Escalation After Triggers: Right Away Or Later On?

[freya]

Another question... Sorry if it's been asked before. I notice that after I have been triggered (unfortunately the sessions with my coach/therapist contain triggers) at first I seem more or less okay and able to (mentally, anyway) understand what went on. Then after the fact, once I get home, my feelings just get out of hand and escalate to a point where I can be suicidal or feel that my life is worthless.

Is this part of the PTSD? Is it 'normal' that after having been triggered at first there is still some contact with 'reality' but that this disappears and you begin to feel worse and worse, and it takes a longer period of time and self-care before you can be calm and more or less 'reasonable' again?

 

[Kunoichi]

Depends on how you are I think. Sometimes my triggers don't onset me mentally for a day or so, depending on what it is. Depends on how long you are numb for and where you are on your healing journey. I think its normal, be relative term again.

 

[Luthien]

I could have something to do with feeling safe. My house is my safe zone, and except for a few occasions, it is the only place I have ever really broken down badly.

I try to hold back and push my really strong reactions aside, because I am too afraid, and because I don't want to distress others.

Sometimes I'm not able to, and will completely lose it regardless of who is around, or my location, but mostly I find a way to hold it off until I feel it is safe to let it go.

Do you tend to feel completely numb before you get home and breakdown?

What your describing is a fairly common reaction I think, and it is normal for PTSD.

 

[freya]

Thank you for replying... I don't get completely numb, I think, but I 'act from the head'. It's like I'm on 'automatic pilot'. I can still talk, reason, function or act as if I'm more or less okay. I can even make jokes. (But I do have a problem understanding information, I often need to ask people to repeat or explain what they said, and I don't remember much later on).
Then when I get home and begin to think and write, or journal about the event - trying to make sense of it or to work out the problem - I just get 'lost' it seems and it all just seems overwhelmingly terrible. This while part of me seems to know and realize that what went on is probably not considered 'such a big deal' by other people...

It's like I'm being drawn down some corridor and I can't stop. It ends in a feeling of uttere despair and feelings of hopelessness, of being unworhty to live and unable to ever solve the problems (with people) that I keep having.

 

[goingonhope]

I understand what you're experiencing freya. It would seem that I also, often have the same experience of not reacting to certain triggers until after I arrive home. Though this is not always the case, nor the experience. There are a number of factors, time-frames and ways in which my reactions to triggers unfold for me; what you've described is one of my common ones.

Perhaps as kunoichi has mentioned it could result from someone feeling numb at the time of the trigger; as Ptsd sufferers are in different conditions and are employing different means of surviving or coping at different times.

More likely then not though with me it's seems it results from a combination of factors. Safety is an important issue for me too.

Also, avoidance / pretense / denial / attempts to hide, duck, dodge certain realities and the experience of feelings of vulnerability are also important reoccurring issues with me.

And, as you've mentioned 'acting from the head' / autopilot or in other terms, referencing to the same sort of thing, defense mechnisms such as 'intellectualization', or 'denial of reality and vulnerabilities' (for me it's feeling) ......whether it be me involuntarily avoiding something within through my episodes of fair to light disassociation, or be it my sometimes generalized anger and shut-down toward others and self. Sometimes, it's even my ego speaking to me in my own thoughts, stating: I'm bigger, stronger, faster then this weakness / (personal trigger), -I can find a way to handle this all alone.

Yeah' right, I'm now thinking. ..........then once the trigger settles in, sometimes quicker then others, I've found/can still find myself overwhelmed with varied symptoms, that are most obvious, proposing and threatening to beat me mentally and loved ones up some.

Freya, it's nice to see you joining in and particpating within the forum. Do hope you do well in your many efforts to heal and take charge of your Ptsd.

My Best,
goingonhope

 

[goingonhope]

Freya, I just looked at your title to this thread again, and noticed the: "Right Away, or Later On."

My simpler response is: Both!

(Smiles)

 

[fin]

At the moment right away for me...I tried to call my care co-ordinator...who was supposed to call me and my cell/mobile isnt allowed to make outgoing calls!!!!

Am freaking out
I had trouble at the weekend with it and paid everything I had and am due to go out tomorrow to the bank and then can pay again they said it would be allright...till friday...but they have done it early and now I feel totally cut off....he was supposed to ring me. I feel stuck and am escalating ...I did good things today I started my diary proper kind of and now Im back to feaking out, feel soo cut off and am worried some more than some

RIGHT AWAY for me at the moment

I need a friend and feel hopeless and I was feeling kind of ok at doing starting my diary...and now I just feel like I am falling back further in thinking that I was moving forward.

I dont know my way around here and I get panicked after...i know we all do..i know that...I should be able to cope with this, worse has happened this is nothing,, it just doesnt feel like nothing at the moment and it just alerts me to the fact that I am soo crap at it

 

[cragger65]

That's really interesting. I am the same way. At the time, I think I have always just swallowed it being triggered. Then later, my brain goes into over-drive trying to cope/understand/discect the issue or event.

Protection mechanism, for sure.

 

[2notbedefeated]

Freya,

I can't offer any answers to this question, but I can tell you that I can relate and have the same challenges. I just wanted to say your not totally alone in that reaction.

I'm so glad to know that I'm not the only one that has that difficulty with therapy. The same thing happens to me just about with every session. Most times in session I think I'm pretty much okay, then an hour later I start having major anxiety and panic.

I get such intense, overwhelming feelings in which I feel like I am going to explode or die just from the sheer intensity of what I'm experiencing. I feel like I am going to go insane. I start feeling self-destructive. I start feeling like I'm not understood in therapy, or something that got stirred up which I can't handle.

During this time I will just physcially spin around and around hitting myself and don't know what I'm feeling or why. When I first started working on my sexual abuse stuff in therapy I had these reactions very intensely and frequently. After my sessions a few minutes later I would start having panic attacks and feelings of "insanitiy."

It would be so intolerable that I would have to call my therapist or schedule another session that same day or the day after. I'm sure those first two months about drove my therapist crazy too. I had never had these memories before and it was freaking me out. They thought about hospitalizing me at one point. I had to see T three times a week. I've now graduated to 2 sessions a week and still it's very hard.

Things were really difficult this past September when I first saw my therapist, but still even now I have the same reaction. In fact my therapist brought it up last week. He want's me to try and be aware of what may be causing me to have these reactions. I start to have flashbacks, emotional fugues, flooding of memories and almost always end up self-injuring.

I'm still trying to figure out why this is for myself. I hope you find the answers your looking for.

 

[freya]

Thank you very much to all that responded... I can relate to much of what is said.

As my feelings escalated more and more I realized that they MUST be part of the PTSD. Fortunately the day after the session that went 'wrong' I had one whole day off, with time to myself to just be and feel and journal.
And that made realize that yes, a 'normal' person might not be this upset over what happened. I had this notion that 'there is another way to look at this'. I realized that my coach/therapist had done several things that strongly reminded me of my father's behavior.

Such as starting a discussion at a moment when I could not handle it. And just sitting still and not responding in any way to something vulnerable I'd expressed. I realized later on that I had taken this for indifference and this triggered a lot in me, a lot of feelings of helplessness and fear of going to be abandoned.

I also took out the book 'Trust after trauma' by A. Matsakis and just read part of the chapter on 'when people you love trigger you'. I just read over one or two of the exercises, not doing them, but still it helped me get perspective. From then on I more or less 'recovered' from the frantic, suicidal state I'd been in.

Again thank you so much for being here and responding, to this thread and the other ones.

Freya

 

[2notbedefeated]

My therapist triggers me to sometimes. If he raises his voice to emphasize a point or talks firmly I get majorly fearful. You said:

Such as starting a discussion at a moment when I could not handle it.

I also get triggered when my T says anything that places a demand on me that I am not ready for, or any kind word that implies a loaded expectation upsets me.

I finally had to get up enough courage to tell my therapist whenever I felt that he was not validating my feelings and/or experience(s). If I don't do this in smy session I tend to get so overwhelmed and so stirred up that I freak out and get triggered big time after session.

I have had to learn to tell my therapist when I would feel any sense of "something" or "twinge" of anxiety about how he responded to me or said something to me that I could sense myself getting upset about.

I'm still learning to do this. I have major trust issues and for the longest time I had to feel I was in "in control" of my sessions. My T understood this and allowed me for about 4 months to do this before he realized when we were around in circles. We were not going to make much progress until I somehow resolved this issue of trust with him.

This past month I have been trying hard to let go alittle and follow his lead, but I still have a hard time. I've had past therapists that I felt "betrayed" by, and hurt by them. My therapist said that it was because they didn't know how to handle PTSD.

Thankfully the therapist I have now has more experience in this area. One thing I have found, but is hard to do, is to talk openly with my therapist when I get upset by something said or not said, or something done or not done. I figure am paying him big bucks and don't have any to waste, so I feel I have a right to share with him these things.

I know it's not easy to do. I could not do this with proir therapists, but with the counselor I have now I can. He always wants to know when I do not feel safe, and we talk about what I need in order to feel safe.

I don't know if you feel safe enough to talk with you counselor/guide, but I'd even start with that and talk about why you do or do not feel comfortable or safe in that therapeutic relationship.

Be kind to you :) Good Luck.

 

[fin]

I think that is wonderfull 2not

It is the trust element I believe first and foremost...before anything...and I think you explained that really well also.
I have been afraid and when I voice what my concerns have been it hasnt been good. And not because Im not hearing what I want to or because she isnt wrapping me up in cotton wool, but because if I cant trust her when I bring out the "monsters"- the traumas, well if I cant trust her to be able to keep me safe during therapy,
well I dont really know what I am trying to say here any more...This is something i think that I just start shutting down on because I find it so frightening.
But you have voiced it brilliantly above and I thnk I need to copy it down because I have trouble saying it without triggering and freaking out. This is recent since I have become more aware of the non-comprehension on her face when I am trying to explain it.
The worst thing is that the EMDR PTSD spec. understood completely what it was I was saying or trying to say all the way through....I wish I could have carried on with her at the time. This sucks
fin