Survivor X might find content A to be triggering and B to be affirming at the same time as Survivor Y finding B triggering and A to be afirming. This can all be valid at the same time.
For example, someone who was abused as a kid might be triggered by depictions of child abuse for obvious reasons, and enjoy stories involving loving and supporting parents.
Alternativly, someonewho was abused as a kid can ALSO love darkfic and enjoy reading stories about child abuse because they relate to the abused character and sympathize with their situation, and can start to view their own abuse differently by accepting that this character didn’t deserve what happened to them. Essentially, proccessing by proxy and being compassionate to yourself by empathizing for a fictional stand-in. They might also get triggered by some depictions of good parenting as alienating (like, the idea of “whats wrong with me that I didn’t get that?”) and grief over a lacking childhood.
The last time I was triggered was playing Dream Daddy. My dadsona responded to some of his kid’s problems radically different than how I was treated growing up, and when he validated his kid’s emotions I straight up burst into tears. Before that, I was triggered by a video of Griffin and Clint McElroy, because Clint was a positive, present and supportive father to a Griffin, a creator that I admire. “I never had that. I didn’t have a chance. How can I succeed if I didn’t earn that from my dad? I must just not be good enough.”
I would normally not post trigger stuff for myself online because I’ve pissed off too many vindictive people in my life, but this one is something that’s set off rarely. I enjoy some content with good parents; steven universe comes to mind. But I specifically wanted to talk about this because people are talking on behalf of ~all survivors ever~ about what content should and should not be produced.
The thing that you’re afraid of one survivor seeing may be exactly what another survivor finds cathartic. The nice, fluffy things that you think fiction should focus on exclusivly can be uncomfortable to triggering for some.
The reader has to take responsibility for the media they consume, which sometimes means taking .5 seconds to note the trigger warnings on a piece of work and assess if that story’s for them. Not everyone is you. Not everyone is me. You don’t have to like it, or even really understand it, but you have to respect survivors when they say “no, this story deserves to exist, even if it would hurt others to read.” Otherwise, you’re not advocating for survivors. Your advocating for what you think is the “right type” of survivor. No safe space is universal, so kindly allow people to make their own safe spaces and stop tearing down anything that you think could be triggering because... everything could be triggering.