Reactions To Triggers

[Blutarg]

I have been told that we only 'ALLOW ourselves to feel what we feel' and that 'no one MAKES us feel anything'. When I react in a certain way to a situation, or people, I have no choice in that moment and I don't WANT to behave like I do. There is no control in that moment.

Can someone explain that statement? I don't understand it.

 

[Sqweak]

Okay good because I sort of don't understand either but I would like to try to decipher this for you :)

From what I'm reading I would say:

It's been said that we are in control of our own feelings. When you're scared or sad or jealous; jealous being the best example of an emotion commonly perceived as "controllable". You have the option of freaking out and reveling in the emotion you're experiencing or finding some kind of inner resolve. I understand that train of thought for sure. However, on the other hand it seems ignorant. How can you possibly tell someone " excuse me, try not to have a flashback when we get in the car; thanks" it just seems - obscene.

In my opinion from reading that statement it reminds me that; sometimes people will try to convince you that your inner thoughts and physical reactions to situations and people that remind you of something traumatic is easy to over come if you just, you know stop thinking about it.

It’s not that easy.

I think this is what the statement you posted might be about is about.

 

[Brontie]

Blutarg,

Who ever told you that doesn't know what they are talking about.

The mind and body react to every event and situation we find ourselves in depending on our past experiences. It's the fight or flight thingy.

If we are frightened by a cow as a child we may grow up to hate cows - I do. Lol!

We can learn to control these reactions but not without first exploring those past experiences and coming to terms with them, and that takes a lot of hard work and determination on our part.

We can learn to recognise certain triggers and work to avoid them. Avoidance, not exactly the best way to go. But if it helps us in our daily life, I say bring it on. Give me the tools and the information that will help me live a reasonably normal life - I only have one, and I want it to be a reasonably happy one.

Tests have been done that prove we already think before we are aware of the thought. The mind and body react to what we think before we are even aware of the thought. How can we possibly control that?

 

[Teddy]

I so get your struggle with this.....
Now having been sooooo well read all about 'thinking positive' and being soooo good at it, you can imagine my disgust when suddenly no matter how hard I tried I couldn't seem to 'positive think' my way out of PTSD.
Your right, no one can make us feel a certain way and we do allow ourselves to feel.
The trick is that we are both the subconscious and the conscious. We are the 'whole of ourselves'.
I think it is great that you 'allow' your self to feel as it is damn hard and bad for your health if you try to stop yourself. (from experience it buggars you up worse!!!)
If you want to test the comment 'no one can make us feel something' then try standing next to some one who is screaming in your face and try not to get upset.
I think that these are blanket comments that when kept in context they are true. In our situation the mind is a little bit deeper and more complex than this statement allows us to believe. Only some one with no insight into our disease would say this to you and they don't deserve an opinion as they don't know what they are talking about.
There is a simple saying that is 'don't ask your butcher for financial advice unless he is a lot wealthier than you and he made it all on his own'....
Your mind picks up on a lot of sensory stuff and it is this that when it hits a certain part of your brain, it triggers a subconscious response. You can only learn what these are and try to tackle them at the core and then retrain your brain to think differently.
Your feelings are justified and you are allowed to have them, regardless of what 'they' say.
It has taken me ages to get to understand this too so I hope some of this makes sense.....

 

[Blutarg]

Thank you to all three of you for your responses, they are very much appreciated. I would tend to agree with what each of you have said. This is not something that easily dealt with. If it were we wouldn't all be sitting here with this problem, right?

The person who told me this is someone who has PTSD and suggested it as a way of managing a certain trigger, but I cannot fathom how it would work. This triggering thing is in my every day life and is a big problem for me. Simply 'choosing' not to react in a certain way just doesn't work and isn't a viable option. So I needed some input and was hoping someone might understand what was meant by it. Thank you again.

 

[ronin47]

Statements like this are just another car in the train of thought that insists "it's all in our heads." What they don't understand is the power of the instinct to self preserve and how that plays into PTSD. When I react to a trigger, I am subconsiously afraid for my physical saftey and deep seated biological reactions rooted in evolution are activated; the so called "fight or flight" response. How we feel about something is not strictly a matter of free will and personal decisions, it is a matter of context. Our experiences in this life invariably shape how we percieve and respond to the world. I enjoy reading and writing and am not as good at math not because I chose to one day, but because I was raised in a home early in my life that had practically no television so reading books and imagination were my primary means of entertainment. Before people try to judge how we feel about something, they must first understand where we are coming from. It's all about context.

 

[Blutarg]

I think this has to be taken into consideration as well. It simply doesn't make sense to say you just have to control what you feel, because it is a "fight/flight' response and a means of self preservation. Although, that same self preservation can now do more harm than good because the situation is no longer the same and the players are different.

 

[Ted Moen]

When we record an experience, we record both cognitive and emotional aspects of the experience. If an experience is very intense, such as a traumatic experience, when something in our current experience triggers the memory the result will be an intense emotional feeling that seems to overwhelm our current situation. In therapy, we can learn to monitor the intensity of our feelings, and to recognize when the intensity of our feeling is not consistent with our current situation. For example, I am sitting at Starbucks comfy with a mocha and a friend and a scent hits me and I immediately fear for my life. I know I am not in danger, but the feeling is so intense. I have to take a breath, remind myself the feeling is not consistent with my current situation, acknowledge the scent is related to the old stuff and always triggers the intense feelings, then go back to acting appropriately in my current situation.

We can try to avoid triggers, but they are everywhere. Some are best avoided, I don't go to war movies. The others need to be identified and understood as they occur. It's much easier said than done, but it's at the core of learning to live better with ptsd.

Ted

 

[Tinyflame]

I agree with you Ted Moen but for me the problem lies in the reaction is a feeling- not necessarily a cognition. For example, referring to your example above, I would not cognitively realize I feared for my life; instead I would feel (that) intensity of fear, dread, shock etc, -whatever, and that would likely trigger a 'flight' response. If I personally were able to think to myself: "I feel like it's life or death -> obviously it isn't -> therefore it's a trigger -> 'ignore' it/ modify my thoughts/ body", well- it wouldn't be ptsd. The problem is, just speaking for myself, trigger-recognition often occurs after the fact: great for 'next' time (but next time it's often some other trigger, and the process repeats.)

 

[Tinyflame]

Sorry Ted Moen, btw- didn't mean that to sound 'snappy'. What I mean is, even the 'too extreme' response is a good warning sign, and one has to practise recognizing that. But often it doesn't have to be extreme- or it doesn't seem as extreme as it is, at the moment- it just seems a 'correct' thought/ appraisal. Obviously it may not be accurate. But in most cases there are lots of nuances, I find it's rarely as simple as something so obvious. More a feeling, then a thought, then self doubt/ not knowing what to do/ feeling your original thoughts (the absence of the new thoughts/ re-appraisal, as it were) must have been wrong.

Because I could just see myself, getting all the way to recognizing the scent as a trigger and still thinking my current feelings were accurate and related to the present moment and nothing to do with that, that that was just a momentary 'bump'. And even thinking, "how could I have thought otherwise?, obviously I've 'come to my senses'/ was wrong before."
Hope that makes sense!

 

[The Albatross]

I got a lot of traction on the "feelings" that come with a trigger, when I made a conscious decision to give the reality of the present moment more power than the feelings. It is a decision I attempt to reaffirm every day... To stay grounded in the "now" and not sieze up on the impact of the feelings and give them energy. I can acknowledge them... but if I allow them to pull me out of the present and scare the crap out of me... I'm self harming. (I am not very good at put this concept I use into words, sorry for that).

Most of the time, when triggered now, I can pause, long enough to realize that the feeling has no bearing on my present moment... and I can consciously choose to let it go... the visualization I have used to do it is standing by a river in the fall, there is a tree with lots of yellow, orange, green and red leaves... it is a breezy day and they are falling. I pick one up, examine it... but then I put it in the river and watch it drift away.

I also got a lot of traction with a Psalm, "why so downcast O my soul?"... in the Psalm, there is an example of David, crying out... but then he takes over the conversation and turns his emotional self away from grief, fear, guilt and shame and turns it toward what his strength is... for him it is belief in God. (Please don't think I'm trying to witness here, but I can say that this example has helped me move past triggers.)

Both are a way to validate the feeling without compulsively obsessing it, giving it energy, and ultimately revictimizing myself through self harming thoughts or behavior.

 

[The Albatross]

Conscious practice of 28 days can change a habit. 6 months of practicing a habit can change behavior... though with PTSD it is clearly more complicated than that, it has been a helpful benchmark to help me take charge of my rational thoughts and irrational beliefs and the self harming behaviors when I get triggered.