So, stating to your girlfriend/boyfriend, you've caused a PTSD trigger, would be incorrect. A more appropriate response would be, he buddy or lady, when you do such and such, it makes me feel (insert normal stress response here: angry, exhausted, insecure, talked down to, or whatever it makes you feel). The point is that we must differentiate because we can control our reactions to normal stress responses. We are responsible adults. We can control how we treat people. It's not okay to attribute our acting rude!selfish, abusive or whatever to our PTSD and be "trigger happy" so to speak loll, every time we feel a "bad" feeling.
I find it distressing sometimes to read how people with PTSD treat their partners, so I avoid those discussions. My partner stresses me out sometimes with lack of housework - The stress begins to build and when my stress cup is full, this sometimes makes it overflow, and I become irritable, I snap at him, and minutes later I apologise, explain what is wrong and how he has made me feel, possibly explain I am having a bad day. I find the mess difficult to cope with. Sometimes I share with him what I have been thinking about, I talk out a bit of trauma, and then I try to move on from the conversation to feel better. He knows I did not mean to snap at him, but also knows he is being lazy :facepalm:. This would be a stressor situation.
I think I have worked out a lot of stressors from this thread, but I am still struggling with the triggers part.
If a certain word makes my heart jump and my hands sweat, is this still just a stressor, because it is an internal and external fear response? This happens when I hear or read the word. Other times I literally forget where I am and feel like I've been teleported somewhere else, back to the trauma - people have said to me it looked like my eye glazed over and have said "I wondered where you had gone" (is this disassociation? I did not think I really experienced that).
If it is dark, and I begin to feel scared, and suddenly I am shaking and terrified, I need to turn the light on and remind myself I am ok and I am safe (I am not always able to do this and luckily I have a partner who has woken up when I have been crying and scared) - is this being triggered? Because I am thinking so much about the events, so much so I feel like I can actually feel things that were happening to me years ago? It is the sight of the dark and the light coming in from street lights through the blinds that makes this happen, I think.
Do we say that the nightmares are triggers if completely related to the trauma? I apologise for being so slow at this, my brain is finding it all rather difficult to digest, and I really appreciate everyone sharing and posting on this thread, thank you all.
I am thankful that my flashbacks have been few, and I am learning a lot from this forum and the therapy I have just began. The psych has never mentioned the words stressor or trigger though, so far, but it is early days and I do not really understand yet where the therapy is going exactly, yet I am ready to start working on this. I am determined to be in the 93% (which Anthony mentioned), who manages to build my life the way I want it and cope with the illness until it is minimal.
