Trigger Logic: It Just Feels So Real

How does getting "triggered" work?

• You have a wounding experience in your past. 
  • Ex. A parent took you favorite stuffed animal away before you were ready so that you would "grow up" on time.
• That wound creates a body state along with a belief that becomes a part of your personality.
  • Ex.  Body state: upward directed tension in the core that resists a collapse. Belief: "There is no time for my needs." Behavior: you commonly forego your needs in order to get more work done. 
• You are generally unaware of the pattern but occasionally something happens that triggers the aspect of the body state that you avoid (namely the collapse in this example). 
  • Ex. You have an inexpensive but special object on your keychain. One day it gets lost. You become excessively devastated by the loss and feel sad and distracted all day. 
• The next step of getting triggered can show up in two different ways:
  • Either: You are completely identified with the trigger and believe that anyone would feel just as devastated as you do.
    • Ex. You imagine that anyone who lost their keychain object would feel devastated and expect understanding and commiseration from others.
  • Or: You realize you are triggered but are overwhelmed by the strength of the trigger.
    • Ex. You realize that other people would feel sad for a moment but would move on pretty quickly from the loss. Even though you know that, part of you keeps saying "but this really is horrible! How will I get through the day?"
• In whatever way the trigger shows up, it kicks off a cascade of rumination, catastrophizing, shame spirals, etc.:
  • Ex. You devastation turns into self-deprecation, "I did this to myself, I'm so disorganized, I don't take good care of myself, I was careless, its always been this way, I'm just broken."
• Perhaps you share your thoughts with someone and they try to soothe you, talk you out of the trigger, rationalize the situation, or minimize your feeling, all common responses in our culture when someone does not know how to help you with the trigger.
  • Ex. You explain how devastated you are and why you feel that way and someone says "awww, c'mon, its not so bad, we can get a new one."
• These common responses from others do not decrease your trigger but instead increase the intensity. You either get into an argument with the person who is trying to help or you withdraw into your internal dynamic, recognizing that its useless to get the other person to understand.
  • Ex. You double down on your position with the other person and get into an argument "You don't understand! The object is so meaningful to me. I can't get another one. Even if they are the same product, I'll know! They are not the same!"
  • "Jeeze, okay! I was just trying to help, seems like you're blowing this out of proportion."
  • Then you turn on yourself "I cant believe they don't get what this means about me! I'm so messed up, I can't keep track of a stupid keychain. They have to think the same thing, they're just being nice and not telling me how stupid I look."
• Eventually the momentum of this instance of the trigger dies down but you hold onto this moment in the vault of evidence that getting this upset and dysregulated about something is appropriate and necessary.
  • Ex. Eventually, you stop thinking constantly about the lost item but you add this moment into the vault of evidence that you are, in fact, deeply broken and flawed. The next time something similar happens, you repeat all of the above steps and remember this loss along with all of other times you got triggered in this way and use these moments to fuel your rumination, activation, and shame spiral.

Trigger Logic: this refers to the the thought pattern related to maintaining the intensity and "flavor" of the trigger. When in the process of a trigger, we can feel like it is of the utmost importance to maintain the triggered state; that to let it go would compromise our integrity, safety, or goal in the moment. The thoughts can say to us that it is impossible to regulate. To even think of regulating can feel threatening, insulting, or shaming.

It Just Feels So Real: The reason its hard to "reason" with a trigger is because your body really feels like its in the original past event while your mind does not have the sensation of remembering. So you are actually feeling the past but absolutely cannot distinguish it from the present. 

In our example, the loss of the keychain object feels like the forced removal of the stuffed animal when you were a little child. The self attack you engage in is the defense you used as a child to deal with the wound created by the misattuned parent.

When the stuffed animal was taken away, your little body went into chaos. You didn't understand what was happening and blamed yourself, because that is what little children do to maintain the notion that their caregivers are "good, reliable, and worthy of trust." It is safer for a child to think that they are the problem rather than the adults because they rely on the adults for survival.

So, when you are triggered, you essentially "forget" you are an adult and feel like a threatened child, teenager, or some other past disempowered version of yourself. You experience that past version in your body and you feel like that version is you in the here and now, even though it is not, in fact, you currently.

Regulation: Its Not So Easy. Just because there is a thought component to trigger logic does not mean that it is easy to "just regulate" in the moment. Regulating take a ton of awareness and practice. People who have been able to practice genuine regulation are lucky, privileged, and hard-working because genuine regulation practices are hard to come by and, at times, hard to learn.

Once someone understands how to regulate and their particular needs regarding regulating, the process can become quite simple. The road to simplicity can be a long and harrowing one, however, with many opportunities for illusions, mysteries, and traps along the way.

How do I learn to regulate?

• Process your main trauma/trigger themes. This is best done with a trauma therapist.
• Learn to notice when you are triggered
• Get to know your trigger logic and figure out how to "talk" to it so that the triggered part trusts you enough to regulate. Embodied parts work is really good for this step.
• Once your body and mind trust you again, then implement a regulation tool (breathing, moving, self-talk, math, finding objects, etc.)
• After you have regulated, revisit the issue and make a decision using your gut, heart, intuition, and rationality together as a team.

​How do I know that I am regulating and not dissociating or coping with compartmentalization? In essence, you will be able to assess the objective magnitude of an event in terms of its level of threat towards you and others. You will be able to recognize that most unpleasant events are uncomfortable and inconvenient but are not emergencies or a sign that either you or the world are completely awful. Your emotions will serve as trustworthy messengers rather than threatening energies that totally overwhelm you. You will be able to think and feel at the same time and be able to choose a course of action that is in your and other's best interest.