Will The Triggers Go Away?

[NicG]

I've been dealing with panic attacks and flashbacks which threatened to basically paralyse me in life since April last year, after escaping my traumatic situation in April the previous year. Things like songs, being intimate with other people, revisiting certain places set me off and have occasionally ended in me thinking it's still 2011 and that I'm still in the abusive relationship I escaped. I just wanted to know.. will the triggers ever stop? I know nobody can give me a definitive answer and that depends on how I find treatment etc etc but is it possible to move on and forget one day or will there always be reminders and potential for flashbacks for the rest of my life?

You guys are the best community, it's a really great reminder that I'm not always alone and that some people do understand, unlike a lot of the people around me who think they know it all because they're at the grand old age of 21!! Thanks everybody :) :)

 

[keifer]

I've asked that same question. In time, they get less and less. Sometimes, there's not going to be a trigger and happens for no reason and still catches you off guard.

As you learn to be more aware of things, it helps dealing with them. I'm not going to say it does hurt less but I've found it better over time, think years.

 

[Hashi]

is it possible to move on and forget one day or will there always be reminders and potential for flashbacks for the rest of my life?

Yes it's possible to move on. Not forgetting, but it being in the past and no longer active within you. There are things which are directly associated with trauma for me, that I used to react to very badly. Now I sometimes realise that I've just been around those things, or even using them, and I didn't give it a thought.

It does depend very much on treatment. The longer I spend on the forum, the more I think that without somatic therapy there's a risk that to process trauma would take a lifetime or longer.

I had six months of weekly craniosacral therapy (with a therapist who understood trauma) before I started talk therapy, and then I continued craniosacral therapy for about six months more while having talk therapy at the same time. Without that, I'm not sure how effective or helpful talk therapy would have been. I'm certain that at the very least it would have been far, far slower and more distressing.

Triggers and panic don't come from our conscious, cognitive minds, but from our damaged nervous systems, the body's automatic processes and instincts. That's what somatic therapy works with directly.

I also work with imagery a lot (things like visualisation, poems/metaphor and art therapy) because that's the language of the subconscious, and again we're dealing things in our subconscious that aren't easily reached via our conscious, cognitive minds.

I do think we need to do cognitive processing too. Talk therapy is very important to me. Just not on it's own.

 

[Britt.f7]

I think they lessen over time. At least mine have. I know they can show up out of no where, but, for now, mine are less frequent to non existent. Definitely in comparison to even a few years ago. Therapy and medication has helped me. I think the medication just to get my thoughts together, then the therapy once they were together. Are they gone permanently? I'm not sure. I'll take this though.

 

[NicG]

That's encouraging! Hashi, thanks for telling me how you've been working through it... I haven't really started the traumatic stuff with my therapist yet, she was more focussed on helping me survive getting through my uni course first. I'll definitely look into those techniques though they sound interesting. And anything with a chance of being helpful I'm up for!

Britt.f7, I guess mine are gradually lessening too. That said it's only been 2 years or so. I'm considering medication at the moment. I think this has just been on my mind more because I went to the movies with a friend recently, and this song that was a running theme through the whole film is something that's set me off really badly before. I spent quite a while trying to bring myself back to the present.

Thankyou everybody!