Triggers, I had SO many triggers.
It’s apropos that I named the “land” where all the work is done The Wild West because the work began with my triggers.
I think the Gottmans and other marriage and relationship experts talk about how people argue, how they fight is the number one indicator of the longevity and health of said relationship. And that most people argue from their childhood trauma and triggers. That it’s not two adults fighting it out, it’s two kids who feel insecure and unsafe so they can’t hold space for each other and that’s where resentment and relationship fractures occur.
A trigger is something that makes you feel activated, emotionally flooded, your anxiety spikes, you don’t feel rational, you can’t think straight and you flip into survival mode and having a conversation is pretty much impossible.
My ex had a lot of triggers, but I will admit, I had a plethora of them, too.
I shall list them, you know, for posterity:
- If I was being dismissed and not listened to, pure anxiety. If I was ignored? oohboy, I would be a sweaty, heart racing, crying mess. From here, I either fall apart or start saying really, really mean things. Stonewalling did this, too. My mom never grounded me, she would ignore me for hours or days. So the shame that I wasn’t a “good girl” was unbearable. I spent so many sessions in therapy working on this. It was irrational, it was my body freaking out, it was me not feeling physically safe. So, when this feeling would arise in me I would immediately sit on the floor and try to calm myself. Tell myself I am here, I am listening, I am safe. But, frankly, and this is me being vulnerable here… I only fully tackled this issue after getting on antidepressants. That’s a whole other story. I avoided taking them for years but my body finally forced me to do it. But this trigger, this was the key, the catalyst to unlock other issues going on and took me down a path I didn’t expect.
- Ummmm… that’s it. That’s my trigger. Huh.
Okay, so maybe I didn’t have many triggers, but I had a BIG one that caused a tidal wave of somatic trauma responses in me. And again, following that one trigger back opened the door to understanding myself and my inner world.
I’ll explain…
I learned how to self regulate, how to self soothe, tap my shoulders, chest, drink water etc. But the trigger still had a big reaction that I couldn’t control. Then I had two panic attacks back to back after a super creepy/disturbing conversation with my ex. I went to the emergency room for one of the panic attacks and I was put on anti anxiety medication. That didn’t work and I was finally talked into taking an antidepressant. I have been anti pharmaceuticals my entire life, so this felt like I had failed. But, I didn’t want another panic attack. I was desperate.
After a month, I had less anxiety. I’d say 80% less. I could process hard things SO much easier and the way I began to think about my problems and trigger(s) was like night and day. It wasn’t effortless, but I stopped getting that butterfly anxiety electricity in my whole body. So, it was like pure relief.
With the anxiety gone, me living on my own for the first time in my life and not having anyone else’s energy to contend with, a tsunami of emotions came crashing down on me. It wasn’t depression, it was the Lexapro mixed with a nervous system shutdown, burnout or Dorsal Vagal Shutdown.
The analogy that I could come up with is this… imagine being strapped into a roller coaster against your will for about a week straight. No breaks, nobody helping you. You just go up, around, you’re dropped and it happens again. You can’t sleep, you can’t relax. You get used to it, but it changes your tolerance for everything. Then it stops. You get off the roller coaster and you are free. You have to find a way to get back to baseline and that will probably entail many days of sleeping, zero noise and wanting to be alone. That’s sort of what it is like. A life of chaos, shame, stress, hyper vigilance, hyper empathy, negative self talk, self loathing, ignoring your needs and abusing your body and then one day… it all finally stops.
Who am I when I’m not drowning in stress hormones?
Someone who needs constant naps and who avoids people. That’s who I am. (And PB&J for every meal).
I’m confident that this phase will end (I’m currently going through it now), but what I’m pointing out here is…
Trigger>Body telling me something is wrong>panic attacks>forcing me to get on antidepressants>Finally feeling safe>nervous system shutdown>finally addressing all the stress I had normalized>addressing it all so I won’t repeat this bullshit again.
So the lesson here is to address your triggers, address that anxiety. You cannot start healing until you feel safe.
I’ll say it again…
You cannot start healing until you feel safe.
So, listen to your body and do what you need to do to move through your triggers to feel safe so you can find your baseline.
Because at the end of the day, we’re just trying to get back to who we were before we were conditioned to be someone else (that’s shadow work!).
