Triggers
May is Mental Health Awareness month. I thought I would take some time to write about a common occurrence in daily life: triggers. Triggers should always come with a trigger warning. If you are one to frequent social media, you have probably seen the phrase, "Trigger Warning", at the beginning of a story. For example: "TW: homophobia, transphobia, ableism," etc. These trigger warnings are placed on posts on social media to alert people about the content they're about to read. Conversely, they help people avoid content that will be upsetting to them. The word "trigger" is a common occurrence these days. What exactly does it mean? Merriam Webster defines to trigger as: "to cause an intense and usually negative emotional reaction in someone." With the way the world has been in the last two years, a contentious election in the U.S., a global pandemic, we have all been traumatized, and have been triggered by something. ...