OPINION: 'If we want to change the taboo surrounding child loss, we need to talk about trigger warnings.'

Trigger warnings cause me more trauma, not less; and I am one of the people they are supposed to protect.

What if trigger warnings do not work? Who are they really protecting?

I am a 38-year-old woman who has already lived through numerous traumatic events. I have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), seen numerous professionals including a trauma specialist, and I take anti-anxiety medication. My trauma sits around child loss.

Five years ago, my daughter Mackenzie was diagnosed with a terminal genetic condition at just 10 weeks old. I spent the next five months of her life watching her get weaker and weaker knowing what was to come. When she was seven months and eleven days old, she died in my arms after a traumatic five days in the hospital where she fought for her life. I watched her spend her last days poked, prodded, covered in tubes and wires. She initially looked at me with pleading eyes asking me to help her, but I couldn’t. I watched on helplessly, unable to protect her or save her.

I have also experienced one miscarriage, seven chemical pregnancies, nine rounds of IVF which caused endometriosis stage four and deep vein thrombosis, multiple failed embryo transfers, and have undergone terminations for medical reasons on two of my other babies, Bella and Leo, at 16 weeks pregnant due to them also holding life threatening genetic conditions. I walked into those hospitals pregnant and came out missing a part of me.

Those are my trauma credentials. My life has been filled with the kind of loss many say is their worst nightmare. I am triggered by the obvious - the sound of ambulances, hospitals, and ultrasounds but also by the less obvious like stories of home births and society's current overuse of the words trauma, trigger, and PTSD.

Over the years, I have written about our lives and our loses; as well as the pain and the gifts that have come with it. I have written a book, have an Instagram page where I connect with others, and have done numerous media pieces. I strongly believe we need more open conversation in this space. I felt so alone in my pain, but over time, I learned I was far from alone. Miscarriages, child loss, termination for medical reasons, infertility, and failed IVF transfers happen every single day... the community is enormous. Despite these topics being relatively 'common', I have watched my world become covered in trigger warnings in recent years.

Trigger warnings began being used in the early 2000s with the purpose of warning people on difficult topics such as suicide and abuse. The theory was that by providing the warning it could reduce the reader from experiencing symptoms of trauma and PTSD. Slowly the use of trigger warnings increased and spread to topics outside of abuse and suicide to where it is now with trigger warnings being used on a wide range of topics - including even the eating of meat or people exercising. Trigger warnings were primarily used in media but it has spread throughout the internet with an emphasis on social media as well as through our education system.

Between 2018 and 2021, around a dozen psychological studies looked into whether trigger warnings do what they aim. They all found trigger warnings do not lessen the impact of trauma on those who were trauma survivors, those with diagnosed PTSD, or for those who had not experienced the particular topic. 

In fact, one study called 'Helping or Harming? The Effect of Trigger Warnings on Individuals with Trauma Histories' found that there was no evidence that trigger warnings were helpful for trauma survivors, even when the survivors trauma matched the content being viewed or read. As a matter of fact, there was substantial evidence that trigger warnings reinforce survivors' view of their trauma being central to their identity.

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So who are trigger warnings actually for?

When I first came into the child loss space, I felt like I should use trigger warnings. Not because I wanted to but because society seemed to imply it was the right thing to do. To protects others from my pain. While child loss is difficult to witness, I can promise it is more difficult to live through. 

In my experience and through talking to the large number of other grieving parents, trigger warnings relating to child loss are not for those who have experienced a loss but for those who fear it. I can never speak for everyone, there will always be outliers, but those who experienced child loss would never request another person to cover their child or their loss in trigger warnings. Those who have experienced loss (usually) understand the need to talk about our loved ones; especially our babies who we constantly fear will be forgotten.

What can trigger trauma? Of course there are the common topics we often see being warned about in the news such as sexual abuse, suicide, and child exploitation. But the list of trigger warnings is endless... nearly every life event can trigger someone's fears or pain. I spent years triggered by people's pregnancy announcements and birth stories. I am still triggered by people's birth stories in some cases but I would never expect or ask someone to put a trigger warning on their life. It is up to me to protect myself. To look away. To unfollow if I need to.

I recently put a post on my Instagram account about this topic and was contacted by one person who I ended up having a long conversation with. She did not follow me but had been suggested my post by Instagram. Now stay with me here - she found my post of trigger warnings surrounding child loss triggering. She had never experienced child loss, she already had a child, and was pregnant with her second. She explained to me that because I had a public Instagram; I needed to place trigger warnings on my posts about my daughter and my life to protect people like herself. Understandably, being pregnant, she was nervous and thought as a woman I should 'do other women a solid and protect them from the potential of loss'.

I explained I could not protect everyone in the world. I took my responsibility as an online contributor seriously but there needed to be a line. My line was to protect myself, because placing a trigger warning on my children actually hurt me. I also needed to protect my followers who include others who have lost. Society might not like discussing child loss but my Instagram page is a safe place for these conversations.

I do not believe you should go into pregnancy or life pretending that risks, loss, pain, and heartache don’t exist. If you want to try to live in a protected world, then that is on you.

Listen to Rachael Casella on Mamamia's No Filter. Post continues below.

If research shows that trigger warnings don’t protect those who have experienced trauma, why are we still using them? Why is the use of them snowballing out of control? When will it stop? 

I would suggest that trigger warnings have actually turned into something that exists to protect those who fear these real-world events? A warning to look away. But at what cost? Because usually trigger warnings are used to cover someone’s real life. Does it matter if the person whose life you are talking about might feel hurt by having their experience come with a warning? That you are putting pain on top of pain? I didn’t get a warning when my child died. I didn’t get to look away.

Instead of putting trigger warnings on our lives, we should change the culture to make these REAL life events a part of our conversations so it is not such a shock, so people aren't pushed into dark corners, and so everyone knows where to get help.

I will never put a trigger warning on my life. Mackenzie was here, she existed, and her life and death were real. Our babies deserve better than being covered by a trigger warning.

You can download Never Forgotten: Stories of love, loss and healing after miscarriage, stillbirth, and neonatal death for free here.

Join the community of women, men and families who have lost a child in our private Facebook group.

Mackenzie’s Mission by Rachael Casella, Allen and Unwin, RRP: $29.99, is available now. For more from Rachel, visit her blog or follow her on Instagram @mylifeof_love.

Feature Image: Supplied/Instagram @mylifeof_love.