Cutting Out Triggers

[Hashi]

I mostly read political magazines and blogs. There's a lot of conflict and strife in that arena, yes, but if I eliminate those elements, what's left to read? Greeting cards?

I think if you're currently doing a lot on therapy and healing, then some time away from things that are likely to activate you is a good idea. I don't think that's avoidance, I think it's extra self-care at a time when you need it.

It is restrictive, but then life during trauma work isn't normal life. I could barely wash the dishes or talk to a friend. In my experience, there are going to be a lot of restrictions for a while and that's just the way it is. I certainly couldn't watch TV or films, which I used to do all the time.

It doesn't mean that's forever. I'm able to watch films and read fiction again now, and have just read one that included a trauma scene (justified in the way it was presented and the context of the story). I actually thought how I couldn't have read that a couple of years ago, and I could never have sat through my book group's discussion of it. It's only because I took time away from things I would normally want to do, that I've been able to do enough healing and start living a fuller life again.

Now, what activates me is things that make me feel that even if I'm personally better the world is still a fundamentally bad place and not worth it. While I work on that, I'm still staying away from the news and some other things. I think doing the work is activating enough in itself.

While doing trauma work, I switched something different as far as I could manage it. I think there's plenty other than greetings cards. In my case, I read non-fiction including popular economics and travel books. Things to occupy my brain that didn't ask for imagination and weren't likely to upset me.

I'm not clear if it's conflict/debate in itself that's activating you? From what you say it sounds like upsetting topic matter but please say if I've misunderstood. Others have suggested filtering, and I'm also wondering if you could maintain some of your interest while staying to topics that are safer - is that a possibility? Like, I would read about how supermarkets manipulate us into buying things but I didn't read about the psychology of child abusers.

 

[Dana1010]

Like, I would read about how supermarkets manipulate us into buying things but I didn't read about the psychology of child abusers.

How did you resist reading about the psychology of child abusers? That sounds much more interesting than anything to do with supermarkets. I don't know, maybe I am morbid.

I think a lot of what you say makes sense though. I just have always been a very curious person, but I guess I'm going to have to give filtering a try while I'm in therapy at least.

 

[desiderata310]

There's a part of me that wants to understand WHY and I am not sure I would be able to resist that either though I know I would pay the price for reading it.

 

[Hashi]

I'd make a distinction between wanting to understand why in a way that's healing, and wanting to read about things in a way that's like picking at a wound. Or in a way that's simply too open and unprotective of ourselves.

I don't know if you know a free download book called "Resurrection after Rape". There's a chapter in there about why people rape and I found that helpful. It's a book by a trauma therapist with the aim of helping people heal. Other books or articles by therapists have helped me too.

What I didn't find helpful was when I was searching the internet for news items, comments, profiling and discussion of rape and rapists. I had to stop myself. As part of the skills I was learning at the time I was making lists I could turn to when I got stuck. So I would keep lists of things I thought of or came across and was curious to know more about. Then I would use those when I wanted some downtime on the internet. Anything but trauma and crime.

It just so happens that if it bleeds it leads so a lot of what makes the news happens to have some alarming aspects to it.

I have to disagree that it just so happens. It happens because the media is predominantly sensationalist, exploitative, voyeuristic and fear-mongering. In general, the news is a product being sold as cynically and strategically as the groceries in a supermarket :D (See, those books were interesting!)

 

[Deleted member 12723]

When I was being a caregiver for my husband who had severe dementia, all he could follow on tv was the news. I found it really depressing and some of the stories really upset him so much, but he insisted on the news.

I no longer watch or read the news. Bad things happening to good people happen every day and it is all out of my power and out of my control

I am doing so much better not bothering with the news anymore. They also recycle stories and rarely get the facts straight in my opinion.

I wish you the best with this one. Please take very good care of yourself and keep yourself as stable as possible.

 

[ghotiff]

I have never been able to watch or read the news so it's not something I miss (can't miss something you've never had).

I sometimes find my complete ignorance of the news world embarrassing and so I try to read the paper but I get drawn to the stories that do me the most damage so I'm best to just stay away entirely.

 

[Friday]

For those trying to avoid violent news... But want to still keep abreast, try journals & online courses, & AP wires + diplomatic schtuff (technical term).

Be it National Geographic, Smithsonian, Popular Mechanics/ Popular Science, Medical Journals (JAMA, etc), Literary Journals, Arts journals, Gaming, CompSci... There are tremendous achievements being made across every field, and they are electrifying.

Online... There are not only TEDtalks, but most of the best universities are starting to publish entire courses (including filmed or recorded lectures with the professor in some cases, along with the full syllabus, lectures, lecture notes, quizzes, tests, assignments, etc.) online. I "took" a whole bunch of archeology courses via (oh the Brits are going to kill me) either Cambridge or Oxford (can't remember which, pre-TBI) about 5 years ago, as well as others from UC Berkley and a few other stateside schools. ... For free, just from online content... And then challenged the same courses at my own university. And got the credits. Shaved about a year off of my education. And saved me about 25k. Course, I don't get the bragging rights of actually having gone to those 6 or 7 schools... But I got to learn fascinating things, taught by sexy sexy minds... For free.

Especially for people who want to know 'war in the Congo, still', just don't want to have to read through all of a writer's gory descriptions of the facts... Just the facts are published -again, online- from most embassies. The embassies make press releases, then the reporters take those releases and "flesh them out". Ditto for AP (associated press) wires. They're typically a bullet point list of everything going on everywhere... That other reporters pick and choose what to research and write about.

 

[anthony]

I mean, if there's an attacker loose in the city I live in, shouldn't I know about that? I really enjoy news articles and most of them aren't about happy things.

I actually agree with you, in that there is nothing wrong with reading the news... and if triggered, you accept it due to the case, being IF triggered by actually reading / watching that news event. Avoiding it doesn't fix anything, or help you gain control over doing something you like, being to be informed about what is going on in your location.

Some news can make me anxious, not actually trigger anything as such, but just general anxiety can increase if I watch some things... but I got to that point by watching the news, not avoiding it. Well done I say...

I actually get sick and tired of this therapeutic opinion that ignorance is a solution to fixing things. I am like you, and like to stay informed about what goes on in the world, my city and country. I try and read the newspaper daily, if not watch the news atleast for the major stories. Yes... news these days typically isn't happy news, its the tragedies that get people watching, so that is what they show. It is the tragedies that affect us most... thus are newsworthy.

 

[Catlovers141]

I do not watch the news at all, partly because you can't control what you see. You are just presented with stories and information and don't really have a choice in what you see and don't see.

When I want to look at news, I go on google news and search for things that I am interested in but won't be triggering (like things in health or science). I also click on the local news section and browse the titles.

It is very rare that there is really big news that could put you in danger (unless you live in an especially dangerous area), like a murderer on the loose in your city. And usually, you would hear about these things from other people talking about it, so you would not be oblivious anyway.

If you are like me, the biggest danger comes from you being triggered by reading/watching the news, not from you being unaware of a potentially dangerous situation because you didn't watch the news.

 

[Dana1010]

It seems this has turned into a thread about the news. Hmmm. Has anyone had success cutting out other kinds of triggers that they otherwise enjoyed or found useful? How did you do it? How did you fill the space?

 

[scout86]

I actually agree with you, in that there is nothing wrong with reading the news... and if triggered, you accept it due to the case, being IF triggered by actually reading / watching that news event. Avoiding it doesn't fix anything, or help you gain control over doing something you like,

I take pretty much the approach @anthony seems to be describing. I'm not going to spend my life avoiding stuff. In fact, a big part of the reason I'm in therapy is that I want to learn how to do better at NOT avoiding stuff. I don't want to devote my life to learning what I "have to stay away from".

So, if I want to watch a horror movie and I know that will keep me awake, I consider the possibilities, make a choice, and live with the results. If I have something important I need to do in the morning, I probably won't watch the movie right before I go to bed, for example. In my case, when I AM "triggered", it works fairly well to engage my rational brain to recognize what's going on, analyze the situation, and change how I'm thinking about it. Sometimes that works WAY better than others! With the news, for example, it actually works to remind myself that the world is probably no more or less dangerous than it ever was, although it may be dangerous in different ways. (Terrorists as opposed to saber toothed tigers.) That the news just makes it SEEM more dangerous. But, I'd probably try to confine my news reading to times when the extra adrenaline would help more than it hurts.

 

[Friday]

Has anyone had success cutting out other kinds of triggers that they otherwise enjoyed or found useful? How did you do it? How did you fill the space?

Like I said in this piece below...

There we have it: my 4 categories of triggers. There's a 5th (unsure of which category it belongs in) that I have to play around with awhile to really categorize it, but all of them eventually end up in Mine, Sometimes, Grrrrr, or Hell no.

... some I just effing keep. Yep, they're triggery, but I love them and they're mine. I don't change anything. Either I get stronger or they get weaker, or not. And they're still just as hard. But they're mine. I'm not going to give them up.

... The sometimes group I either limit my application (like by making sure I have time to freak out, and if I don't trigger, then bonus: more time to do something else), or I turn the problem on its head. How can I get my fix, without having to deal with too many side effects?

The news examples above are some ways I deal with feeding the elephant's child. Another is my habit of periodically doing a runner. Travel is something I have to be careful of, for a lot of reasons. So I put a few leashes on myself: My passport is at my moms house (and I hate having to ask for it; the woman has no boundaries, not only will she grill me for days before releasing it, but would more often than not decide to come along. My mom's awesome. But I can't go crazy around her. So that forestalls most of my wild schemes), which makes it difficult to hop on a plane for the nearest natural disaster or 3rd world hell hole in need of warm bodies. I don't have serious resources anymore, so I trade script editing (painful, tedious, code-monkey type work) to a friend for use of her company gas card in lieu of payment since she bikes. As long as I don't exceed her monthly limit, I have free gas for road trips. Adding that layer of responsibility... Instead of just waiting until I'm at my breaking point and saying f*ck it and spending money I don't have or counting on picking up work as I go, adds another layer of control. Because winging it is very open ended. A weekend trip to Chicago turns into waitressing in Boston, turns into crewing on a boat to Johannesburg, turns into... Shit. I'm in South Africa 18 months after my weekend trip to Chicago. How did that happen? Oh. Right. I needed money.

Which, for me is what it boils down to: adding layers of control. It's very difficult to fall down a rabbit hole, when I'm seriously considering what I want to do, why I want to do it, and then boarding up the most obvious crevasses to fall into. It can and does still happen. A friends name on an embassy press report, a link to something unexpected, a friend phoning for help, being on a computer I haven blocked certain things via the parental controls.

The "mine" list, I do anyway no matter what.
The "sometimes" list doesn't have as high of a reward value for doing it.
Our lists though are all going to be pretty personal. You and I could both be dicey with travel, for completely different reasons. Or news for different reasons. Or, whatever. While I do XYZ, my solutions might just make it worse or no sense at all.

Like you said... You like noir. There's 50 different ways of going about that, including news.
You also like news. 2 birds 1 stone. Or if one becomes a problem, then you turn it on its head and get what you like without having to deal with (most) of what you don't.

It's the act of figuring out what itch needs scratching, and what kinds of scratching bleed. That's trial and error.

_______

My apologies for the length. My meds just kicked in, and I can't succinctify on them.