Lesson 6: What's a Trauma Trigger?

Many who suffer through a traumatic event experience trauma triggers long afterward.

A trauma trigger can be anything that reminds you of your traumatic event and causes you to re-experience the emotions from that event. You may recollect distressing emotions or memories. Your body might react physically with chills, tremors, or nausea, etc. This happens because your mind and body are experiencing that fight, flight, or freeze response—the same as when you experienced the trauma.

Triggers run the gamut, and they’re different for everybody. You might have several different triggers as well. (Lucky you!) Let’s look at how these triggers can appear:

Sensory cues: What you see, smell, hear, touch, or taste might resemble aspects of your traumatic event and create a trigger.

Emotional states: How you feel can create a trigger. For example, feeling out of control or trapped could trigger you if you felt that same feeling during your traumatic event.

Personal traits: Someone’s dialect, tone, or phrasing, their expressions or mannerisms could remind you of someone who harmed you during a traumatic event.

Places: Being someplace reminiscent of where your trauma occurred can instigate a trigger response. These could be parks, schools, parking ramps, elevators, vehicles, etc.

Self-induced cues: Intrusive thoughts, self-degradation, etc., can create a trigger. So can physical responses like difficulty catching your breath or having a racing heartbeat.

Time: When a traumatic event happened can also be a factor. If your traumatic event happened at night, you might feel a trigger during the evening hours that makes you anxious before bed.

Recognizing triggers is a huge step because it allows you to regain a sense of control and develop tactics to deal with triggers when they happen.