Is there such a thing as a person who is never "triggered"?

Ooooo, great question. I find that the same people who despise “trigger warnings” will typically display all the symptoms of being triggered if you say anything less than reverent about the flag or the troops. They just won’t use that word.

For someone to be unaffected by anything they read or view or hear, they would (imo) need to be very far along on the psychopathy spectrum.

However, I don’t think we should always avoid things that affect us. There are things happening in this world that should disturb us and hopefully by being disturbed and upset by what we see, we will take some form of action. That action might be as simple as being aware, or it might be within our power to protest or lobby or do something to change a situation. The action might be to help us realise how affected we are by a particular topic/situation and that we could perhaps seek some help.

Frankly I feel pretty angry by this new “triggered” thing for the average person. I have PTSD from childhood abuse. Triggered use to mean causing flashbacks or unbearable situations for people like me.

“Triggered” is meant to denote an extreme reaction to a stimulant. @anniereborn makes a good point. The word has all kinds of extreme connotations for me.

A more appropriate word is to simply use “reaction.”

Even the most enlightened monk will still have a trigger moment, he just probably won’t act on it but will give it his attention internally and mediate on it.
The trick is to know your triggers not to not have any. I know mine quite well but they are not based trauma triggers from my past, more just impatience and irritation with certain people/circumstances.

“Trigger warnings” are somewhat exclusive to the left. Sometimes it is used as a backhanded way of denouncing the legitimacy of an opinion or speaker. Sometimes it’s appropriate. Everyone gets “triggered” I don’t care who you are. I don’t think it’s a good replacement for plain old fashioned tact.

I side with anniereborn and Hawaii Jake on this. Not sure the others are talking about the same thing. It’s like fears and phobias; everyone has fears, but not everyone has phobias.

But even if we limit the use of “trigger” to some sort of clinically severe reaction, I don’t think trigger warnings should be required. I would hope that educators would exercise good judgment about the material they present, though, and warn their students when there is a good chance that someone in the class might be adversely affected by it. (E.g., if a teacher is showing Saving Private Ryan and knows that there are veterans in the class.)