Triggers seem to be part and parcel of every trauma survivor’s experience. Any survivor of any trauma can be triggered into post-traumatic flashbacks – and for dissociative survivors, navigating potential triggers can sometimes be like trying to cross a demilitarized zone… although the land looks peaceful and quiet and empty, any move we make could touch off an unseen and unexpected explosion, dissolving the apparent peace into a chaotic nightmare.
Identifying and learning to manage triggers can absorb a big chunk of therapy time. We learn about being mindful of what leads to a trigger, and we learn grounding techniques to employ if we are triggered. We learn about relaxation and self-soothing and “acting through the fear”. We learn about biofeedback and how to breathe through anxiety and panic attacks and how a support network of other survivors can help us to feel more validated and less like a freak.
All these things are very helpful in terms of managing triggers – but is that good enough? What about defusing them so that we are no longer plagued by their intrusion into our lives?
Defusing a trigger is a difficult, but at the same time fairly straightforward task in cases of “simple” PTSD –that is, PTSD that arises from a single or short-term trauma such as being mugged or raped, or being in a war zone for a period of time. These things are undeniably painful and traumatic, but the fact that the trauma is a discrete and easily-defined event makes it that much easier to identify where triggers are coming from (because the number of potential sources is much more limited), and easier for the survivor of the trauma to make the connection between the trauma and the trigger.
In the complex post-traumatic morass that is DID, where there are frequently decades of abuse and hundreds or thousands of individual events from which to choose, identifying the source of a trigger can be much more complicated. And it is extremely taxing on a survivor’s strength and energy to withstand the distressing images, the terror, the rage, the physical pain or other feelings – in short, all the elements that can comprise a response to a trigger – let alone to do anything more productive than get through it.
However, it is worth our time and energy to analyze our triggers, and here’s why.
Our triggers are often (although not always) linked to definable phenomena. They might link to a memory or event that we aren’t ready to deal with yet – and if that’s the case, then we’ll simply have to cope with the trigger until we are ready to deal with its source – but there may be some triggers whose sources lie in things we can deal with right now.
It is therefore worth listening to what our triggers can teach us. If a specific activity triggers a particular memory, then look at as much of that memory as you are able. If a feeling is triggered, follow the feeling, define it, link it to other times when you felt the same way, follow the chain back through however many events it takes until you arrive at the source (or sources). (Please note that I am not at this point discussing programming getting triggered – that’s a completely different subject. What I’m saying here refers only to PTSD-related triggers.)
PTSD triggers spring from the rejected or denied or repressed elements of our own experiences and memories.
Consequently, being able to face and accept our own truths is what takes the power away from these triggers.
If we can accept our truths, learn about them, talk about them, feel the feelings in connection with the right event (instead of having them triggered by fifty other similar-but-different events), express what needs to be expressed – process the memory, internalize it and connect to it, and begin to actually heal from it – then the triggers that were once associated with that experience or person or memory will fade away.
Connecting to our own experiences means that our mind will no longer need to use subconscious tricks to catch our attention and remind us of our secrets. If we know and connect to the truth of why we feel or act or react a certain way, then we will no longer be caught off guard by our own spontaneous cross-association. There will be no more uncontrolled linking of our pain to every similarity we meet because we are unaware of the one thing to which that pain actually belongs. We will be aware, we will be connected, and the mystery will be gone (as will the trigger).
Ignoring the truth of our histories, however horrendous they were, will never undo what has already happened. Pretending or denying or ignoring reality is not, in the end, in our best interest. We already know the horrors that are there – we have already seen and experienced them, and we have already survived them. It is doing ourselves no favor in the current day to encourage ourselves in the belief that the one thing we can’t handle is to remember them. Such a belief is a denial of our own strength and potential; it suffocates us with our own unnecessary defeatism.
If we truly want to heal, if we truly want to feel better in the long run (and not just run from bandaid to bandaid in a quest for immediate short-term relief) – then we will need to stop running from ourselves and our truths – we need to stop giving in to our irrational fears that we are too weak to remember what we were already strong enough to survive.
Bandaids are easier, but real healing is worth every tear we shed to achieve it.
