How do you manage triggers?

[barefoot]

How do you know when to push through resistance/things that are triggery and face them head on and when to decide to steer clear?

At the moment, I'm finding a tv programme very triggering. It is distressing and anxiety-making while I'm watching it, I've had a cluster of night terrors since I last watched an episode and I am also experiencing...I don't know whether they're intrusive thoughts or whether I'm just ruminating...but it seems to have brought some old, stressful memories to the surface and some thoughts just keep popping into my head, which I don't want.

I've decided that it's probably wise not to watch this programme just before bed again but am not sure whether I should keep watching it (almost as a form of exposure therapy to try to reduce the impact and get to a point of being ok with it) just not at bedtime or whether I should just decide that this clearly isn't a programme for me so I should just steer clear completely.

If I chose not to watch it at all, am I being avoidant (not a good thing) or am I looking after myself and practising self-care by managing a trigger (a good thing)?

This is a current example but I have this kind of dilemma a lot - when to confront head on and make myself do/face things despite fear/anxiety/being triggered etc and when to leave well alone because I don't need to put myself through it if it has such a strong, negative impact on me?

I'm curious about how others would approach this. Thanks.

 

[Ronin]

Structured demo.

I do things I know will get to me, but where I know how much they'll get to me, or can estimate that. I don't do things that are the unknown or that would render me less functional than I am in areas I yet am, or work on being, functional at.

 

[Deadman]

I keep an eye on my stress levels. If my stress level is high I don't deliberately confront triggers. I save that for times when stress is lower and I know I'll have space and time to deal with the results.

 

[Deleted member 37474]

I am more likely to confront things than avoid them. I think that I have some sort of sick desire to see if I still have ptsd. I keep hoping it will disappear as suddenly as it appeared in my life. I have triggers at one of the schools I work in... there I don't have a choice, but one school where my main trigger was, I had to switch those students to my home studio. I couldn't risk seeing that man. I do shop at a store that is full of my trigger color. I have to breathe deeply and talk myself through the check out area I feel so relieved when I am driving away from there!

 

[barefoot]

Thanks for the replies.

@Ronin - so, for my tv example... I know I feel distressed and anxious when I watch this particular tv programme and that my sleep is disturbed for a few days afterwards and that it triggers ruminations. So, knowing that I know that - would you encourage me to keep watching with a view to trying to...I don't know...desensitise myself to it...so that it doesn't impact me as much? Or do you think keep watching it will just keep having the same effect on me? I know you don't actually know what impact watching/not watching it will have on me but I'm interested in your opinion on that if you have one. Sound alike you have experience with testing/pushing your triggers!

@Deadman - that makes sense - not to deliberately confront triggers if stress/stressors are high/many. I have a lot going on at the moment so perhaps deliberately adding to stress/anxiety isn't a sensible way forward...

TexCat - sounds like you have found a balance between knowing when to confront/tackle/force yourself to be with a trigger (like in your store example) and when to deliberately create distance (like switching those students to your home studio)

I just find it so hard to know when I'm being unhelpfully avoidant and when it is genuine self-care/management.
How do you tell the difference?!

 

[Deleted member 37474]

Thanks for the replies.

@Ronin - so, for my tv example... I know I feel distressed...

I think what matters most is how necessary is it? I have a friend that can't handle hospitals and doctors because they majorly trigger her. Well... that would be something to face because some day she will need to go there. My trigger store is the closest to my house, so I force myself to deal because of convenience. (But don't have to, there are other stores). A choice. On a bad day, won't go there. If it is a show you like, maybe drink some wine or smoke some pot and watch it. (That is my go to for intimacy with my husband.) Just figure out what your end game is and make a plan. Keep in mind, plenty of unavoidable, unplanned triggers do show up in my life, especially when I am in therapy. When those happen, I don't always handle them well.

 

[Tornadic Thoughts]

There's a healthy avoidance, too, in my opinion. Like, clearly recognizing a boundary can be a healthy avoidance.

I know things that will send me straight to the ditch without any doubt. If I'm in a healthful mind and heart space where I can easily dig my way back out, sure, bring it on.

If not, then it benefits my overall health best by healthily avoiding it at that time. Otherwise, I keep ending up in a self-induced state of not being able to respond to even the most basic self-care stuff. Stuck in a rut, again, and again, and again.

I see it as dosing my exposure, in a way, much like one would dose their medicine in intervals, or space out meals within a day. Healthy intake vs. overdosing or binging, so to speak. If that makes sense.

 

[barefoot]

I spoke to my therapist this week about the tv show (The Handmaid's Tale, if anyone's interested - just realised I hadn't named it here but that wasn't for any real reason!) and her advice was to not watch it anymore because it was retraumatising me. She said making myself watch it wasn't going to be helpful or healing to me and that not watching it would not be pathetic or avoidant but that it would be me taking care of myself.

She said that the themes/contexts of the show, which are related to "my stuff" are presented in a very visually confronting, violent, unboundaried way and that we need to work on those themes within a safe, contained process. And that really resonated with me and is maybe something I can use as a steer for next time I am in a dilemma about whether or not to push myself because would not doing something be pathetic or avoidant behaviour or good management and self-care. I wouldn't try to work through this stuff with a therapist I didn't feel safe with or I felt had very wobbly boundaries or who I didn't trust to hold the space. So, if safety and containment are what I need to work on something, I guess forcing myself to leap head long into something with no container, on my own, and the result is intrusive thoughts and night terror after night terror...yeah...I think my psyche and body are trying to tell me "don't do that - enough!"

Of course, it is my decision whether I keep watching or not but I think I will trust her judgement on this and I will park the show.