Are trigger warnings important?

Hey, lovelies! I’m here with a rather serious discussion – we’re going to talk about trigger warnings and why it’s more important than we might think to add them in our posts and videos and so on.

I’ll start by giving you a brief definition of what a trigger warning is :

a statement at the start of a piece of writing, video, etc. alerting the reader or viewer to the fact that it contains potentially distressing material. (via dictionary.com)

In other words, you’re warning your audience about different sensitive topics that might cause them harm/distress. In our little community, that usually relates to topics that might have been present in the book you’re reviewing, these topics can range from sexual assault, violence, self-harm to racism, homophobia, transphobia and so many more.

Now you might wonder what should you include as a trigger warning? Well, my advice is to be as emphatic as possible and to try to think beyond your own experience. Some things might not disturb you while they have the potential to cause serious harm to someone else because they might have experienced it before and reading about that brings them back to a very dark place, which could be avoided by trigger warnings.

It’s also important to mention if certain disorders are represented in the book, for example eating disorders, because the author might give a detailed account of symptoms, which can be really harmful to people who are in recovery or to the survivors or even to those who suffer from an eating disorder.

4 Reasons Why Trigger Warnings Are Important

#1 : They help people know what they would be reading about and choose whether they want to read it or not.

#2 : They create a safe space and ensure the well-being of people who went through traumatic events.

#3 : They are essential to avoid relapses.

#4 : They don’t limit the conversation (stop with those harmful and very limited reasons already!!!) – they just help us have a conversation that everyone agreed on having. It’s awful to force a victim of abuse go through a book or conversation on this subject that they are just not ready to talk about. You know nothing about how they feel. I’m sorry to say it, but you don’t. So, let them set their own boundaries and stop trying to do it for them.

I saw many people argue against trigger warnings because they have the potential to spoil the book. And I’m wondering what’s more important – helping a person who might be triggered by a certain part in a book to avoid reading it or you knowing that the book includes a certain sensitive subject? I never understood how trigger warnings could potentially spoil a book for someone. You don’t know how things will go, what will really happen, you just know that at some point a certain theme will appear in the book – it could be a mention, a discussion or an actual event. But you don’t know what it is. It’s kind of insensitive for you to moan about a non-existent ‘spoiler’ when people get panic attacks over reading those things. PLEASE, we have priorities here, darling. 

I’ve also seen people complain about how people are too easily triggered these days. I’M ROLLING MY EYES AT YOU IF YOU’RE ONE OF THESE PEOPLE. Look, every person is different and some of us are more sensible than others and we’re all affected by very different things – which is directly related to our life experiences. Try to be understanding. Stop judging people because they were offended by something you weren’t – try to see their perspective or at least be civil about it if you can’t see their point of view.

I understand that you might miss trigger warnings or you might not always mention them (it happens to me at times and I’m deeply sorry!), but if someone asks you to include them or they say they’ve been triggered by a book, don’t start arguing with them about how it’s not that triggering, it’s disrespectful and dismissing of these people’s trauma. Just think how sometimes when you read a book that focuses on many sensitive subjects, you get overwhelmed even if you haven’t experienced it yourself, now think how it would be for someone who did experience it themselves and now had to  relieve all of it.

I can’t argue enough how important those warnings are. I really wish publishers would include them – or at least don’t try to be misleading with the blurbs – but before they start doing that, we should try to do as good of a job as we can as reviewers.

Be sensitive, listen to others, try to see past your own experiences. I have to say that I didn’t always know the importance of trigger warnings, but reading many reviews where people talked about how they had panic attacks and how much reading about certain subjects harmed them, it just made me so much more aware of how easily it is to somehow help them or other people who could avoid being hurt like this.

So, please, if you feel like a book is very heavy and could potentially harm someone, put some trigger warnings or at least, mention the sensitive subjects in your review. Underline those, write them in bold. Just make them stand out.

What are your thoughts on this subject? Is there any book that was too much for you?

Did trigger warnings help you avoid a certain book?