Feb 17 2009
Charitable triggering ** contains triggers **
I was telephoned on Sunday by someone claiming to be helping raise awareness of the work of a UK charity against child cruelty. I said that I was not in a position to offer funds in support but the caller insisted that I listen to the sales pitch, which I did. After hearing about cruelty and exploitation of children and the uphill struggle suffered by the charity in trying to find help and support for these victims, I explained that I am an adult survivor of childhood sexual abuse, that it had taken me over 20 years to pluck up the courage to tell anyone, that I had taken legal redress against my abuser’s employers (a local authority) and that the post traumatic stress has left me with such mental health issues that I am considered disabled and thus unlikely to be in a position to have enough money to hand to make a financial commitment to any cause, no matter how keenly felt.
I explained that, as such, the sales patter was extremely “triggering” for myself and was likely to be too for any other adult survivor. The insistence that I listen to all the terrible things to which exploited children are prey seemed to me later to be somewhat akin to “grooming” – another experience that would be shared by many of those who had suffered in such ways and - I hope - quite contrary to the ethos of the organisation.
Being the member of several adult groups (online and ‘in real life’) concerned with mental health and sexual abuse issues, I have found it to be common practice to warn fellow members if a discussion topic may contain “triggers” that some may find uncomfortable or distressing; would not this be a sensible precaution when spreading the word of such work to people who, by the very nature of their interest, may well have been affected in some way by the issues that such charities seek to alleviate and address? An unsupported person in their own home having a stranger phone them out of the blue saying what seems like “help us to help people who have been damaged just like you were – oh, as a reminder, here’s what happened … please carry on listening” is a hardly a recipe for helping an already fragile person for whom such services are available woefully too late.
