Lesson 10: Surrendering to Triggers

The trauma survivor who struggles with triggers can feel like two different people.

It’s a dual nature, a Jekyll and Hyde, where we feel like our bodies harbor two very different personalities. There’s the pre-trigger us and then the post-trigger one. With the former, life feels manageable, all things considered. When the trigger strikes, however, we can feel like life has tossed us into a clothes dryer. Up is down. Everything spins out of focus, and it can seem like there is nothing to grasp to steady ourselves. It’s during these moments that we find it nearly impossible to react in any sort of measured, constructive manner. It’s right here, in this split second, that we make the decision of how to react.

If your decision was to surrender to your fight/flight/freeze response, you likely felt the ramifications of that response. It is one of survival: it shuts out others, ignores their perspective, and dismisses their feelings. This makes sense: your mind and body feel attacked and only want to look out for themselves. But when these triggers occur during non-traumatic events, repeatedly, relationships pay a price.

Those with whom we are closest tend to be those we target with our reactions and feel attacked by us at the very moment we feel attacked by the trigger. We can’t expect them to comprehend our pain when we inflict pain on them with every yell, strike, dig, or rebuff. This can make us feel helpless as we watch our triggered selves continually make the destructive decision. Shame, guilt, frustration, or grief often follow.

Surrendering to our trigger doesn’t work. Therefore, we need to find a better way.