I had an experience in an Emergency Room recently that revived memories of my dead son, his heroin addiction, and the “treatment” he received in that same ER upon numerous visits. When I mentioned this to both an addiction activist and health professional friends, they each sympathetically used the word “trigger” to describe my response.
I’ve thought about the word, “trigger”. Why do we employ a word from our violent gun culture to describe our reaction to a particular unpleasant, stimulus? Or our anticipation of how we might react to a particular stimulus? The word may be sensational but is it necessary? Could my response just as easily have been precipitated, prompted, set in motion, occasioned, caused by, generated, or begun by where I was and what I saw? Triggers on guns and bombs cause trauma. Are we so accepting of our past trauma and hurt that we fail to pay attention to the language we use when we unexpectedly revisit them. When we say “trigger” are we unnecessarily adding salt to a wound? Does “trigger” up the ante? Do we really need to ride a horse named Trigger?
