Stressor vs. Trigger - What Is A Trigger?

[Elizabeth-Ann]

A trigger is a symptomatic reaction from one of the five senses (sight, sound, touch, taste and smell) based only upon a direct connection to an actual traumatic event experienced.

When a person mentions something, as for example a certain form of torture, with words only, and this causes a strong reaction, smelling things, panik, hearing sounds and voices, because a traumatizing event is remembered, what would that be?

Can one provoke flashbacks deliberately by trying to remember something, for example when writing in a diary or when trying to recall things in a T-Session?

Thank you for this thread!

 

[anthony]

When a person mentions something, as for example a certain form of torture, with words only, and this causes a strong reaction, smelling things, panik, hearing sounds and voices, because a traumatizing event is remembered, what would that be?

The words only are the trigger, the strong reaction in this example, would be flashback oriented, being your brain is taking back specific senses to that time.

A flashback is literally like a running movie of the event. They encompass any and all of your senses, taking you back to the traumatic event. If a person dissociated the entire event, thus no real memory is present of the event, the mind is still recording the senses, ie. you get triggered and suddenly smell x or y just like you did in that traumatic event, as that is what your brain was capturing whilst dissociated, instead of what was actually completely happening.

Can one provoke flashbacks deliberately by trying to remember something, for example when writing in a diary or when trying to recall things in a T-Session?

I wouldn't say you can provoke them deliberately, though you will absolutely experience heightened symptoms during trauma work. It is a near given to experience extreme symptoms when doing trauma work of most kinds.

This is the very thing that often scares people off from getting better. They start working on healing themselves, they have to look at aspects of their trauma, and because symptoms go through the roof they stop everything and concentrate on lowering symptoms, then avoidance of trauma work due to the normal experience it provokes.

If a person said they spike / travel along at say with PTSD at 7 out of 10 symptoms... then when you do trauma work, chances are you're going to be at a flat 10 out of 10, and even then, you will likely be spiking into the danger zone. End of the day, you have to be realistic to expect this, acknowledge it for what it is, being short term pain for long term gain, and push yourself through it and keep going. It subsides at that point of pushing forward.

 

[Elizabeth-Ann]

Thank you, Anthony! That hits the point exactly - and the danger I feel in getting a little better: Thinking that it would be sufficiant to "survive" even longer and just to avoiding that symptoms "spike" into the danger zone.

I am very scared, but I want to start living again a full, free life, not only surviving in constant fear and avoidance. :(

 

[Medicsw/PTSD]

Anthony,


Your decipher between stressors and triggers was very accurate. I have discovered they both have a different response as well as a different approach to each reaction.

Respectfully however, I am new to the forum and read only a few posts but this is not only a common mistake made by your average layperson. This is quite commonly done in the professional realm as well. The reason may be to the unimportance of the significance to its distinction as one symptom's action all too commonly causes the other to react. I believe one of my therapy session uncovered a very important reason why. For example:

I am a veteran that has endured combat stress. Because I have PTSD, I am sometimes unable to process normal stressors (as you state in your brilliant 'cup thoery' very good analogy by the way!), and combat stress. When I have a deadline for a project or a college course exam and my stress level is raised, I react in the same method as being attacked by the enemy or being called to a mass casualty mission with severely mangled/dead patients. I enter a state of hyper vigilance and become more susceptible to panic attacks and/or flashbacks.

Helicopters are a trigger mechanism for flashbacks. I am known to become disoriented to time and space as I am "triggered" to react by standing someplace open and expect it to land bringing casualties to me.

When one occurs without the other, I cope very well and can calm down or " snap out of it" through utilizing some of the cognitive therapy techniques. If the unfortunate climate occurs with a combination of the symptoms, this can make for a very difficult time for me and requires a higher amount of focus and concentration. I am only speaking for myself but I feel very confident that at least a couple of others in this forum can collaborate my point that this can sometimes cause a loss of focus and concentration away from other things to return to a state of balance.

You explained a great analogy of cups to PTSD. Allow me to feabily make an attempt to my linear understanding of focus and concentration. Focus is like a blanket that we use to cover as much of our tasks as possible. We all eventually meet a threshold regardless of our mental capabilities. Some have larger blankets and many like those of us that suffer from this condition have maybe just enough to cover the most important tasks. Mine for example is tasks associated to my role in my family, my education and my job. Shifting our focus and concentration during times of duress with PTSD, is like pulling the blanket to another area. We abandon one of the other tasks that may be considered important. This is because, normal stress that invokes combat stress reactions (or other stressors that cause PTSD) will physiologically induce the "fight or flight" mode and in most of us that is a survival reaction to what we are exposed to. This is one of the reason(s) some people have a hard time associating to those diagnosed with PTSD because it appears to be a self serving mode we enter into and we tend to negate areas we cannot focus enough to accomplish but I digress... .

As we manage this condition, expose ourselves to triggers and acknowledge our stress levels, we tend to get better over time. However, I have been told time and time again, this is a condition that becomes " manageable" and less likely to be cured. That is because for all of us, we have been exposed to stress that is not common to an average person. I am in no way taking the spirit of your message that acknowledgement of our environment and what is occurring gives us a better advantage to coping and subduing the symptoms. I just caution that those that read your post with a hope of being completely symptom free of this condition rather than incorporating a common anima of acceptance can be disheartening. I tell people all the time that as I continue taking my medicine and practicing my relaxation techniques, I still cannot stop the symptoms from occurring but I can have a better handle on them. I even hope to stop taking my medicine but there is now a great amount of respect for us that endure this condition and I remain weary of ever allowing myself to be caught off guard. The worse thing for me at this point would be regression.


Respectfully,


Steve

 

[wife of]

I love the way this thread has sorted this for folk......any chance of one on dis-sociatian/dis-association...as a lot of people confuse those as well.

 

[Medicsw/PTSD]

I love the way this thread has sorted this for folk......any chance of one on dis-sociatian/dis-association...as a lot of people confuse those as well.

Good point! Once again, I am not sure that there is a distinction with any of these terms when we have "episodes" associated with PTSD. I do aknowlwedge that there is a good amount of therepuetic value with identifying what is going on and I can only speak for myself in regards to how I respond to these episodes. If I am in the middle of one, I can not tell you the different between a ham sandwich and a chalk board much less compare triggers with sensors and dis-sociatian/dis-association. I am only aware that something is wrong and I need to "come back" once the episode passes, I am able to identify or associate with the stimulant but does it make that much of a difference with identify these terms? I find I take on the same mentality as my dog in that when an episode occurs, I just become aware that something is out of the ordinary and requires me to be mindful of what is changing around me. My dog will either take on a defense posture (between me and my family, please understand I have not ever been a danger to anyone outside of myself but my dog is only aware at the time that something is amidst and therefore reacts primitively to her environment), or she will lay next me whining and nudging me until I "come out of it"


V/r

Steve

 

[anthony]

Hey Steve,

I am a combat veteran myself, hence my PTSD... and yes, everything you said above is extremely accurate in my opinion. Outcome is vastly different per person, when either triggered or progressively stressed.

Episodes is more accurate of saying, symptoms, being the plural. When people normally think of symptoms, they think of something internal, however; if you read PTSD symptoms, many of them are actually external symptoms, ie. heightened responses to stimuli, anxiety in general (PTSD in general) is one huge external stimuli, yet felt internally via what we know and call anxiety. Anxiety causes reactions, even though it is internal, it is equally as external via these reactions (episodes or any other appropriate word is accurate).

One could also not accurately gauge how these episodes would manifest on a per person basis, even though mental health knows specific factors and cues, severity is individual.

 

[Emilie]

I found this thread when I looked up "calming down" (I was trying to convince myself to calm down right now and stop festering), and it couldn't have fit the bill more in a very surprising way. I understand the confusion and/or frustrations here and I'm not discrediting anyone, so please (pretty pretty please) don't be offended. Take what I'm about to type as a personal opinion based on my personal experience rather than a guideline or advice for yourself. I don't hold a crystal ball and I don't know your experiences.

So...

Anthony, I'm pretty sure I knew exactly what you touched base on in the OP because I am beyond guilty of it... and it helps now for me to understand that flaw in my fundamental thought process. Let me see if I got this right.

I have complex trauma (I have a set of triggers for each separate trauma.) and I got very used to calling everything a trigger because it's hard to pinpoint what is and what is not, my biggest frustration in therapy was having a Tdoc that tried to address my childhood as a whole, instead of systematically breaking down each traumatic experience and tackling it one trauma at a time. Wow, I just had a total epiphany about my experience with her. In fact, I think her biggest flaw was encouraging me to only ever talk about stressors, allowing me to fester on them and grow them. Anyway, irrelevant now. Onward...

I've also lied to myself several times about triggers to the point that some of those lies are deeply ingrained in my ego. For example(and I will try to spare many details), during one of the times I was raped I was I was cut with scissors. Scissors -used to- trigger me as a child You have to use scissors a lot over the course of your life, and I'm an artist. So I got over THAT trigger. But, there were times when I would catch myself stressed out over something I was festering on, and because I would have a pair of scissors in my hand, I would get pissed off, take out my anger on those around me, and blame it on the scissors. In reality, I was stressed out, I didn't know how to ask for help, and it was convenient for me to blame it on something else so I could eject my hurt and frustration onto someone else and walk away unscathed.

Based on your post, I think I can pinpoint and differentiate whether I'm bullshitting myself or I am reacting. Whenever I get a rush of adrenaline and anger! Wow...that blows my mind.

Quickly though...One thing I've noticed is that if my husband for example touched my arm a certain way, and let's say that I was touched the same way during my trauma, when I slap his hand away before I even think about it, that's a trigger (in your OP's words, a trigger)? And then afterwards, if I get panicky, it's because I'm stressed out that I just got triggered? I think (and I don't know, words online get confusing and miscommunicated) many people are confusing the two because often they can happen so simultaneously that it's easy to correlate the two. The ego is very powerful in protecting a hurting soul.

Lots of love

P.S. I wish I would have read more posts before I started making threads on this site, there's so much valuable information I never took into consideration...

 

[anthony]

For example(and I will try to spare many details), during one of the times I was raped I was I was cut with scissors. Scissors -used to- trigger me as a child You have to use scissors a lot over the course of your life, and I'm an artist. So I got over THAT trigger. But, there were times when I would catch myself stressed out over something I was festering on, and because I would have a pair of scissors in my hand, I would get pissed off, take out my anger on those around me, and blame it on the scissors. In reality, I was stressed out, I didn't know how to ask for help, and it was convenient for me to blame it on something else so I could eject my hurt and frustration onto someone else and walk away unscathed.

That is exactly spot on the mark. Well done on the self evaluation.

Quickly though...One thing I've noticed is that if my husband for example touched my arm a certain way, and let's say that I was touched the same way during my trauma, when I slap his hand away before I even think about it, that's a trigger (in your OP's words, a trigger)? And then afterwards, if I get panicky, it's because I'm stressed out that I just got triggered?

The trigger was being touched. The reaction to the trigger was instantly slapping the hand way, before your brain could even think about it, because that reaction is instinctual based on your past. The continued reaction is symptoms, the aftermath, the effect of being triggered.

Stressors are more little aspects of life all bottling up within you, and it only takes one thing to make you snap, regardless of past trauma... it can simply be the toilet roll being around the wrong way, literally anything, then you snap and have symptoms. The difference is you weren't triggered, you were stressed into the reaction.

So yes, you literally change that exactly the same as you did with the scissors, being you expose yourself to it over and over again, by having your husband place his hand on you at inopportune times, without you knowing its coming, all in an attempt to try and change your brain to stop reacting. It will change, have no doubt... it is purely the time it takes. Basically... the faster you go at it the quicker it changes.

Saying that though, you can also become used to being touched in your home versus if someone did that in your work place, husband or not, you may still respond the same. It is purely your brain differentiating the difference in location to how you feel securely. Normally a person feels more secure at home, with family and loved ones, than at work with colleagues.

 

[want2cope]

Anthony, this topic somehow hit a nerve with me. I apologize to you and to other people I may have offended with comments I made about it. It is a very informative piece of information, thanks for posting.....

 

[anthony]

I don't think you have anything to apologise for W2C.

 

[Emilie]

Thanks ant, I appreciate your response

It all really helps me out a lot, I have no idea where I'd be right now if I hadn't come across this forum site.