You know, one time I read a fanfic and it triggered my psychosis, sent me into a month long episode THEN a whole year later I was on ao3 just mindlessly scrolling, I came across the fanfic title and it gave me a panic attack, but something compelled me to click it, i didn’t read it but i did scroll through it, why? mental illness. So like… yaThis is me responding to your old(?) post about someone else’s fiction not being able to hurt you, this is probably just a me thing but mental illness makes you do things and react to things in insane ways that sometimes you cant control. I knew while reading that it was affecting me in some way, but I kept reading because well, I’m mentally ill, and then a month of my life dissapeared lolI think I’m trying to make a point about something but I’m not sureI did after the fact comment to the author and just kinda, told them about what happened, but I didn’t harrassed them or something, –but when something does what this fanfiction did to me then you’re basically obligated to let the creator know I think(they are a really good writer), I’m an adult and the fanfic was in the ballpark of something I would read and if like, 59% of it was taken out and it had a happy ending I would be fine but oh well Oh boy, I’m starting to have a panic attack just typing this out holy hell anyways uh, I’m not disagreeing with you(?) but I am saying, don’t be too quick to dismiss someone who says a piece of fiction fucked with them? idk sorry, have a good one
My friend, the fiction didn’t harm you.
Your mental illness harmed you.
Random writers on the internet are not responsible for managing your mental illness for you.
You are responsible for managing your mental illness.
I knew while reading that it was affecting me in some way, but I kept reading because well, I’m mentally ill
This is self harm. You were engaging in self-harming behavior by continuing to read a fanfiction that you knew was triggering to you.
👉 You are responsible for managing your mental illness.
👉 Writers are not responsible for managing your mental illness for you.
And I hate to tell you this but messaging the author about it was absolutely harassing the author.
This is so real. If the Author is someone I know who personally sent me this, there would be grounds to say “Hey. This triggered me. Please be more considerate of how these things could affect me.” But even then, you don’t really have the ability to police what they write. Just what they send you.
Ao3 has so many works. If they didn’t Tag something that you specifically knew would hurt you, then you could tell them to please tag those things. If they chose/choose not to tag it, for any reason/lack thereof, you don’t have authority to do anything else.
Otherwise sending them an awareness(?) comment is nothing but a guilt trip. They did not write the content to hurt you. They wrote the content for whatever reason they had and probably a little passion and chose to share it hoping that it would vibe with some people or something. You are not a part of those people if it hurt you, because they aren’t writing with malice.
If someone told me that my writing gave them psychosis, it wouldn’t stop me from being interested in the things I write. It would make me feel like a terrible cruel horrible person and maybe kill my passion for writing. If that’s what you’re going for, then that makes you the bad person. It is never okay to imply that someone should stop doing something they enjoy.
Obviously mental health is difficult and knowing something is affecting you ≠ processing that ‘this is hurting me and I need to stop’
But in no way is that the author’s fault? It’s a lack of recognition on your part, which doesn’t even really sound like your fault either. It’s an issue that you should try to consider moving forward but that isn’t something anyone would blame you for. But, saying ‘I did it because I’m mentally ill, which is something that i cant control’ doesn’t justify telling a stranger something that could make their own life go downhill if they take it personally.
Nobody is obligated to cater to your needs, but you have the ability to excersize restraint on what/who you indulge in.
Having been in treatment 7 years for PTSD, I’m constantly enraged by the way people talk about “triggers”. People talk about being “triggered” as it being a bad experience that must be avoided at all cost & thus we must avoid any possible trigger & everything must be tagged.
I do things tags are great, it lets people choose what they engage with, prepare for what they will read/watch. It’s a good useful tool for fiction, be it fanfiction, books, tv shows or movies. However, avoiding triggers, that is elements that remind someone of a previous traumatic experience thus reactives feelings from that events because the trauma prevented the amygdala (the part of your brain that processes fear) from processing that memory correctly so the emotions and sensations are stuck & feel vivid to the person once more like they are back at that moment, is THE WORST THING YOU CAN DO.
Core to treating PTSD is exposure therapy. You went to the bakery & it got hold up with someone with a gun & now you can’t go to the bakery / the street of the bakery / can’t stand the smell of bread / flinch when you see a loaf of bread? Well, you can either make your whole life revolve around avoiding bread for the rest of your life or you can confront bread gradually in order to rewire your brain so it doesn’t associate brain with danger anymore. It might take a while, but bread is not the enemy. Bread is just how the damage your brain took is being expressed. You brain is still damaged if you don’t take steps to fix & insteat try to ignore the problem.
The more trauma is left untreated, the worse it gets. I had gotten over a fear of dogs steming from a bite in my childhood, later trauma mate it come back. Fear begets fear. People ignore triggers because it gives them the impression of being in control. Avoidance is not stability. Exposure to the things that make us loose control in as safe a setting as reading by ourself is, perhaps, the least harm there can be.
I’m not saying people should do exposure therapy by themself. Healing from PTSD can take time. Confronting trauma in order to overcome it is hard, sometimes you have to take a step back, get a bit stronger & protect yourself with avoidance before you can confront it again. But confronting it, is the only way for your brain to heal.
Confronting trauma doesn’t mean you have to experience again. It means you can go back to that bakery (from my bread example above) without having a panic attack because the bakery is not dangerous, people with guns are & that bakery will not be held up again because the last people who tried were caught at the scene & didn’t get any money because the bakery only had 100 bucks in the cash register that the person at the counter doesn’t have to the key to anyway so there is no chance the previous experience with repeat. There are risks in life, but we try to minimize them & keep doing the things we love, like eating warm bread.
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