disclaimer: not about anyone on this sub cuz this is a sort of ‘clinical’ setting and as such mostly everyone here uses the term correctly


i absolutely fucking hate that the term ‘trigger’ has been used as a joke for several years now. i hate that its been taken from mental health communities and handed over to trolls and the uneducated. i can’t even use the word in professional therapeutic spaces without feeling like a fraud of some sort, or like i won’t be taken seriously. 


i have a knee-jerk reaction to the word now and i hate that too. i hate that even if it leaves my own mouth my defenses go up because i’m more used to hearing it used incorrectly by assholes on the internet than in real, serious conversations. i hate that i can’t erase the misuse of the word no matter how many times i repeat what is reality, and i can’t erase how i tense up when i hear it. sometimes, no matter how hard i try, the word just feels ruined. i don’t know how to get it back. this fucking sucks