Living with PTSD: Managing Triggers
As an EMDR therapist, I am often helping trauma survivors know when they are activated or triggered by past events in their lives. I want to share this information so that more people who are living with PTSD can manage their symptoms.
What are examples of triggers?
I think of trigger is any stimuli in the present that brings memories or reminders about a traumatic event in the past. It may seem strange to some people that events that happened 10,20, 30, 40 years ago can feel as though they are happening again in the present moment. That’s because the timeline associated with traumatic events is broken. Re-experiencing is a symptom of PTSD, and a trigger feels as if the danger is in the present.
Triggers can be so small - a date on the calendar, the changing light of spring, the smell of gas, the sound of a siren, looking at a clock at 3 PM, seeing a green car, a phone call from an old friend, a scowl on a stranger’s face, or your boss criticizing you for a mistake.
How can you tell that you are getting triggered?
Another way to think about a trigger is when your reaction is out of proportion to the cause. For example, if your kid refuses to do their homework and you fly into a rage. Maybe your kid doesn’t know how to do it or is confused. What from your past happened to you that might be causing you to react in this way? Did your parents yell at you? Were you a perfect student and mistakes were not allowed growing up?
When we are calm and safe with people around us our body and nervous system can relax. A trigger is a nervous system response to a perceived danger. The main trauma responses are: Flight, Fight, Freeze, Shut Down, and Fawn. I think most people are familiar with Flight or Fight. Freeze is the most extreme trauma response and it is equivalent to playing dead in the animal world. It looks like a deer in headlights. Shut Down is a relaxed version of freeze - where your body is relaxed but you are still immobilized. In addition, Fawn is when you are afraid of someone and you act nice to them. It is a way to appease someone who might harm you. You are walking on eggshells to not upset them.
Your body decides how you react to a trigger and which of these trauma responses you exhibit. Your trauma response is not your fault.
What can I do if I’m triggered?
If you are in a place where it is appropriate to say that you feel nervous, then talk about it. For example, if you are in a doctor’s office and feeling triggered, then talk to the nurse about having PTSD or even just being nervous. Being able to identify and communicate your feelings can be extremely helpful in the moment of activation and helps get you out of your head back into the present.
If the feelings are extremely overwhelming. Notice that your body and nervous system are activated. Once you are in a safe place, feel your feelings. Separate the past from the present. Find a trusted person or therapist to talk to process the event. Breathe. Ground yourself in safety in the present.
Make a list of triggers on your phone so that you are prepared for the trigger at least cognitively and then you won’t feel so blindsided when they happen again.
How could a trauma therapy help me?
With any of the trauma psychotherapy treatments, you can process the trauma of the past to reduce and eventually eliminate the triggers in the present. All of the trauma treatments, tend to focus on your body, moments of activation, reducing the charge or emotion of those triggers, and gaining a greater understanding and self-compassion for yourself and what you went through in the past. Healing from trauma doesn’t change the past, but it does help you recognize, understand, and know what happened without the intensity of being triggered. Through healing, the events that happened in the past are firmly in the past and are just part of the story of what happened to you. The goal of most trauma treatments is to feel safe in the present.
