, may not be on if I can't get the tethering to work between John II and Arthur. However, Arthur the G1 and I are going to bond like whoa. Just. G3 is not very fast. So we'll see how that's going to work out.

ETA: Have internetz! They fixed it! Shocking.

Warnings

Sexual Assault, Triggering, and Warnings: An Essay by impertinence

Warning: Very explicit discussion of sexual assault and the nature, anatomy, cause & effect of triggers. Is itself triggery.

In response to this essay, I've had a complete reversal on my general attitude of whatever on warnings. Sure, it should not take someone gutting themselves publicly for me to work out why this is so important, but there you go, that's what it actually took in this case. That is perhaps one of the hardest things I've read in the last year, bar none. Recommended reading no matter what side of the warning debate you are on and in my opinion required reading if you're going to debate this topic at all, ever, anywhere.

Also recommended:

Warnings by zvi_likes_tv at Dreamwidth, with an alternate perspective on the warning issue, along with very good conversations in comments (actually, both essays have both great and faintly terrifying commentary). I'm going to say whatever side you are on, this, too, should be read thoroughly before engaging.

ETA: reginagiraffe linked in comments to kalpurna's post on easy ways to do warnings. We shall all read and learn and do better.

For me, I think I'll just automatically add a line to all headers (and if I don't, someone for the love of God slap me for stupidity; I'm adding it to my autotext header in MSWord now) for Warning and either enter None or See Cut for a separate section before the story starts. I don't often have the more common trigger issues in my fic, but honestly, since I haven't thought about warnings, I very well may have and just haven't paid attention to it.

Comments

Re: Original anonymouse here, more personal response to you, shopfront.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, I'm sorry I did that. I should have guessed how that would look.

Thank you for apologising, although it really wasn't necessary. I don't expect anyone to be able to read my mind, and I gave no indication, so you couldn't have known. It would be silly of me to expect otherwise. And I went into this conversation knowingly, and aware that I might end up feeling that way, so I could control it enough so it didn't upset me in any significant manner. I just couldn't prevent it from popping into my head and stop me from asking you outright, because that would have augmented the anxiety, if that makes any sense? And I mentioned it only because I thought it illustrated the automatic thoughts thing quite nicely, but it was my responsibility to enter the discussion in the first place.(Reading some of the comments aimed at survivors was what distressed me the most, really. I can't even grasp as to how some of them must be feeling.)

I was worried anything I injected would come across as either ignorant or weirdly condescending

Replace "condescending" with "stupid", and you know how I feel most days every time I'm talking to someone I don't already know very well and trust (and on worse days, even then). It's something I've been working on for 6 years now, and I've got a hell of a lot better at it, but my (mistaken) default position in social contexts is still that I'm... wrong, awkward, uninteresting, stupid, pick a self-deprecating term, it'll have been in my head, a billion times. I hope I'm getting better at recognising those thought patterns now and try to actively work against them, but whilst I'm rationally there, emotionally my MO is still "I'm not ok, you're ok", most of the time. (Another classic psychology text, google "I'm ok, you're ok" if you are interested in finding out.)

I've seen that shopfront has made her post (and made many valuable and interesting points), and I've linked to this thread from the comments there. I'd still appreciate it if you still linked to this in a separate post though, as I feel it provides some more concrete examples in some places that may make things more understandable for people, and I get the impression you have a fair bit of fandom traffic on your journal.

Thank you very, very much for your sensitivity and repeated offers of screening, I shall bear them in mind, though I hope it won't be necessary. But I appreciate the attention you've paid to this far more than I can express; many people in fandom should take you as an example in how to conduct yourself in these kind of discussions, imho.

(And I gather, from your other comment that you have first hand experience with depression, at least, so I just wanted to express my sympathy for that being the case. Ironically, and from a more detached/logical perspective, it serves as an apt example as to how wide the spectrum of mental health issues really is (with you understanding the depression side, but initially not the triggering one, I mean), and that you cannot simply lump everyone together in one group and stick a label on it.)