Triggers

[Teal]

Some people with PTSD will have particular subjects that they avoid, but I don’t find any particular subject too difficult. I don’t have triggers in that sense.

I find myself having flashbacks to completely random, highly specific objects/situations. I can’t predict what my triggers are going to be.

I saw a teenager with a particular model of mobile phone- and my thoughts just started to race- it was the fact that they’re in a school uniform with that specific phone in their hand.

I would never be able to explain to someone else why something so insignificant causes such a strong response in me without going into personal detail. I didn’t even remember what I started having flashbacks about, so I wouldn’t be able to explain even if I tried.

It feels like being blind to your own mind. It makes you feel very out of control, since you’re thrown into the deep end all of a sudden, and have to keep it together.

Is it similar for everyone else? Or do you have a particular subject that you know is going to set you off?

 

[Sideways]

Definitely relate.

My triggers have been things like grey carpet (not all grey carpet - dappled patterns are usually the worst), the smell of wheat pies, etc. Very specific.

I think that’s actually pretty normal. I’ve worked with people who are similar. For example, one lady I worked with we avoided the soda aisle because 1.25L bottles of coke were a trigger. Human brains are weird!

There are subjects that are stressors, for sure. I need to increase checking in with myself and making sure I’m not getting too much child abuse news, for example. Stuff like that tends to not set me off in the moment, though. It’s more sinister, tending to just erode my resilience and cause meltdowns once I’m some time & distance from it, usually somewhere private.

 

[Friday]

- Commercial carpet, coffee, & cigars/pipes/cigarettes. = GOODNIGHT IRENE
- RUNNING, with cordite in the air, through trees, with disco lights, after someone I love = TOAST.
- Sunlight shafting in a particular way - DOA.

MOST triggers, in both my experience & observation, are …alarmingly… specific.

STRESSORS on the other hand? Far more predictable. As they’re so fawking broad.

Here’s why >>> Stressor vs. Trigger - What Is A Trigger?

 

[Teal]

Here’s why >>> Stressor vs. Trigger - What Is A Trigger?

I had no idea about the term stressor! Thank you - very informative.

 

[gorgonzola]

Once upon a time I was accidentally triggered by my therapist describing - not even stepping me through as an exercise, but describing... well, okay, beginning to describe - a particular common grounding technique. That was not on my bingo card (and I very much doubt it was on hers either). That took a being-pursued-by-a-mad-axe-murderer-across-the-moors-all-night aggregate amount of epinephrine and dumped it in the space of approximately 2 seconds. Took the best part of a week to recover.

I had earlier begun to read about the same technique (at least, the very start began the same way) and was able to nope out of reading further before it got bad. Still have no idea what the technique is, only some idea of what I imagine it to be... and I'm going to stop thinking about that now.

Underlying it all I believe I'm actually triggered in general by <ed: censored very everyday item>s and keep it away with some level of permanent dissociation, which grounding techniques cut right through when I'm in the process of imagining them being effective.

I am OK with grounding in general... provided it's ineffective.

I have such a weird case.

 

[arfie]

i can never predict my own triggers. most of them seem to be random reminders of bygone trauma.

 

[Movingforward10]

Running in the heat, for reasons that don't make full sense to me, is/was a trigger. Perhaps it's the impact I feel within my body that sets something off? No idea. But running in the heat was never an activity that happened in my traumas.

Other triggers have also come out of the blue:
A wine stain that made me think it was blood.
My partner doing something unexpected when we:re intimate.
Having an injury in my genitals.
I can understand how they are related, but they take me by surprise because I don't expect them (which may be the actual trigger?).

other triggers make more sense and are linked more directly: groups of men, a particular type of man, the name of the town this happened in, invasive medical procedures.
And then the relational trauma: being dismissed, being ignored, not being considered.

 

[FMCA]

men who start showing interest in me in a lewd way, makes my lose complete control screaming and shouting. The town the first attack took place, I hate going there, avoid at all costs. Im not in a relationship because probably every single thing would trigger me, the possibility of abandonment, id feel completely worthless and the sex id feel like I was being used as an object again.

 

[Freddyt]

MOST triggers, in both my experience & observation, are …alarmingly… specific.

Perfectly said. I have a whole truck full of stressors, and a handful of triggers.

Stressors make it difficult to stay present.
Triggers make it impossible.

 

[gorgonzola]

Stressors make it difficult to stay present.
Triggers make it impossible.

How wonderfully succinct of you.

 

[forlightandlife]

I've been thinking about this a lot today, as I have been feeling triggered without an obvious cause. There are specific things - cold water in the shower, having anything sticky on my hands, that are known triggers.

It's Thursday here in the United States. Thursdays have been difficult for me lately, for no clear reason. Today I googled the date I was first raped as a child (I know the exact day because it happened on my birthday) and guess what day of the week that was...Thursday.

 

[FFnerd]

Based on the earlier definition of stressors vs triggers - Stressors are very broad for me, certain smells, unexpected physical contact with someone, cold attitudes, events, etc. I honestly can only think of one trigger right now, and that is a video game of all things. Thinking of it is fine for me, trying to explain it out loud makes me fall apart - very random lol.
Somewhere in between is any visual depiction or mention of cutting and wrists - automatically has me compulsively flapping my hands just to shake the thought away, have to take a big breather every time.