The “Shut Up and Let Me Read” Overview

This story is a situation dramedy, it gets very dark in places, and I have a really sick sense of humour. As David says (or will say, that nonlinear existence is really messing with him) “Pardon me. Children? People say ‘fuck’ and do it.” There will also be violence and trauma all the hell over the place, like all the best stories you’ve already read. So much for the matters we like to pretend are hazardous to your mental health.

Pain Stars are about the stuff that really hurts — your feelings. To be fair to you, as a reader, I have created a content rating system based on the amount of pain my characters will be in. It’s an estimate, there may be outliers that bump up the average.

You will find the PSI at the top of every instalment, unless I forget. 1 is the least and 5 is the worst pain imaginable. I’m calling it the Pain Stars Index because stars are how you draw pain in a comic strip and PSI is a measure of pressure. This sort of wordplay amuses me to no end. You have been warned.

The Pain Stars Index, Expanded

PSI-1: Similar to your average episode of Sesame Street. Bumps, bruises and friendship problems that can be solved with hugs, apology and ice cream. Fluff goes here, but not only fluff.

PSI-2: Your more complex episode of Sesame Street, tackling issues like doctor visits, minor surgery, nobody believing you about Mr. Snuffleupagus, or fear of new situations. Easily resolved with a little bravery, acetaminophen, and some outside reassurance and time.

PSI-3: Those very special episodes you needed to watch with an adult, such as the death of Mr. Hooper, food insecurity in children, and parents in prison or at war. A dangerous middle ground. Often this pain does not have a simple solution.

PSI-4: No longer appropriate for Sesame Street. Graphic injury, intentional harm, triggering or lasting trauma for more sensitive characters.

PSI-5: This would mess anyone up. Risk of detachment from reality or self-destruction in characters just to get away from the pain.

And a Warning

If you want to use this rating system yourself, I urge you to type out “PSI” or “Pain Stars.” I know they make lots of nice icons for stars, but that looks like a rating of how good a thing is. That is a cruel prank to play on someone looking for content that other people enjoyed. Please refrain. 

You See, the Explanation Comes After the Useful Bit

The first time I explained this, I kept it lite so you could understand it quickly and move on. But you might be new here and not know me yet, so I want to make it more clear. I have PTSD myself. I have been triggered into flashbacks by media and random circumstances, and I know how much it sucks. It can ruin your whole day or even your whole week. I do not wish that on anyone. I want to be a nice, responsible content creator and not cause you that level of life-disrupting pain.

But — and this is a big but — I have seen how people talk about trigger warnings and use them. If we are just going to call content warnings (as the MPAA uses them) trigger warnings now, we need to be a lot more clear about what they are for.

I am a neurodivergent person who was unable to complete a banh mi recipe because the instructions said marinate the meat instead of toss the meat in the sauce to coat it, and then cook it. That shorted me out like a bad line of code. “But the meat is not marinated, it has barely been two minutes! I do not have the vacuum apparatus required to marinate meat so quickly!” (God, I sound like an unholy union of Milo and Mordecai. I suppose I am.) I need to call things what they are.

There is a vast difference between readers who are easily upset, readers who are easily offended, and readers who are trying to avoid mental health damage from specific trauma. Some generalized warnings work okay for the first two and often not at all for the third. I have been hit really hard by things that no sane person could be expected to label for me.

Furthermore, reading about trauma in a safe, controlled environment can help a person to process their own trauma — depending on how the trauma is handled and their own issues. It’s not a thing to be unilaterally avoided.

If we really want to help traumatized people manage their triggers in a positive way, we would need to say something like, “GORE, VIOLENCE, SEXUAL ASSAULT, and the possibility of being helped OR harmed by a narrative that includes a sexual assault survivor dealing with her trauma, growing stronger, developing psychic powers and exploding the heads of her unpunished abusers, one by one, so they can never hurt anyone again, and then she goes on to live her best life, and some poorly-disguised political commentary about how dealing with the justice system is like being assaulted a second time and maybe you might not be okay with that kind of pain being used as a metaphor…?”

Damn it. If I’m totally honest and specific so you can make an informed decision, I’ll suck all the impact out of the story. Traumatized people still like to hear a story where they don’t know everything that’s going to happen, right? I mean, I do. But that means maybe getting hurt. And not the fun, consensual kind of hurt.

For example, I was okay with the level of fear and suspense I was getting out of Clive Barker’s “Dread,” from The Books of Blood. Right up until the ending included the broken protagonist getting dumped on a street corner and being dismissed as a crazy homeless guy when he really needed help. I cannot express how badly that destroyed me.

I have never been back to The Books of Blood, even though many of the stories I did read were achingly beautiful. It still hurts thinking about it, because I will always feel like that hurt person getting kicked instead of helped is me. I can’t enjoy reading when I know at any point that might happen again. These short stories are well-written and apt to get dark in a bad way, and I can’t handle that. That sucks.

But I can’t expect Clive Barker to sit me down and say, “By the way, the protagonist, whom you are not meant to like very much because he was totally cool with the villain hurting other people in the same way he eventually got hurt, will end up sobbing in the gutter with people violating him all over again, before returning as an insane wreck of a human being to exact a revenge he no longer has the capacity to grasp. Are you good with that?”

I mean, I would’ve been irritated if he tried. And I might have read it anyway! The quick summary does not have the same impact as the work itself. It wouldn’t even have occurred to me to ask, “Waaaait, are you going to hurt him so badly and convincingly I begin to feel bad I ever thought he deserved it in the first place, you wonderfully cruel man?” I would’ve just said, “Shut up and let me read.” See above.

The danger of a badly aimed warning is that it just becomes noise. Like the label on the hairdryer that says DO NOT USE WHILE SLEEPING. When we are dealing with a huge group of individuals who each have their own trauma, it is darn near impossible to aim. God help me, it’s like 538’s analysis of the illusion of centrism. A statistical average represents very few real people and you would hit just as many by aiming at the clusters occurring all over the board. The human response to trauma is not average, it is uniformly weird.

You need to be able to make a minute by minute assessment of how well you are handling a difficult thing and decide if it’s worth pushing yourself or if you need to stop. This is a very basic tool you must have in your box when you have any kind of special needs, but that does not make it an easy thing to learn or do. I can barely do it for myself. I can’t do it for you. I’m not going to give unique, beautiful, broken you a warning designed to keep a nonexistent average traumatized person safe. That’s like a cruel hoax on both of us.

You know what I’m about. You know there will be times I’m trying to rip out your heart and stamp on it, and if I ask for your consent every time, it won’t be any fun. My imperfect solution is a nonspecific warning about how much trauma I’m about to inflict on my characters. If you don’t need high-intensity drama, horror, and screaming at all, you should not be reading Soldier On or Tin Soldier. I’m sorry.  But if you just don’t want that right now, you can skip it and come back later, and tread carefully.

Conversely, if you’re working through some shit and you’re here for the torture… Go on and click that “PSI-5” in the tags, you sick freak, I love you.

But, if you just need a content warning to help you select your entertainment like a brand of hot sauce or because — WHY WOULD YOU EVER DO THIS?? — you’re going to park a child in front of some media and abdicate all responsibility… Yeeeaaaah. It takes all kinds, but I’ve been very upfront about the fact that this story is scary and awful and not for the little ones. I won’t list all the bad stuff like it’s a tasting menu and ask you to pretend that’s going to help you manage your mental health.

If you need a trigger warning, this is it. Print it out and stick it somewhere to remind yourself:

Look at me.

I have rendered myself as a happy frog for the purpose of this conversation. Does that help?

I see a human being deserving of care and safety. I care, and I want you to be safe. Practise your coping strategies, and when you are hurt and need help, I hope you always have a good person you can tag in to help you. Never hesitate to ask for help when you need it, not even when it’s a mental health thing you can’t point to on an X-ray.

I know sometimes it’s so scary it feels like asking for help is not safe either, but trauma teaches us some really hurtful things and that there is one of ‘em. You can be safe or get safe and stay safe — and it sure never feels like this is gonna happen, but the worst part will let up. Then and only then do you work on what to do next to be okay. Even if that means walking away from my story like I walked away from The Books of Blood.

I am really sorry if I hurt you more than you’re comfortable with, and even sorrier if you have to go, but I want to offer you meaningful help instead of a few magic words. Okay?

Cool.

So, may I rip out your heart and stamp on it? Just a few times, here and there. I promise I’ll make it fun!