Summary

A moderator of a blogging community faces a triggering event while checking for plagiarism, leading to an emotional flashback of past sexual abuse.

Abstract

The author, who moderates a blogging community, describes a distressing experience with plagiarism detection that unexpectedly triggers memories of personal trauma. While performing routine checks for original content using a free plagiarism checker, the author encounters a submission that includes religious references and personal stories of abuse. One particular story, which appears to be plagiarized from a paper on recognizing signs of sexual abuse, details an account of incestuous abuse that resonates with the author's own history of sexual child abuse. The discovery causes intense emotional distress, including anxiety and flashbacks, disrupting the author's ability to enjoy a scheduled day of relaxation with their husband and impacting their daily functioning. The author reflects on the long-term effects of sexual abuse and the challenges of coping with trauma triggers.

Opinions

The author has high standards for originality within their community and insists on 100% original work.
There is frustration expressed towards individuals who do not properly cite sources or understand the importance of quotation marks and citations.
The author is deeply affected by the plagiarized content, particularly when it echoes their own traumatic experiences, indicating a strong empathetic response.
The author reveals a personal struggle with the effects of sexual abuse, suggesting a belief in the profound and lasting impact of such trauma.
There is a sense of resignation about the inevitability of encountering triggers, despite the author's coping mechanisms and the passage of time.
The author implies that the emotional toll of the incident may have been less severe if not for their own history of abuse, highlighting the subjective nature of trauma responses.

Blog

Triggered

Stream of consciousness anxiety

Yesterday morning something happened.

I was moderating a community I created on a blogging platform. A part of my moderation process is to run submissions by unfamiliar authors through a plagiarism checker. I don’t even read the piece, just copy and paste the entire document or 1000 words of the document into a plagiarism detector.

I don’t earn money for moderation. I have high standards for my community however and insist upon 100% original work. Because I don’t earn money for moderation, I do not use the premium option. My plagiarism checker is free. So, it’s good, but not great.

It will scan the document and ping sentences that have shown up somewhere else on the internet. It will determine the percentage (up to 1000 words) of the document is plagiarized content. It will highlight the areas of the document that have shown up elsewhere on the internet. It will show the source from which the matches came.

So far, it has been fairly accurate. Pieces that have been published to the platform but not yet submitted to the community I created will ping plagiarized. In other words, the writer’s own content is pinging as plagiarized from the blogging platform itself.

I always check the source.

So, I came across a writer with whom I am not familiar. I copy and paste as much of the document as I could ( it was more than 1000 words) into the plagiarism detector. It took several minutes before a report came up. I somewhat scanned some of the document, reading it in the plagiarism detector, and saw many words such as Jesus and Our Lord and citations of bible passages.

I turned to my husband saying, usually these types of bible articles don’t ping plagiarism. And they don’t because people generally cite the book of the bible, the section, and the paragraph of the quote.

I wasn’t expecting a ping. But I got a ping. At least 10% of the thousand words I had copied and pasted into the checker pinged as plagiarism. Each section was 2% of those thousand words. So, 5 sources. The way the checker works is it offers the percentage in a green line and clicking the green line will open the source. Simultaneously, in the copy&paste box, it will highlight the sentences or sentences that generated the ping.

I was 100% certain it would cite only bible or spiritual sources. One of the green lines (2% of the entire 1000 words) cited a university document. The website was a dot edu site. Another 2% source was Facebook. Another 2% source was a paper on how to spot signs of sexual abuse.

I didn’t click the green boxes in any particular order. I noticed the Facebook quote was on a spiritual group page. I noticed a forgiveness quote cited in a psychology paper. But I mean forgiveness, right? So many quotes about forgiveness are similar.

I was a little upset, by now, but nothing major. Some people do not understand quotation marks or citing a source in the text.

For example, ‘On Facebook the other day I came across this quote “Spiritual Saying — Person Who Said It First” and it really resonated with me.

Boom. Citation. Quotation marks. Source where the quote was found. The person who said it first. Zero plagiarism.

So, I was a little annoyed, but not everyone is an English Major. I was ready to let it slide.

Until I came to the next green line marked 2% and clicked on it. The highlighted section popped up and caught my eye. It was 2 sentences ( 2% of 1000 words — not the document in its entirety)

I have the screenshots, but I’m going to paraphrase the highlighted section or quote it to the best of my memory, because I simply cannot, at the moment look one more time at that highlighted section.

Next, I was sexually abused by my nephew. And nobody believed me, not even my parents.

Bam! that was the trigger. So, not only was this 1000 words of a document popping 10% plagiarized (still a low number, I know, but I was already triggered) but it was about incest. And why? To earn $10.00?

The source of these highlighted words was the how to recognize signs of sexual abuse paper.

So, of course, some people have the same story and are disbelieved by everyone. So I wasn’t getting hung up on the second sentence. The nephew part is pretty specific, though.

I am sure if I was not myself a survivor of incestuous sexual child abuse, I would not have been triggered the way I was. I would’ve seen 10% plagiarism and seen that the content wasn’t from the same author, rejected the story from my community, and forgotten all about it.

I am, however, a survivor. I have so many “#metoo” moments in my history, I can’t remember all of them. Until I’m triggered, I guess. And my brain, my thinking, logical, rational brain can’t process the flashes of so many memories. I simply get thrown into emotional flashbacks. Flashing back to the emotions I experienced after each molestation, each rape, each sexual harassment in the workplace, each time I was violated sexually as a child in a mental hospital only to have the same guy walk into my work half a decade later.

Over 45 years of sexually abusive predation.

There are reasons I’m an extreme introvert.

Yesterday morning my anxiety went shooting through the roof.

Yesterday was my scheduled date day with my husband. I had no idea if I could perform. I had no idea if I could enjoy the performance. I could. And I sort of did but was so anxious, I was jittery and forgetful. I wanted to change the sheets before our spa day backrubs. I forgot. I could barely enjoy the first back massage I’ve gotten from my husband in over 10 years. I didn’t relax in the Epsom salt bubble bath. I don’t think I’ve yet been able to relish the idea that my husband did everything I asked. Bath, backrub, and positions included.

I was too anxious. Too angry. I still am.

Fight, flight, freeze, or fawn.

Fight and freeze are usually the first two behaviors I manifest. Usually at the same time, which is a physical impossibility and causes more dissonance. So, flight comes next. I flee from the emotions triggered. I must escape at any and all costs.

If I am unable to escape, I become even more angry, even more anxious.

Today is day 2 of fight and flight. I can concentrate on much. This entire piece is just free typing.

I have brain fog, but can’t concentrate enough to process explanations or to access my logic centers.

I have tried streaming. I’m binge-watching Get Shorty the series remake of the movie Get Shorty. It’s a good series. I can’t watch more than .25 of an episode.

I have tried reading but don’t even get me started on that one. I probably won’t even be able to read what I’ve already written in order to edit it.

I’m smoking too much. I smoked a whole pack yesterday. I’m drinking too much. I asked my husband at 6:30 this morning if it was too early to start drinking. He said, “Nope. Sun’s up.”

I have to stop at this. I’m going to submit it as is to TBI. I’ve got a Thrifty Words Challenge coming up, and will also link it there.

After a few days, I’ll post it to the other blogging platform. I have forbidden myself to go there until Monday.