Your Experience Being Triggered...

[Leigh925]

Yesterday I got triggered. I went from being in a very good mood to panicked, unsafe and then dissociated very quickly. It's like falling down the rabbit hole where it is dark and there is no hope. In the past I have cut and I wanted to so badly last night but I have almost hit the 6 month mark of no cutting and I wanted that more than the temporary relief I ever got from cutting.

I spent the night vacillating between numbness, dissociation and excruciating pain.

I was trying to describe to my therapist what is feels like to be triggered. I don't know that I have the verbiage to do it justice.

This reaction was more intense than usual for me. Kind of how I used to be before I started therapy. Usually I just feel it and have learned to notice it....recognize that I am being triggered and I can keep from going on the complete ride. Last night I fell all in.

Even though my therapist is super supportive and really great. I don't think he understands why I can't just choose to climb out of it. I felt like I battled it all night and just now I am starting to come out of it. I think he gets frustrated when he says "everything is ok and you are safe now" doesn't do the trick and pull me out of. That has worked in the past but never for a trigger like this.

I just wondered what you all feel like when you are triggered.

 

[Intrepid]

Feels like I fall off a wall. When I look up from the bottom I have no idea how I am going to get back up where I started from.

My therapist doesn't get the triggering either. She was really struggling to understand yesterday, but if you haven't been through it you won't get it.

 

[KwanYingirl]

OMG the same thing happened to me a week ago and it's like everything I have learned is inaccessible to me. I just can't get out of this trigger. It was a long suppressed event. I've reached out to my therapist and all he says is it's not happening now, or you're safe now, or you don't put yourself in harms way (even though I admit to him how much I want to cut). I don't know what to say. Right now I'm just feeling defeated by the whole f*cking disorder. And feeling my therapist is getting tired of me. Or he is bored with me. Ugh...

 

[lostforgottensoul]

I just wondered what you all feel like when you are triggered.

Theres a loaded question. It depends on what has triggered me. Most of the time my head spins faster than a spin cycle of a washing machine, i am also a cutter and generally seek as much pain as possible, i seek out anything that will numb it enough to 'be ok' but usually nothing works and i spin to 'suicide land' and my internal dialog of "im a bad person:, "everyone hates me", "whats wrong with me", "no one likes me" etc.

I also disassociate but i do that in therapy so thats not unusual. It feels more like a spin, a fast moving spin. Ive disassociated completely during tailspins and ended up on the very active train tracks by my house and have no clue how i got there, let alone out of my house.

It just depends on what caused it for me.

 

[Leigh925]

it's like everything I have learned is inaccessible to me

yes! Exactly. It is so frustrating. I have a list of grounding techniques but like @lostforgottensoul my head feels the spin cycle thing and I don't even think about doing half of the things that might help me.

I am physically exhausted and dizzy. I feel better but triggers like that wipe me out after I come out of them. It almost feels like the flu.

 

[KwanYingirl]

@lostforgottensoul me too. Completely like you. The self compassion advice is to try to allow and soothe painful emotions (i.e. Triggers). I'm on Pluto wandering around in a fog.

 

[Hush92]

I made a post about this on a different website the other day actually.

"....my mental/emotional state crashes. It's like the world becomes ugly. I'm hit by despair and hopelessness. It's painful. I become depressed and withdrawn. Sometimes I get bad flashbacks and feel like things are hurting me again or just get really worked up thinking about what happened to the point where all I can do is curl up into a little ball in my bed. Sometimes I go into a paranoid state..."

Mainly it just sucks. The other day something I was watching on my computer set me off really bad and I had an awful reaction like a reflex. I flung my laptop into the wall and was clawing at my head. When it ended I was freaked out because it was like I lost control of myself. Has anyone else experienced that?? I also deal a lot with dissociation but don't find it unpleasant, just weird.

 

[KwanYingirl]

Yeah. My therapist emailed me and said look around for something soothing so I picked up my lancet and cut. It worked only now I have to hide it. This internal chaos is unbearable. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

@KwanYingirl i find it hard to self sooth at the moment because it means you have to show yourself kindness and im like "why would i do that?"

Lancet isnt good but i can relate. I think your therapist meant like something soft, holding ice or snapping a rubber band used to work but stopped working but had not tried it in yrs and so trying it again might be a good idea; something soothing that wont hurt you cut i can relate.

 

[deleted]

I am the same way-when I try to explain anything to my T I fell like nonsense just comes out of my mouth. :p

But for me it's different depending on the trigger. Sometimes I almost instantly feel the need to run and hide, I feel like the world is closing in on me and everything starts becoming loud and rushed like someone hit fast forward on a remote. I become very reactive and if someone happens to touch me or come up behind me when I'm in that mental state I often will react physically against them because I think I am in physical danger or in my mind that person becomes my rapist. It's the worst feeling in the world and I feel like there is no way to describe it that is completely accurate.

Other times I become so paralyzed with fear that I can't move at all. Inside, I am overwhelmed with panic and I feel like I'm folding in on myself but on the outside I physically can't move. Often when this happens I have put myself in a corner or tried to hide myself in someway. I feel like I can't make any noise for fear of being found and attacked (this relates to me hiding in the corner of the bathroom after my rapist left and my fear that he or one of his friends was coming back so I felt I had to be completely silent or someone would come back and do it again) which is so hard when your heart rate is skyrocketing out of control. I honestly feel like I'm going to die. Again I can't explain it exactly but I hope that kind of makes some sense!

 

[Leigh925]

I hate that all of you have experienced these things but it is comforting to know that someone else gets what I am saying.

I also deal a lot with dissociation but don't find it unpleasant, just weird.

Me too. Actually sometimes I prefer the dissociation. Weird I know!

I almost instantly feel the need to run and hide, I feel like the world is closing in on me and everything starts becoming loud and rushed like someone hit fast forward on a remote.

. I wanted to run away so much last night and I felt completely over stimulated by the time I left therapy. I couldn't listen to the radio. I felt like the TV was so loud when I got home. I just wanted to curl up in a ball and be left alone and yet I didn't want to sink deeper and be alone.

@KwanYingirl sorry about the cutting. Last week I was so overcome that I really wanted to cut but I couldn't find an acceptable place to do it. I had a lot of doctors appts this week and I couldn't find a place that wouldn't be seen. I usually cut my thighs but I had a lump being biopsied there. I thought about my breasts but I would have to explain that to my husband. I finally thought I could cut on my feet and no one would know but I have done so good and I am trying so hard to hit the six month mark that I didn't give in. For once I was actually nice to myself and took myself out the next day and paid to have a pedicure because I didn't cut my feet.

But man I need some more coping skills because unfortunately and strangely enough to cutting always seems to be the one thing I can remember.

 

[Leigh925]

@KwanYingirl I was just rereading your posts and I thought it was interesting that you said that you felt like your therapist was bored with you.

I definitely think mine is tired of me but I have had this weird feeling about him being bored with me lately. In the beginning I think he was even kind of fascinated with a lot of the dynamics of my trauma. Now I am all out of secrets....nothing new to tell...just aftermath to deal with and I almost feel too exposed in a way....like I have given all of myself away. It took me forever to tell him the whole truth about everything. I almost feel lost that it is all out.

Even though it was bad abbot was still my secret. The one space in me that no one could mess with. They could take my body but not my dark hiding place. All those years of holding on to it and I just gave It away.