I have apparently managed to miss this chunk of the plural cultural landscape and I am not sorry. Especially since... maybe this is the paranoid dumpster rat part of me, but I would see publicly listing off my triggers as telling trolls EXACTLY how to upset me most. Like, if I am petrified of pink bunnies or whatever, I sure don't want Trollface McGee to know that; that's guaranteeing a neverending stream of bunny pics sent to me!
Especially since a lot of my triggers are really unpredictable, even for me. Like, once while at a friendly plural gathering, someone put up like, a Let's Play of a silly flash computer game I'd never heard of, and for whatever reason, my traumabrain just WIGGED OUT. Totally blindsided, and I had to pull that awkward, "I AM SORRY I HAVE TO GO RIGHT NOW BYE" and just have the classic hyperventilate/cry thing for a moment before coming back. And I felt so bad for those plurals, because they were just having fun and thought they'd done something horrible, triggering me by accident, when there's no way they could've known! (And I don't think I could've warned them either; it was a weird combo of factors that wasn't obvious.)
Also, being triggered... I mean, it's UNPLEASANT but it's not that bad for me? Like, yes, I curl up in a ball and wheeze and cry and can't really respond to my environment for a while, and that's not something I'd want to happen in the middle of working a con, but among friends and stuff, it's... it really is okay? As long as I can sit down and have my cry, it usually passes pretty quickly, within five minutes, and then I might be drained or foggy but I'm generally all right. I remember, when Freyas came to visit, I mentioned that I needed to have an episode, sorry, even though we were outdoors in public, and they were just like, "Okay, what can we do?" and I was like, "if y'all could just sit and... I dunno, amuse yourself for a few minutes, be still and quiet, that'd be nice." And they did, played a phone game or something, let me do my rock-wheeze-cry thing, and when I was done, I told them, they gave me a hug, and we went back to what we were doing. And that was actually a really affirming, good experience to have with them, to be able to be triggered and have an episode and have it be treated as this ordinary everyday thing!
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Date: 2020-07-31 02:21 am (UTC)Especially since a lot of my triggers are really unpredictable, even for me. Like, once while at a friendly plural gathering, someone put up like, a Let's Play of a silly flash computer game I'd never heard of, and for whatever reason, my traumabrain just WIGGED OUT. Totally blindsided, and I had to pull that awkward, "I AM SORRY I HAVE TO GO RIGHT NOW BYE" and just have the classic hyperventilate/cry thing for a moment before coming back. And I felt so bad for those plurals, because they were just having fun and thought they'd done something horrible, triggering me by accident, when there's no way they could've known! (And I don't think I could've warned them either; it was a weird combo of factors that wasn't obvious.)
Also, being triggered... I mean, it's UNPLEASANT but it's not that bad for me? Like, yes, I curl up in a ball and wheeze and cry and can't really respond to my environment for a while, and that's not something I'd want to happen in the middle of working a con, but among friends and stuff, it's... it really is okay? As long as I can sit down and have my cry, it usually passes pretty quickly, within five minutes, and then I might be drained or foggy but I'm generally all right. I remember, when Freyas came to visit, I mentioned that I needed to have an episode, sorry, even though we were outdoors in public, and they were just like, "Okay, what can we do?" and I was like, "if y'all could just sit and... I dunno, amuse yourself for a few minutes, be still and quiet, that'd be nice." And they did, played a phone game or something, let me do my rock-wheeze-cry thing, and when I was done, I told them, they gave me a hug, and we went back to what we were doing. And that was actually a really affirming, good experience to have with them, to be able to be triggered and have an episode and have it be treated as this ordinary everyday thing!
--Rogan