Six Ways I Manage My Triggers
I am triggered. Yes, twenty years after integration, triggers still haunt me now and again.
Intimacy
As often is the case, the trigger is related to intimacy. Someone I love is hurting. That hurt triggers me back to one era of my life, which triggers me back to my early childhood. I dissociate. My whole body hurts. My skin is on fire. I look for words to describe the sensation of being numb and feeling acute pain at the same time. I can’t find them.
Skin Throbbing with Old Memory
Fortunately, I’ve sorted out the other chaos that consumed me in the past so the pain of the trigger stands alone, not piled on top of identity confusion, relationship disfunction, derealization and depersonalization, conflict among alters, and other symptoms that come regularly with DID. Today, I know who I am, I have functional, loving relationships, and I feel real. My alters collaborate to make me a whole person and rarely come forward. Still, here I am, skin throbbing with old memory, heart breaking with fear, and soul waiting for impending doom.
The Body Keeps the Score*
Triggers are events in the present that remind us of something that happened in the past. They elicit emotional and bodily responses that correspond to the past event, not the present event. Often, that means we feel over-the-top emotions and some sort of crippling body pain. As traumatic memory researcher, Bessel van der Kolk*, encapsulates in his book’s memorable title “The Body Keeps the Score” (2015), the body really does keep the score. Triggers give us information about the past by drawing our attention to its effect on us today.
Managing Triggers
Here are some thoughts about managing triggers I have learned over the years. Maybe they will be helpful for you, too.
1. Acknowledge the Trigger: First, I acknowledge I have been triggered. For me, the telltale signs are overwhelming emotion, body pain, fear, doom. It may seem strange that acknowledgement isn’t automatic, but sometimes I am so enmeshed with the situation that the fact I’m experiencing a trigger goes by me.
2. Relate the Present to the Past: Then, I identify what caused the trigger in the present and explore how that event connects to my history. Even if I don’t remember a specific event in the past, I can connect it to patterns I do remember.
3. Respond to the Trigger: After painstaking reflection, I attempt to respond to the triggering event appropriately, usually not at the emotional level I am feeling which is related to the past. In other words, it might be appropriate for me to calmly tell another person my grievance using “I” statements, but not to rage at that person or to run away and curl up into a ball.
4. Use Grounding Techniques: In the meantime, I use grounding techniques to manage the pain of the trigger. For me, that might be a combination of meditating, slowing my pace, and talking with my therapist. Or, I might find that getting back into real life helps me move past the past and reminds me I am competent and worthy. You most certainly have found your own grounding techniques that work for you.
5. Work on Past and Present at the Same Time: In general, I find it most effective if I work on calming my inner waters related to the past and working out a solution in the present at the same time. This may or may not be true for you.
6. Keep Your Therapist in the Loop: Often, I manage my triggers with the support of my therapist, but not always. If the trigger is not monumental, I am pleased to say that, after years of therapy, I can do it by myself.
At one time, I had so many triggers that I lived in one big dissociative bubble, going from one inner crisis to another. Now, I may have one or two triggers a year – sometimes even fewer – that are manageable. I am grateful that the hard work of therapy has made me mostly trigger-free. May it be for you.
Self-Care
How do you manage your triggers? Can you identify when you are in a triggered state? What sorts of things trigger you? What helps you “come back to earth” when you are triggered?
Take some time to explore what you know about your triggers and what has worked best to manage them. Using that information, make a game plan. If ___ happens, I will do ___. Then make a list of the things you can do to help you when you’re triggered. Sometimes, our minds are consumed by pain when we’re in the middle of a trigger, and it’s helpful to have our game plan ready and waiting before the trigger even happens.
Make sure you take your trigger back to your therapist so s/he can help you unpack it and, over time, heal it. Remember, you are not your trigger. You are an adult who can take steps to protect yourself and your whole system in the present.
Invitation
Check out my website at www.lynbarrett.com where you can download my free ebook called DID Unpacked and receive a free weekly newsletter. My memoir, Crazy: Reclaiming Life from the Shadow of Traumatic Memory (formerly titled Crazy? A Memoir and Crazy: In Search of a Narrative) will be released on December 1, 2021. Our new Dissociative Writers website is filled with writing opportunities to explore.
Share with us your grounding techniques in the Comments below.
“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
Søren Kierkegaard