I had a bit of an epiphany today.

I was in a store and being in public was of course out of my comfort zone. As I was shopping I heard one of my trigger words. I froze up with a product I was looking at still in my hand. I couldn't move and it took me a few minutes to catch my breath. I almost cried but was able to stifle it.

When I finally regained my composure I finished what I needed to and left but I was shaking and nervous all day. Everyone looked threatening. Shadows startled me. I was so distracted that I tripped several times.

On the bus ride home I started thinking of ways to get past this. Then it hit me. What if we confront our trigger words? What if we shout them out loud and purge ourselves of them?

I'm going to suggest this at our next rational feminism meeting but I thought maybe we could try it here first. I'm sure we all have dozens of trigger words so for anyone who is willing lets experiment with this by sharing just three. This is a safe space, you don't have to share why you're triggered by the words lets take one step at a time.

The three I feel comfortable sharing right now are

Moist

Texture

Nutella