Content Warning: Feeling Unsupported, PTSD, Suicide, Trauma, Sexual Assault Mentioned,

Saw this meme today on facebook.  I was already dealing with some hard emotions, accepting that I have probably a lot more childhood trauma that I had previously acknowledged.  I have PTSD from multiple incidents acknowledged by my psychiatrist, emotional abuse, birth trauma, sexual assault, and more.   Certain topics can leave me in flashbacks, dissociating, shaking, and with panic attacks.  The effects can last from minutes to hours.  That trigger, the panic attack, the flashback, could leave someone in a suicidal state. 

I will say that yes, it's up to me to find what my triggers are and try to manage navigating those, but sometimes part of managing that is for others, my friends, family, and community to be considerate.  That is why content/trigger warnings in media, movies, video games, news articles, and social media are vital to me and others with PTSD and trauma navigating those triggers.   

If I am aware certain content will be in a form of media I can choose to avoid it if I feel I am not in a mental space to be able to partake in it.  Likewise, when I am prepared and I have made a choice it is easier to process when it's expected and I am less likely to actually be triggered into a PTSD episode. 

So yeah, if you want to be considerate of your friends, family and community members with PTSD and other forms of trauma and mental illness, the time it takes to provide us with a content warning is not much compared to the hours of flashbacks and panic attacks that the absolute blatant inconsiderate attitude of this meme could leave us with.  

The biggest irony of this, is that often the people I see posting these types of memes, every time actually from my memory it is someone who has overcome or is fighting their own trauma, so I feel like they maybe have a perspective that they have done the work to get through their trauma and others should be able to as well.   We are all in different phases of healing from our trauma and that is valid.   Honestly, some of us have a level of trauma that we can only heal so much from.  We still matter.