How do you usually react physically/mentally when you're triggered?

[sickfaery]

like what symptoms & stuff do you usually get.

pers it's usually either flat out dissociation & stiffness, without anything else usually. or it's panicky feelings, strong physiological reactions w body memories

(btw if this question is a little weird, i'm triggered af rn)

 

[PTSDisaster]

I almost only react physical. I always get a lot of adrenaline and start vomiting, cold sweating, shaky. My thoughts also go really fast.

Interesting to read how everyone reacts

 

[Lionheart]

I am triggered right now and I am about to freakin explode into a fiery rage, but am trying hard not to do that. It will only serve to make a bad situation worse so I am biting my tongue and trying to remain calm. Is not so easy sometimes. The trigger or stressor is that I feel I am being taken advantage of.

 

[user27357]

physical can be entirely seperate from mental, like I can be shut down mentally and having adrenaline shakes physically, even getting ready to throw but I don't think I ever went beyond just getting the pre toss watery mouth and throat, the body getting ready for a quick dump of anything not already being digested. I don't remember it if I ever lost my lunch. Probably did, those around me did.
And then the opposite, total lack of asrenaline body overload, and mind on high speed playback/rewind for hours. And hours, and even now trying to describe it getting a little of it.
And everything in between is a possibility and what sucks is I don't get it until it is over, like: "oh, that was what was happening" when I start to understand why everything that happened after a near miss auto accident was like looking through a distorted lens for two weks.
I missed like half of a Bonnie Rait show sitting in front row balcony and being ten years prior and really really scared I was going to see someone die right in front of me. It sucks and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. just the height and proximity to a deadly fall being possible, still there, yep, remember that guy on the church construction sight call, yep, still pretty close to the edge here, yep. And other times I can just say to myself, that was then this is now, focus and step over and past it.
Hit post reply?

 

[user27357]

my point is that there isn't a reliable answer to the question and even if everyone here said the exact same things about physical and the same abou mental it wouldn't matter beyond just satisfieing a curiosity, I got my disorder, you got yours and a good therapist had better at least know the way out for you and me or we ar truly truly screwed.

 

[Juso]

Depending on the situation, I either dissociate and essentially temporarily lose my ability to feel or I end up in a hyperaroused state. The latter includes intense emotions (mostly fear or anger, often in the form of intrusive emotional flashbacks), chaotic thoughts, psychosomatic reactions (bone pain, nausea, throwing up, itchy skin...), disappearance of hunger, suicidal thoughts, self harm, activation of cognitive distortions, memory problems, ect.

 

[whiteraven]

As with others, it totally depends. I used to automatically dissociate. Now I tend to either get very depressed (and often think about killing myself) or very angry. Like the blowing up kind of angry. I don't dissociate so much anymore, and I sooo wish I did.

 

[Recovery4Me]

When I first came to this board, after diagnosis (finally a label for all those symptoms) …I read everything I could get my hands on of merit. It was important to recognize how those triggers, symptoms, stressors were effecting my life, personally. I was somewhat out of control when I first came here from lack of understanding the dance of PTSD. So many bloomin‘ steps or components to grasp at first blush: it can seem overwhelming.

I also still do ask and have asked (as you are now within this thread) aiding in quicker recognition as well as acquiring tools to manage. This group is awesome for good steering of facts, tips as well as support. However, among our similarities still everyone is somewhat unique. So I ask you, what It is like for you (?) because we will listen.

 

[DharmaGirl]

I get short of breath, wildly anxious and have to get away from the trigger. I've been practicing slowing my breathing down so I can calm myself, and that sometimes works. I don't dissociate when triggered, I'm usually somewhat dissociated normally, and pop out when triggered. Isn't it amazing how different all of us are?

 

[Tinyflame]

I suppose flight or freeze or physically sick, +/or SI are my mind or body's go-to's. But hardest is if I am triggered and don't realize for a while. Or when it's unrelenting, just like the thermometer blew up and there's no way to get it back down. Usually it's state-dependent to the state during the trigger, then my mind blames it on the present entirely. What I feel is situation-specific and feeling-specific to what the trigger evokes or what I relive or what parts I remember. Sometimes it takes a very long time to identify what it is; once it took about 20+ years to figure out one was carpeting/ body posture. Fearful and awful! Horrible feeling(s). Makes for a very hopeless, terrifying and depressing few minutes/ hours/ days. Without including the shame and self-blame, or the shame and self-blame after the fact for reacting to it. I think it contributes terribly to overwhelm. I think stressors really do too.