Trigger Warning

Have you been triggered lately?

That word has made its way from therapy speak into public consciousness. I hear it every day. That’s triggering. I’ve been triggered. Trigger warning.

It makes me wonder if there needs to be a gentle shift in the language we use.

It’s good that there is more understanding about cause and effect, especially in trauma. Undoubtedly, there can be a chain reaction when we are reminded of something painful or traumatic. But is triggered the best word to use?

It smacks of inevitability to me. Powerlessness. When a gun’s trigger is pulled, nothing is going to stop that bullet from its trajectory.

I’m not sure it’s helpful to use this kind of language to describe our emotional and physiological responses to reminders of loss, pain, or trauma.

My colleague Martin Roddis uses the word activation. I like that. I also like the word Joanne Cacciatore, PhD uses: cues. It suggests some degree of choice. She uses the analogy of an animal that has been abused or traumatised.

Let’s say (I feel like issuing a trigger warning here!) a dog that was mistreated by its previous owner, a man with a beard. Now every time the dog sees a man with a beard, it cowers, it refuses to walk past him, it whines and shakes. The beard is the cue. But with loving and patient work, with support, the dog can unlearn the fear. Perhaps it will always pause when it sees a man with a beard, the memory being strongly encoded, but it learns that not all men with beards are cruel, and it can walk past one, even if that’s shakily and tentatively.

Think of an actor. When they hear their cue, it’s time to walk on stage. But there is still an element of choice. They know the cue, they react to the cue – but they can also choose to ignore it, if there’s good reason to.

People who are grieving are bombarded with cues. The smell of a certain perfume. The sight of a familiar curly head in the distance. The sound of a special song. These cues can feel devastating, frightening, distressing, overwhelming. Like someone poking you in the ribs every few minutes and saying, remember that person you loved so much? They’re gone.

But there’s an element of choice in cues. Sometimes you may respond to the cue; the song comes on the radio, you’re alone, you have a cry. Other times, you choose not to respond; you’re at work, someone walks past wearing the same cologne that your partner did. The cue is powerful, but the context means that you may feel it’s better to park that emotional response for the time being, rather than dissolving at your desk (although sometimes that’s going to happen too – and there’s nothing wrong with that).

Language matters. Trauma and grief feel like they have taken away our agency. It’s important to take back as much as you reasonably can (whilst acknowledging that we are human and can only do what we can do in the moment).