I write from my heart and from my mind, not heeding any internal or external censor. That is how I think. That is who I am. Each individual reader must decide for themselves whether they can handle reading potentially disturbing material. The best writing is often disturbing, mining the extremes of human experience. Reading such works challenges us. We must challenge ourselves. We must challenge the perceptions of others.
No Trigger Alerts Here
Comments
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🙂
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Thank you, Salva.
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Everything with your blog is OK. As you said, the title says it all, and noone reading here could claim that he didn’t know. 🙂
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But should art censor itself to the extent that nothing disturbing is ever mentioned without first warning people that it may offend? Certainly I am not an advocate of promoting violence. But when describing my own manic or depressive moods, or psychotic thought process, should I warn people that it may remind them of such states and trigger an episode? The title of my blog says it all. I blog about living with mental illness. I blog to overcome stigma. I blog to promote understanding.
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It all comes down to responsibility. The notion that art is not liable to account, is a misunderstanding at its best, and deeply anti-humanist at its worst. Therefore, and in my opinion, anyone thriving upon public attention automatically is subject to above liability.
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I agree wholeheartedly. I write about my mental illness, so sometimes I write disturbing stuff and yes it can trigger psychological trauma or psychiatric episodes. But I do not warn people. I do not take responsibility for how others react to me or to my writing. I just am. I just write.
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Actually, I was reacting to your trigger alert, not in a negative or judgemental way, but in a personal way, seeing that we are different. You are careful with your choice of words, careful not to offend. I am less so. I understand that sharing our stories can be painful and trigger recurrences of depression or mania. I just bristle at tip-toeing around issues. I’m more of an in-your-face kind of gal. In taking care of ourselves, we may have to stop reading or watching something that we cannot handle.
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Hmmmm. I do agree, without a shred of doubt, that some of the best, most influential writing is disturbing. I gravitate to reading that kind of writing when I’m stable.
When I’m depressed it’s a different story. Give me cotton candy reading, or actually when I’m really down I sleep and even books can’t drag me out from under my covers and release me from despair.
When I write about suicide in detail, I feel obligated to post a t.a. That sense of obligation comes from reading other bloggers who post trigger alerts – I basically thought it was the “thing to do” in the blogging community, of which Is still consider myself to be a newbie. I admire that fact that you write what you wish to write without internal or external censors – the word that comes to my mind is “freeing”. I will read anything you write without reservation or hesitation, as long as I am stable!!!
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This is a strange new phenomenon, these “trigger alerts”. I’m not accustomed to having to put a disclaimer on my writing that it might upset or offend someone. Isn’t part of the human condition to experience things that move us, both in good and bad ways?
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