Thursday 12:00
Friday 18:38

I promised this a year ago.

Triggers

So, I really like The West Wing (Aaron Sorkin is my favorite television writer). It's not quite at my Law & Order level of obsession, but I've watched the whole run twice since 2016 (it's a good antidote to Trump).

There's an episode in season 2 (s02e10) called Noël (special guest appearance by Yo-Yo Ma). At the end of the first season, the President gets shot. Also hit is his aide, Josh Lyman, but all survive. Several weeks later, around Christmas, Josh starts losing his cool. He gets absurdly irritable to the point where he even yells at the President, and punches a window, cutting his hand. Leo notices that Josh is losing it and calls in a psychiatrist who specializes in trauma (great role played by Alan Arkin). He instantly realizes that Josh is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Josh is reliving the shooting instead of moving past it. His "trigger" in this case started with a brass quintet playing Christmas carols in the White House lobby. Later, watching Yo-Yo Ma, he starts to freak out. His brain subconsciously connected music to sirens, which associated with the shooting, and caused him to break down a little. For gunshot victims, it's usually a car backfiring or some other sudden noise that triggers them but for Josh, it's music.

Stick a pin in that for now.

I like this attitude (also, I like potato skins). I don't know if this is exactly the appropriate response, but, to my knowledge, there's no charity fighting sexist comments on Yelp. My friend Jon posts a lot of things on Facebook like this. He's what some would call a "social justice warrior," but I mean that in a mostly good way. As a white cis male (like myself), some of his white knighting is a little off, but he means well. We often have spirited online discussions, because sometimes I find his brand of liberalism too far left (his support of antifa particularly troubles me), or because I just like to play devil's advocate. Anyway, in posting this, he put a little content warning at the top "CW: mention of rape."

Now, I'm not a trauma specialist. (From the armchair, I have experienced trauma, and I have experienced stress, but I'm fairly sure I have never suffered from PTSD.) But I can still understand how a depiction, or even a description of a rape could be traumatic for someone who has been the victim of one. But just the word? And in this context? The act or suggestion of rape isn't even involved! There was a story about a law school student who claimed that her professor saying the word "rape" in her criminal law class was traumatizing. In criminal law class! As in the West Wing story, you don't always know what could trigger you, but warping your reality to the point that word must not exist in your world is absurd

Mental healthcare is far behind where it ought to be, and for once, it's not an exclusively American problem. PTSD is real, and obviously medical professionals can help. But even absent that, the solution can't be to lock yourself out from anything that might remotely remind you of your trauma. You need to be able to remember it without reliving it. Not all trauma leads to PTSD. Even if one does, it can be temporary even without professional help, but not if you don't deal with it. Limiting yourself to "safe spaces" to the exclusion of others only internalizes your trauma more. As I said, the Facebook post isn't even about rape (misleading CW). But even if it were (say, if the comment online was rape-y and the restaurant guy changed his menu for that) isn't that a positive story that would be uplifting to a victim of rape?

I'm not saying safe spaces shouldn't exist, but you can't demand someone else change their space to make it safe for you. You can't bear to talk about rape? Don't go to law school.

Previously, on The West Wing:

Josh is concerned about his diagnosis.

"So that's going to be my reaction every time I hear music?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because... we get better."