What Objects Cause Your Startle Response Triggers?

[Springer80]

Dear All,

I've been a member on the forum for a while, I'm a ptsd sufferer myself (Est. 1994/Diagnosed 2009) and have a depersonalization disorder.

On talking about startle responses on another thread I've hit upon an idea that I'm interested in. I'm not sure how it may develop if at all....but I wanted to ask you what objects around your home, work, leisure environments (well anywhere really) cause your startle response to set off?

Eg....Me and MissMacD both jump out of skins whenever the toaster popped.

If you wouldn't mind sharing I'd be most grateful....

Ps. If it's something that isn't totally apparent why please add what it is about that thing that sets you off. I realize most things will be sudden noise, loud noise, and sudden and or quick movements but maybe there is someone out there with a slightly different experience.

Thanks alot....
Springer

 

[Abstract]

Ah. Springer PTSD Appliances Ltd is born... :tup:

 

[Abstract]

Oh, something for the opposite - dissociation please.... Something to keep me here.

Oh, seriously, something like a cow bell to put on other members of the household so they can;t inadvertently sneak up on us. I almost bought one for my husband.

Door bells?

 

[Springer80]

Oh, something for the opposite - dissociation please.... Something to keep me here.

Yeah I've been playing at designing those for a while...Not made one yet but it's a life long pursuit!

 

[71nothing]

Being touched unexpectedly or unwanted touch even if I expect it.

 

[safenow]

The current ones:
Clicking sounds, gunshot sounds, boxes dropping, manhole covers being run over by my wheelchair, lighters being opened and closed, someone walking by my bedroom window, men's' voices taking softly outside my bedroom door, unlocked doors or windows, the sound my lamp makes when I turn it on, pain levels, phone calls with no talking only breathing, people that call and know my maiden name - how to spell my real name and the street I live on. Police that tell me they can do nothing until he breaks in again. Waking up and not being totally in the body. Feeling vulnerable. Being in a physical condition where I wouldn't be able to fight or run if I have to. Sharp knifes being whre they shouldn't be. a certain type of laughter. the smell of a certain body odor, the smell of old sex.

Plus, all the normal ones. Which I won't list, in case someone comes on line searching for me and wants to know more ways to scare me, thinking its funny to watch the multi switch.

 

[Springer80]

Thank you 71nothing and safenow....

Safenow it seems that your triggers are more of a current problem for you so thank you again for listing them. I realize just doing that can be enough to feel unpleasant. Your post has made me think and reminded me of earlier stages of my ptsd when some of those where as intense.

Perhaps I will share my train of thought regarding specific types of physical distress later. I'm aware that we all need to look after ourselves and maintain a balanced equilibrium as much as possible.

 

[p-no]

Alarms from an ambulance going off while I'm walking on the street. Even if I see it coming, or rather, when I see an ambulance coming I get prepared for the alarm but go into extreme heart racing starting off with a jump.

Touching flour or powder of similar "material" -- as for why... I don't know. It doesn't send me into jumps, but it makes me cringe as if someone punched me into my stomach. It makes me want to run away and wash it off. I love baking and I wash my hands often when I have to use flour often while making one specific thing (when you have to add flour subsequently).

The noise of styrofoam being torn or squashed or whatever. It's the same problem that I have with flour and powders on my skin. Maybe these are both just very bad sensory issues?

Maybe this is not at all what you were really asking. Sorry if I misunderstood. It's just that I don't think these are normal triggers for me, they are something else, and they sure startle me and put me into an uproar until I calm myself down again.

 

[Springer80]

Thanks P-no....

Your post made me think that its an interesting spectrum to try and pin down/differentiate response within.

I suppose there are alot of objects that make me recall a specfic event or location that makes me tense, eg picallili, heavy green wool, pipe smoke etc

I understand that many of use will have a dormant archive list of things that will always invoke a dissociative type response.

For me toasters had no role in any of he the events that led to my condition. Can I ask if flour/powder is related in that way or not? If it isn't then that is certainly something that I myself haven't experienced.

Thanks again, I appreciate it.... :)

 

[Only 1 of me]

I've tried several different things but can't find a mobile sound eg. for texts/emails that doesnt make me leap up and get that horrible cold treacle sensation inside. No reason for it to be a trigger, it doesn't apparently relate to any of my known traumas.

I sometimes find that the EMDR pinger sound blurs with remebered hospital sounds and that can be a trigger but i think that may be helpful as I'm working on that in therapy anyway. Im extrememly noise sensistive, like many others here, and I also notice small details and feel unsettled and unsafe if I can't work out what has chnaged but know that something has. For example I stayed over at a friend's a few weeks back and something was different in the bathroom. It took me for ever to feel calm, until I worked out she had put a new sticky hook for a towel which was star shaped and the old one was plain. I'm definitely bonkers..... :-)

 

[p-no]

Hi Springer,

Now you've got me wondering... Do you think the reaction to a trigger is always dissociative? If so, I define dissociative differently, I suppose, and my therapist too... Most times, if it isn't real, real bad, my reaction to triggers is not dissociative.

Can I ask if flour/powder is related in that way or not?

Well, my grandfather was a baker, so there was flour around. And that's where it ends. I do not suspect powders at all to have had a role in any of the abuse. When I was sexually abused I was a toddler so powder was maybe on me. But seriously, I have no bad feeling about powders and styrofoam neither.

Regarding my other triggers, I have to say that they always have bad emotion to them. Flour I just don't care about, it's just what it is.

When the styrofoam gets squashed or ripped apart, the sound is so terrible for me that figuratively it's like a very thing and long sword going into my ear and into my brain, which kind of sends me into an abyss. Same goes for touching it and touching powders. Maybe that really would be categorized as sensory issues, I really don't know.

Maybe your toaster experience is not about a trigger but maybe about your hypervigilance? I mean, what if another object made an unexpected (though exptected as in not uncommon and not impossible) sound? What if a cup breaks? Is the effect on you more or less the same?

 

[p-no]

I'm definitely bonkers.....

Welcome to the club! :) I have had my own mantra for a while, many years: "I'm crazy, and proud of it!" Might as well see it as a nice little trait.

Seriously though, I do the same. Always look for patterns everywhere and verify they haven't changed. Thank goodness, or unfortunately, whichever way you look at it, I have a big-capacity hard-drive in my head for details (of the kind you mentioned, like the things in a room).