Triggers, Trauma, and True Crime
Few things in this life induce a more immediate cringe for me than the “on this day” feature on Facebook. As recently as five or six years ago (so well past the point of blaming the cringe on my 20s), I was posting every cliché about the reader’s life (“I like big books and I cannot lie!”) or being entirely too emo on main. I had occasional moments of clear-eyed observation, a couple of funnies, and cute pics. But I was a sad sack of cytoplasm having feelings all over the internet, often accompanied by a book quote or cryptic song lyric.
For similar ick reasons, I generally avoid listening to myself on podcasts or reading my earlier work. I try not to be too hard on myself there because I’m not ashamed of growth. It’s more the self-righteous tone and indignation over things that don’t matter in the grand scheme of things that make me wince as I look away, which is why I surprised myself this week when I actively went in search of one of my very first pieces for Book Riot.
The post is On Personal Trauma and Trigger Warnings and I wrote it in 2017, both just a few years and an entire lifetime ago. I was closer to 30 than 40 and probably dealing with some unprocessed trauma. I’d only recently made the move to writing and bookselling, and it was the first time I was really dialed into the bookish internet. I was naively bewildered that anyone would fail to see the value in trigger warnings, writing my little unpolished heart out in defense of their use.
Then there was some new discourse on the topic in 2021, and Carmen Maria Machado and Silvia Moreno-Garcia weighed in with perspectives I hadn’t considered, namely that not only are the trigger warnings applied to books online often grossly inaccurate, but they’ve been weaponized for the purpose of banning the books of marginalized authors in schools. Given the state of censorship and book banning in the U.S. today, that second part weighs heavily. They also decried the use of trigger warnings for diminishing the impact of their art.
With this perspective on content warnings, I still elected to seek out the warnings. The authors’ points made sense to me, and I respected them, but I wasn’t sure if I was ready to let go of content warnings for myself. For years, I’ve had a little circle of trusted sources who are used to getting texts from me about this stuff or who beat me to the punch to suggest I maybe skip a book or show. They know I cannot engage with media that contains sexual and/or gender-based violence. At least, I thought I couldn’t.
Life has been lifing extra hard lately, and it has knocked the wind out of me. It turns out the effects of trauma will rear their heads long after you swear you’ve dealt with them, sometimes for reasons you don’t understand (or do, but underestimate). Whereas my way of coping with these complex feelings in the past has leaned heavily into the avoidant and escapist, I’ve spent the last two weeks consuming a ton of true crime for the first time in years.
This is why I went in search of my earlier musings on trigger warnings, because I am confused even if I shouldn’t be. The person who wrote that post used content warnings to avoided her triggers with a ten foot pole, and the one I am now is using them to seek them out purposefully but carefully through true crime (though admittedly in versions where the super graphic details are mostly left off the page). The correlation between surviving assault and consuming true crime is hardly a new one, and I understand the impulse to reach for it intellectually. But I have taken such an opposite approach for so long that this new one feels odd. I always assumed the day I could engage with this kind of content again would be the day I was whole and healed, when I’d be fixed and shiny and brand new. Instead I find myself reaching for it when the ground beneath me feels shaky all over again. It’s jarring.
Younger me dealt with trauma by avoiding triggers because that’s what felt safest. Older me, I think, is finding safety by looking the triggers in the eye and looking for reassurance. Like this Vulture piece on true crime and Michelle McNamara’s I’ll Be Gone in the Dark suggests, ”true crime provides women with a sense that justice will prevail, even though we know it often doesn’t.” Maybe this shift is just a natural progression in my personal journey, or maybe the absolute shit show of the last several years has left us all with a deep and largely unmet need for satisfying resolutions. I do know that the read that has gripped me the hardest in this recent true crime sprint has been the genre-defying Liliana’s Invincible Summer by Cristina Rivera Garza, in which Liliana and her family do not actually get the justice they deserved. I still found comfort in the read due to the author’s (Liliana’s sister) deliberate choice to focus on her sister’s life story, and in dragging the issues of femicide and intimate partner violence into the light. It would appear a tidy resolution is not requisite for finding comfort in true crime.
I’m pretty sure I’ll be in this true crime space for a bit. I hope I find more stories where justice is metted out, or that there are lessons to learn from the telling of the victim’s story even when it isn’t. I’ll make an effort to look for true crime that is ethically produced and with the consent of the affected parties. There is no comfort or reassurance in exploitation, and I won’t heal my own trauma with other people’s pain.
I think I will still reach for content warnings, too, because I still like a heads up. The choice to engage or not is mine, and I find there is both power and safety in that prerogative. I don’t think Past Me or Present Me has a better approach than the other, though perhaps Past Me got her point across with less nuance than I hope I have now. She might be a little cringe, but she was triggered. I am triggered, and I am trying, right here on main.
The comments section is moderated according to our community guidelines. Please check them out so we can maintain a safe and supportive community of readers!
Leave a comment
Join All Access to add comments.