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Relationship Help Me Understand Why I Am A Trigger

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For over a year I have been engaged to the love of my life. She has PTSD. I knew this going into the relationship and it did not even make me think twice. She has had an awful life, and never had a moment in her 30 some years of living to get help for this. Until she met me. We had that amazing, loving, so cute it's disgusting relationship. We were both the happiest we have ever been. She finally felt comfortable telling someone (me) her details of the endless trauma she has been through since childhood and it of course triggered some episodes. We would be talking about something completely unrelated to anything abusive and something would remind her of an abuser and she would dissociate and pretty much black out. I only got hurt one time and it wasn't because she attacked me, I was trying to help her from hurting herself. So we both decided it was time to get her help.

As her trauma therapy neared she became more distant every single day. Then the therapy started and she checked out of the relationship completely and shut down from me almost entirely. She keeps saying I am one of her biggest triggers but she doesn't know why....I am so heartbroken over this. I have done everything I could from the day we met to show her a loving and happy life full of unconditional love. Now she broke off the engagement saying she can't feel love and is moving out in a couple of weeks. I am so confused. I was hoping either a sufferer or supporter could give me some insight on why I might be her biggest trigger when we had nothing but an amazing and loving relationship.
 
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I don't have an answer to your question, but it might help to think of it as "her being triggered" rather than "you being the trigger". For a start, it might not be YOU at all, it might just be the situation that's stirring things up. "You" just happen to be the person she's involved with at the moment.

I don't think it's realistic to live the whole rest of your life avoiding an assortment of "triggers". Wouldn't be much of a life. I think the point, rather, is to learn what's going on in your head and learn better ways to deal with it. It would even be possible, with work and help, for this situation to be used to help her improve. She has a "trigger(s)" available and a cooperative person to work with her, after all. Have you any idea whether or not she's working on this kind of thing with her therapist?

Therapy isn't easy and it often isn't fun. It can definitely stir things up in your head and it's not at all uncommon to "feel worse" an the way to feeling better.

Another thing to remember, though, as my therapist says, is that "communication is what the hearer hears, not what the speaker thinks they said." You have to check in, sometimes, and make sure you are both seeing the same things from the same perspective. I hope you at least get some peace in the form of understanding. I hope the 2 of you can talk things through so you each understand where the other is coming from.
 
In my own love life, there has been a marked tendency to lose myself in my love and huge parts of me want to reinvent myself in that warmth and security. If only that were possible... The fact that me -with all my history of betrayal and abandonment- is all I can be keeps asserting itself any time I let my guard down. Love is hard when you can't let your guard down. All too many of my reactions are buried in complexities I cannot even remember.

My beloved of 34 years has helped me most by giving me the trust and space to work it out on my own. That is what has made it a truly amazing love.

Gentle support while you sort through your own unique love, Libby.
 
Ok this is obviously going to be a guess as there could be a lot of things going on here.

Maybe she has almost 'over shared' with you - to the extent that she has connected you with the trauma and so you have become a trigger .

I sometimes have this with my therapists office I step in and zone out straight away - I wonder if she is doing something similar with you ?
 
I don't have an answer to your question, but it might help to think of it as "her being triggered" rather than "you being the trigger". For a start, it might not be YOU at all, it might just be the situation that's stirring things up. "You" just happen to be the person she's involved with at the moment.


Thank you, I truly believe this is going on.She is insisting on pushing me away and ignores me most of the time so it is hard to get her to talk to me. Her therapist without even talking to me said we are not compatible, my fiance claims she does not believe it all but I can't help but think I am getting unfair assumptions about our relationship in her sessions. She is moving out end of the month, I guess we need to to be a part. I just never thought I would be the one to make her so anxious.
 
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In my own love life, there has been a marked tendency to lose myself in my love and huge parts of me want to reinvent myself in that warmth and security. If only that were possible... The fact that me -with all my history of betrayal and abandonment- is all I can be keeps asserting itself any time I let my guard down. Love is hard when you can't let your guard down. All too many of my reactions are buried in complexities I cannot even remember.


In one of our few discussions about what has happened to us she told me I made everything too happy and good and it almost made her feel like she didn't need to get the help she obviously needed so badly. So maybe she is trying extremely hard to not fall back into that with me? It is natural for anyone who loves someone to give them unconditional love and try to make things happy around them especially knowing how badly she was hurting. That's the part that is killing me, I was this to her and now I trigger her somehow.
 
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Ok this is obviously going to be a guess as there could be a lot of things going on here.

I often wonder if this is the case....my god I hope it isn't. That sounds so hopeless for any kind of future with her.
 
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She is only used to abandonment, so even when I told her I was learning everything I could about PTSD and even going to my own therapist for it she still thought I had some other motive. I can't win.
 
Oh you didn't, I am feeling terrible right now. I am having to pack my stuff up and leave our home and it is killing me. What you said is something I have already pondered. It's just so hard to comprehend that two people who were in so much love can come to be at this point. I was once everything to her, and now I "trigger her". It's just so heartbreaking for me.
 
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I am sorry that you're going through this... I can't imagine how hard it is for you. I do want to say that you are being a great supporter in that you have tried to learn as much as you can about the disorder and you're making an honest effort to do whatever you can for your partner. I know that saying this doesn't make things any easier, but in my experience, its hard to find someone who cares enough to put in that level of effort. (I am a sufferer myself.)

This is what happens to me, so maybe it will give you a bit of insight? When feelings become too overwhelming for me, I completely shut down and numb out to everyone and everything. There is no love, there is no pain, there is just a big blob of blah, and I don't feel anything at all. My mind does this to protect me. Unfortunately now that I'm an adult and am working through my issues, my coping mechanism is now maladaptive and causing even greater problems. In the past my numbing periods would last for weeks or months. Right now I'm going through a different sort of numbing in that I will cycle from ok to angry to numb and back again multiple times in a day. I don't know if this is an improvement as the numbing is quite short in duration, but I am thinking that perhaps it is since I am still able to feel my emotions, and my "checked out" times are much shorter (lasting minutes to hours instead of days to weeks or longer).

Maybe this is part of what's happening with your partner. It doesn't matter if its good emotion or bad emotion, its a matter of there being too much emotion and her system says "ENOUGH" and shuts down all emotions, even the good ones.

I hope for your sake that she is able to heal and you two can continue your relationship. But for now, all you can do is give her the space that she needs and let her know that you'll be there for her when she needs someone. I wish you the best.
 
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