I wasn't even sure about posting this because, to me, it's seems strange and a bit messed up....but I have to ask, and I do plan to bring it up at next therapy appt.....do any of you intentionally trigger yourself? Like, for me....it's watching/reading things with r*pe content. It's stupid really....I can't say the "R" word and I can barely even write it but that's what I find myself wanting to watch etc and I don't even know why I do it, when I know it will leave me feeling crappy!
Other Self triggering
- Thread starter LucyLou
- Start date
Hugely common - almost everyone who's experienced sexual abuse does this. My opinion is that it's our traumabrain trying to gain control over something we had no control over previously. And yes, the end effect is to make us feel worse.
Glad you're going to talk about it in therapy. That's the very first step to conquering this unhelpful behavior - talking about it.
Glad you're going to talk about it in therapy. That's the very first step to conquering this unhelpful behavior - talking about it.
arfie
MyPTSD Pro
********coffee cup clink********
i'll drink to the notion that it is strange and messed up, and yes, i do it, too. therapy works still in progress. 40 odd years and still not counting. . . early on, it was a therapy breakthrough that i was building an awareness of how and when i was doing so. a decade or three later i started trusting my therapy network far enough to let them guide me in doing it deliberately under the "exposure therapy" theories. i've come to believe in exposure therapy, but i always take a therapy supporter or three on those adventures. my head is not a safe neighborhood to travel alone.
i'll second @somerandomguy 's notion that it is a hugely common phenom. methinks it would be hard to sell most of the movies on the market without the human desire to experience emotional triggers.
i'll drink to the notion that it is strange and messed up, and yes, i do it, too. therapy works still in progress. 40 odd years and still not counting. . . early on, it was a therapy breakthrough that i was building an awareness of how and when i was doing so. a decade or three later i started trusting my therapy network far enough to let them guide me in doing it deliberately under the "exposure therapy" theories. i've come to believe in exposure therapy, but i always take a therapy supporter or three on those adventures. my head is not a safe neighborhood to travel alone.
i'll second @somerandomguy 's notion that it is a hugely common phenom. methinks it would be hard to sell most of the movies on the market without the human desire to experience emotional triggers.
Friday
Moderator
Absolutely.
It’s how I first learned to control panic attacks, fast & dirty, until what took hours only took moments -or- vanished altogether.
The safe & sane version, meanwhile, is never full-on triggering one’s self… but just flirting around the edge of a reaction (increased heart rate, narrowed vision, shimmer of sweat, hints whispers a breath of a reaction only) then backing away… and is so durn effective at eliminating triggers & stressors it has a name: Exposure Therapy.
UNINTENTIONALLY?!? Yep. Do that, too. It’s annoying as f*ck.
Weemie
MyPTSD Pro
Yeah, it's very common. I used to struggle a lot with water and showers. I took showers every day for hours a day for like two years until those responses burned out of me. Now I can even go swimming as long as I keep my head above the water. I used to love to swim and I was really good at it, had my silver star. Then I could barely deal with sudden rain storms. COVID backtracked me and I can't wear the masks a lot of the times especially if it's raining out.
But I can still bathe and swim. So it's a win. I wouldn't recommend doing this unless you are prepared to deal with extreme duress for long periods of time. I forced my way thru the shit. Again and again. Even with the towel. Until my brain just stopped firing those neurons and let me take a deep breath. Then another. Now I lean into the quiet places between the adrenaline.
Exposure therapy works but intensive and most especially exposures that are super similar to your trauma - for me I had a single event with a predictable trigger, and other phobias like dogs and bugs. Working on the bugs one my whole life I narrowed it down to the sound of them. So I wear earbuds outside. But I like googling pictures of bugs or watching them. Finding the quiet spots in the sympathetic zaps.
With dogs, I don't own a dog but my father did when I lived with him. She didn't bark much and was old. I just existed in the same space as her until my brain adjusted to her presence. Eventually she registered as a non-threat.
Something like rape and repetitive abuse? It's less likely you'll be able to find good ways to expose yourself to specific symptoms and more likely that your brain will interpret it as more trauma. Your best bet is to instead focus on finding specific phobias and triggers and starting there. Like you said you can't say the word rape. I bet reading it is hard as well. But that's something you can work on by practicing (reading and writing) that will help you become accustomed to doing so.
But I can still bathe and swim. So it's a win. I wouldn't recommend doing this unless you are prepared to deal with extreme duress for long periods of time. I forced my way thru the shit. Again and again. Even with the towel. Until my brain just stopped firing those neurons and let me take a deep breath. Then another. Now I lean into the quiet places between the adrenaline.
Exposure therapy works but intensive and most especially exposures that are super similar to your trauma - for me I had a single event with a predictable trigger, and other phobias like dogs and bugs. Working on the bugs one my whole life I narrowed it down to the sound of them. So I wear earbuds outside. But I like googling pictures of bugs or watching them. Finding the quiet spots in the sympathetic zaps.
With dogs, I don't own a dog but my father did when I lived with him. She didn't bark much and was old. I just existed in the same space as her until my brain adjusted to her presence. Eventually she registered as a non-threat.
Something like rape and repetitive abuse? It's less likely you'll be able to find good ways to expose yourself to specific symptoms and more likely that your brain will interpret it as more trauma. Your best bet is to instead focus on finding specific phobias and triggers and starting there. Like you said you can't say the word rape. I bet reading it is hard as well. But that's something you can work on by practicing (reading and writing) that will help you become accustomed to doing so.
barefoot
MyPTSD Pro
In case of use/interest, I started this thread a couple of years ago on similar lines and there are quite a few replies on it:
www.myptsd.com
In my experience, it can feel difficult and very confusing to engage in this kind of self-triggering behaviour (whether it feels quite deliberate/intentional or there’s a more compulsive element to it) But is does seem to be pretty common and I found everyone’s responses on that other thread very helpful in terms of normalising and validating the behaviour.
Why do I actively seek things out that are triggering??
Recent example - I watched The Vow on Netflix about the NXIVM cult. Have been quite obsessed about it ever since. Reading loads of stuff online about it and the key people involved and the recent legal proceedings etc. Actively seeking it out. I then joined a new tv subscription service so that...
www.myptsd.com
In my experience, it can feel difficult and very confusing to engage in this kind of self-triggering behaviour (whether it feels quite deliberate/intentional or there’s a more compulsive element to it) But is does seem to be pretty common and I found everyone’s responses on that other thread very helpful in terms of normalising and validating the behaviour.
I can very much relate. To every part of it including not being able to say the word. And I'm very interested to know what your T tells you as I don't think that I can bring myself to ask the question. Even just responding to this is making my heart race. You're not alone in this and thanks for being brave enough to ask it as it helps me know that I too am not alone.
Nixx
Sponsor
I absolutely do this too. I have some very graphic movies in my blueray collection and on my HD from my days of torrenting stuff in college. I named my diary thread after a disturbing movie about ww2 atrocities in Belarus. Its not especially gory by todays standards (its also considered one of the greatest war movies of all time) but man it is brutal in its content and you can literally see the main character develop shell shock over the course of the film by how his face physically changes. Russian cinema is haunting.
I do this too, and just spoke about about it with my therapist again this past week. She reminded me that children with trauma will often reenact that trauma during their play in an attempt to make sense of it and get a feeling of control over it. She wondered if me going on “binges” of watching abuse/r*pe related tv and movies is basically the same thing. It made a lot of sense to me.
