WHY I DON’T DO TRIGGER WARNINGS

In 2017 I put flyers on every single seat in the theatre, where I was about to perform my stand-up show, Dead Baby Frog. The flyer had the trigger warning written in large, bold letters: TRIGGER WARNING: EMOTIONAL ABUSE.

Before I emerged from behind the curtain, I used the backstage microphone to warn the audience, ‘Trigger warning: emotional abuse!’

I included the trigger warning in the festival brochures, on my website, on social media and I even write several blog posts about it.

This — is something I regret to this day.

First of all — the reason I felt like I could finally do a trigger warning, was because the first line of the show was something along the line of ‘I wish my abusive grandfather was dead’. So there was no spoiler. I thought, great! Since it won’t spoil the show, I can warn people!

Several things then happened.

First of all, I very quickly developed stage fright. Something I, in the seven years of doing stand-up, had never, ever experienced before. I was a shivering mess on stage. This made it difficult to warm up the crowd and get them in the mood for a show about emotional abuse.

But even the times I did manage to get rid of the stage fright, getting the audience in the mood was hard. I had to walk on stage into a room with the thickest tension in the air. Everyone at the edge of their seats, awaiting this horrific, traumatising, scary show. The show was so gruesome that it required a trigger warning. No one came in, wanting to laugh.

Then there was the reaction from the comedy industry. In every review, the flyers were mentioned and often in a slightly mocking tone. We walked in and were immediately warned that this was going to be a very traumatising show… That sort of thing.

It was so clear that it affected how reviewers rated the show. Edinburgh Festival has a history of rewarding shows that have tackled serious topics - Richard Gadd’s Monkey See, Monkey Do, Hannah Gadsby’s Nanette, Russell Kane’s Smokescreens & Castles, just to mention a few. It’s a common joke to say ‘oh, is it a dead dad joke’ or ‘the sad bit comes at 40 minutes in’. I sensed from many of the reviewers that by adding a trigger warning to my show, I was somehow trying to lure in the judges to give me a big award for my bravery.

Which then led to what was probably the worst outcome, for me, personally. The interviews where journalists would look me in the eyes and casually mention that the emotional abuse I suffered from at the hands of my grandfather wasn’t that bad. This happened more than once. They had been puzzled by the contrast between the serious trigger warning and the ‘lightness’ of the comedy show (!) about the trauma. I found myself defending my own trauma by saying things like, ‘Oh but I tried to tell the stories on stage of my grandfather threatening to kill me and my grandmother, but it really brought the mood down’, as if I had to prove to these reporters that actually, the abuse was really bad.

A lot of this is, admittedly, down to the majority of people still not understanding trigger warnings - or trauma or even C/PTSD. In the Facebook Groups I frequent, people use trigger- and content warnings for mentions of everything from colour blindness to alcohol or the weather. Just in case that just happens to be someone’s trigger. So yes, people outside of that space, who are not used to trigger warnings, will read a lot into it.

I started getting feedback from other industry people who hadn’t seen the show, but had heard about the trigger warnings, asking why I’d stopped doing stand-up. Or when I’d start doing jokes again.

Now - of course this would be really hard to argue against, if the trigger warnings proved to have kept a large number of people super-safe.

But — they had the opposite effect.

After each show, people would come up to me and tell me they were triggered. Or, even worse, show me they were triggered. By crying or shaking. Trigger warnings not actually working is backed up by many scientific studies. They tend to just put people in an anxious state of mind - almost as if the anticipation of a trigger becomes a trigger in itself. Or knowing that you’re about to hear about emotional abuse makes you think about emotional abuse - and then that’s it. Without even experiencing the actual trigger, your brain has already gone into that place.

And then — it escalated further.

I would do open mics - which are usually quite small shows in front of a smaller audience in a room above a pub, with a couple of other comedians - and audience members would come up to me afterwards, in distress. Because I or one of the other comedians had said something triggering and we hadn’t had a trigger warning. I would never, ever even be able to put a trigger warning before an open mic gig. It’s a place where comedians go to test out new ideas and thoughts - and often we don’t even know what we’re about to say, before we go on stage.

When I did Dead Baby Frog on tour, I would be terrified of people heckling me. Not because I can’t handle being heckled, but I’ve very specifically told my audience what they can expect me to say. If someone heckles me, I don’t think, I just respond. What if I respond something that could be triggering? I started feeling like I had to adhere to a script, otherwise I could hurt someone very much.

I then started getting messages from people who had been triggered by things even more out of my control. Posters that were up in the venue, staff misgendering someone, the music playing in the bar… And the same phrase kept being brought up. ‘Safe space’.

I thought your gig was a safe space.

And that’s when I stopped using trigger warnings. It was clear that people interpreted the trigger warnings as a clear sign that hey, you can come to my show with your guard completely down, I promise you won’t feel unsafe ever.

That is not how the world works.

Those of us who live with C/PTSD, where triggers can harm us, we need to have our guard up constantly, when we are in situations where anything can happen. As soon as we accept anything at all as a safe space, we’re in more danger than we were before, when we simply thought it was another ‘potentially dangerous’ space.

I am not in a position where I can risk my audience thinking that they will never be triggered at my gigs. First of all, people never seem to be able to know what the difference is between an open mic, a new material night, a work-in-progress show, a preview or a tour show. And since I can’t use a trigger warning for a show where I’m improvising, then I can’t use it for a show where I’m 95% certain what I’m going to be saying.

Additionally — triggers aren’t always just a certain topic. I don’t get triggered by people talking about violence in general - I get triggered by the name of the street where I was assaulted. I have a severe phobia that is incredibly obscure - and only my closest friends know not to mention it to me. Even they forget sometimes, because it’s such a ridiculous thing to be triggered by. My friend was assaulted near a specific type of furniture - now that is her trigger. Soldiers coming home from war aren’t just triggered by loud noises and war. They can be triggered by the sound of children laughing or a car door slamming. PTSD doesn’t make logical sense - like many studies have already suggested.

But almost most importantly — stand-up is storytelling. A trigger warning can entirely ruin the way you’re able to tell your story. I bet there are hundreds of stories you have heard in your life - be it true crime stories, novels, movies, songs, poems or your friend’s anecdotes - that you wish you could hear for the first time again. Second time you consume the story, it’s different. You know what it’s like to watch a film where your friend has already said, ‘I cried when the main character dies at the end!’ - the whole thing is just ruined.

I write my shows for you to consume without anything else in your head. I tell my stories with a very clear purpose.

Here is what I can definitely tell you: My shows are not a safe-space. I have never done a show where I haven’t talked about something that could be considered dark or traumatic. I’ve talked about emotional abuse, depression, self-harm, anxiety, sex, cancer, eating disorders, sexual assault, suicide, bullying and fatphobia. If you come to watch my show, I can almost certainly promise you that it won’t be a light show about puppies and joyful sunshine.

I can’t even promise you that I won’t be problematic - I can only promise you that I try quite hard not to be problematic. But I can’t always spot my own biases, before they’ve been pointed out.

I did my latest show, The Bumswing, probably over 100 times before someone pointed out that a word I used had racist connotations. I obviously had no idea and I changed it immediately. But I will most likely continue to fuck up. And I will continue to talk about potentially triggering stuff.

The world is a shitty place, often, and I know very well how incredibly painful it is to be triggered. I know it can take days, sometimes months, to get over a bad one. I know how it feels; I’ve spent most of my life with my nervous system constantly activated.

So consider this a general trigger warning.

Trigger warning: Everything I do, forever.

Thank you for your understanding.