Nah, I never joke about Jello, Popsicles, and Soup Broth…
Indeed, I am!
I’m a disability advocate whose triggers are Jello, Popsicles, and Soup Broth.
I legit just lost a follower over this.
They must be really big fans of Jello and/or Popsicles and/or Soup Broth.
For those who have trouble detecting sarcasm - the last sentence about them being fans of said foods was sarcastic. But a few people have really unfollowed me over this.
The other three replies, including the original, are serious.
Jello, Popsicles, and Soup Broth are my legit triggers. I would never joke about that.
I know it sounds bizarre. But trust me, I’m serious.
(I’m also not a big fan of fluorescent lights.)
It should be noted that I haven’t received this many death threats since the Great Snape War of 2013.
This is by far my favorite reply:
All right, folks, take your seats, because class is now in session! Let’s have a little talk…
Yeah, yeah, I know it’s Saturday, but learning is fun.
I’ve had seven surgeries in my lifetime and will probably have many more in the future. And one such surgery, which happened about nine years ago, involved really fun (*sarcasm*) things like tubes that are shoved up your nose and end up in your stomach (I know, I didn’t think it was possible either until they did it), eight gallons of really disgusting fluid, pain, lots of pain, and the direct order that I had to evacuate every single bit of food that was inside me.
And that was before the surgery even began!
After the surgery, I had to stay in the hospital for about a month.
And I was on what’s called a clear-liquid diet.
What’s a clear-liquid diet?
For this particular hospital:
Water, Jello, Popsicles, and Soup Broth.
A meal that was delivered to my hospital room three times a day.
That’s all I was allowed to eat.
For those of you who enjoy doing math: I was in the hospital for a month, which is roughly 30 days. I had to eat this meal three times a day. That’s 90 bowls of soup broth, 90 containers of Jello, and 90 Popsicles. Ninety times I had to eat these things. In the span of a month. 90.
Which means that nine years later, I am actually physically unable to eat these three items without vomiting. It’s a sensory trigger.
So why didn’t I talk about this from the beginning instead of enduring four death-threats, six unfollows, and nineteen messages/comments (not including the death threats and the ones that just said ‘Popsicles, Jello, Soup Broth’ over and over again)?
Well, there’s two reasons.
A.) I don’t have to. People don’t ever have to explain why something is triggering to them. Once they say that it is, it should just be a given.
And
B.) The above comment is right. I am a disability advocate. And part of that advocacy includes advocating on behalf of people with triggers. And so, you’ve all been part of a social experiment for the past few hours - an experiment to see how people react when they see that someone has really bizarre triggers (out-of-context).
And I’m a bit sad to say that many of you have failed. Even other people with triggers and/or other advocates.
So listen because this is really important:
I know that triggers are a sensitive subject and I know that there are people out there who do joke about them.
But there are even more people out there who have triggers that seem really bizarre and even silly.
And you know what?
You cannot invalidate those triggers.
You cannot assume that someone is joking, you cannot assume that they’re mocking other people with triggers that are more commonplace or ‘sensible’, you cannot assume that they are anything less than genuine.
If someone tells you that they have a trigger, you need to believe them, no matter how bizarre it might seem.
People always say they want more friendships and less forced romances in
media. But then if a film or show centers around friendship between two
characters of the same gender, the writers are just “cowards” who are
“queer baiting” and “we deserved romance”. Friendship can be deeply
meaningful and heartfelt without secretly being gay - it makes me
question what kind of life ya’ll are living if you think otherwise.
I hate how fandom spaces are so Americanized. You’re expected to follow
American moral standards when consuming or writing content, you’re
expected to have an American perspective on all issues, you’re expected
to participate in American-flavored “activism” or else you’re a bigot or
something. Funny how fandom talks about “valuing non-Americans’ voices”
or respecting other cultures but throw a hissy fit once someone
non-American voices their opinion or refuses to conform to Americentric
standards. Smells like colonizer shit to me. At least Eastern fandom
knows how to separate politics and reality from fiction.
I’m laughing, but there’s a super useful corollary, which my husband calls “the Red Balloon.” He was a defense lawyer and had a fair number of drug addicts come through, and there is a thing where if you’re like, on your first offense, they’ll do a thing where you can go to treatment and if you complete it they’ll take the conviction off your record.
And he would tell his clients, “Look, everyone’s going to tell you not to do drugs. They’re going to say it over and over again. And it’s like, if people tell you not to think of a white elephant, you’re going to think of a white elephant. But the trick to not thinking about a white elephant is to think of a red balloon. So you need to find your red balloon. For some people it’s yoga. For others it’s woodworking. For some people it’s scrapbooking or gardening or any of a long list of things to do. They focus on that, it’s a lot easier to succeed in ignoring the white elephant.”
So yeah, “watch yourself” is one thing… but the better idea is to watch something else. (Even if it’s fanfic about werewolves fucking.)
It’s a form of productive dissociation, and is super, super helpful.
It’s easy for me to get bogged down in how much pain I’m in… but some of the most painful periods of my life have also been the most productive, writing-wise, because writing is one of my red balloons.
There is a phrase I use A LOT in my parenting and my son gets very sick of it, but it’s true:
The thing you practise is the thing you get good at.
You may not intentionally be practicing “being grumpy” but if you don’t put effort into practicing “not being grumpy” then I’m afraid that’s what you’re doing. It’s hard! It’s really hard! Sometimes, for some things, it’s pretty much impossible and that sucks!
But being carefully aware that you are going to get good at the things you do most of is a good way to be more careful of what those things are. If that makes sense.
You gotta appreciate sometimes how tumblr works in such a way that everyone who wants to reblog this interesting or useful psychological advice is also forced to reblog the thing about werewolf fucking
omg did you know there lived a certain man in Russia long ago (he was big and strong, in his eyes a flaming glow), most people looked at him with terror and with fear (but to Moscow chicks he was such a lovely dear)
