I didn't know about the trigger icon until today. I'd seen people use it, but I didn't know that was for triggers in particular. Yeah I read the FAQ (or guidelines or whatever) at some point in the past... But it is fairly tricky as a newbie...

I'd encourage people to gently point out that they felt triggered by a post and ask people to put the icon on it in future. I say 'gently' because sometimes people can feel really very embarrased about not knowing about that. They can feel guilty about their post, which isn't so nice.

I agree that people can be fairly idiosyncratic in what they find triggering. If everyone trigger warned everything then the significance of the trigger icon wouldn't be useful at all.

Topics that tend to trigger people include

- Suicide (graphic)
- Self injury (graphic descriptions)
- Recreational drug use (that is graphic)
- Sexual abuse / sexual themes more generally

But that being said... There is a difference between a 'use' and a 'mention'. I mean I'm mentioning all those things here but I'm not using them in the sense of describing them graphically. Maybe there are other things that people find triggering?

Often the header can clue you in as to whether it is likely to trigger or not as well (whether there is a trigger warning or not). I mean... If I call a new thread 'feeling suicidal' the header is a good indication I'm going to be talking about suicidal feelings...