thedarknesstohislight:

LISTEN UP.

If someone is triggered by something you’re doing and you don’t tag that and you have the indecency to even mock them for it then I can safely say that you are the lowest of the low. IDC what people ask you to tag whether it’s a situation or even something that you may not think is ‘triggering’, you do the damn thing.

If someone has said to you that that makes them uncomfortable and you just ignore that and make them feel bad for it then you my friend need to look at your life and your choices. Even if it seems small to you or it’s ‘just the internet’ then get some perspective; there are real people behind these computers with real emotions. 

Get your head out of your arse and say hey howdy hey to the real world. 

No, okay, look, I was just going to let this pass by but now I can’t do it.

That is not how the real world works.

The world will not tag your triggers. The world does not care if you are triggered. And by this I do not even mean ‘other people’, I mean all the much bigger things beyond this.

Sit down, let me tell you a story, children.

Once upon a time there was a Panya who was very in love with her boyfriend and they rented a condo together. And the last night of November their gas-powered water heater blew the fuck up, and burned down their condo and all the condos in the row, and they had to stand there and watch as the firefighters did everything they could.

And for over a year I was triggered by almost anything at all to do with fire. Fire alarms freaked me out. Candles. The smell of burning. I had a job, at the time. You know what happens at jobs? Fire drills.

Every time there was a fire drill, for over a year, I had a panic attack. My co-workers knew what had happened. I /wished/ I could be warned about the fire drills — but guess what? NO. That entirely removes the point of the drill — my co-workers needed to know that if there was a real fire I was liable to freak out. And I needed to know what I would do.

No trigger warnings there.

To this day, over five years later, I still have to be cautious about certain things. F’r’ex, hibachi restaurants. I love them. My favourite place to go out to eat. Remember what they do there? The cooking show, with the fire? Yeah. Still gets me. I go anyway, and my friends know that there’s a chance I’ll freak a bit.

It’s not their responsibility to take care of my emotions. Is it nice when they do? Absolutely. Totally. I’m endlessly grateful that my friends took the time, that first couple years, to ask me was it okay to have a fire in the fireplace, to light candles, etc. I’m glad that when I go out to the hibachi restaurant with my tae kown do mates and I shriek when the fire at another table startles me (I’ve fallen over a couple times), they always ask. They always check on me. My husband holds my hand when they do the table show for us, because he knows.

It’s still not his responsibility. It’s mine. To pay attention. To be aware of the things that give me trouble, and avoid them, or work to minimize my reaction.

It is GREAT when people are willing to work with you on dealing with triggers, especially the really bad kind. But don’t shame them for being unwilling to be responsible for you. Don’t be ugly to people if they refuse to do a thing to make it easier for you — their lives and their emotions are real too, and they. Are. Not. Responsible. For. You.