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Understanding Triggers and Trauma
- Denise Palma
- May 24, 2021
- 5 min read
Updated: May 25, 2021
You've probably seen the phrase "trigger warning" or the abbreviation "TW" online or heard someone claim they were "triggered" by anything in the previous few years.
A trigger is an incident that causes a memory tape or flashback to take the individual back to the original trauma. For some people, violent pictures of violence, for example, may be a trigger.
Triggers are extremely personal; various things elicit different reactions in various people. It is linked to our memories, experiences, and thoughts. Triggers might make a person feel depressed, anxious, or panicked. It may also produce flashbacks. A flashback is an unexpected recurrence of a vivid, generally unfavorable memory. It can lead a person to get disoriented and “relive” a distressing experience.
Personally, some of my triggers are when I get scolded or blamed, movies that have a relation to PTSD itself, too much stress and things to do, and many more. Not all days I experience such triggers but it really happens frequently and unexpectedly and when I do, it’s hard to get back to what you’re doing because it really consumes the whole of me. A trigger affects our ability to remain present in the moment and it may bring up specific thought patterns or influence your behavior.
The National Traumatic Stress Network has strived to provide definitions of types of traumatic events; differentiating them from one another based on the event, who is involved, and the interpretation of law.
Below are brief definitions to capture the core of each type of trauma.
- Sexual Abuse or Assault: Actual or attempted sexual contact, exposure to age-inappropriate sexual material or environments, sexual exploitation, unwanted or coercive sexual contact.
- Physical Abuse or Assault: Actual or attempted infliction of physical pain with or without use of an object or weapon and including use of severe corporeal punishment.
- Emotional Abuse/Psychological Maltreatment: Acts of commission against a minor child, other than physical or sexual abuse, that caused or could have caused conduct, cognitive, affective or other mental disturbance, such as verbal abuse, emotional abuse, excessive demands on a child's performance that may lead to negative self-image and disturbed behavior. Acts of omission against a minor child that caused or could have caused conduct, cognitive, affective or other mental disturbance, such as emotional neglect or intentional social deprivation.
-Neglect: Failure by the child victim's caretaker(s) to provide needed, age-appropriate care although financially able to do so, or offered financial or other means to do so, including physical neglect, medical neglect, or educational neglect.
- Serious Accident or Illness/Medical Procedure: Unintentional injury or accident, having a physical illness or experiencing medical procedures that are extremely painful and/or life threatening.
- Witness to Domestic Violence: Exposure to emotional abuse, actual/attempted physical or sexual assault, or aggressive control perpetrated between a parent/caretaker and another adult in the child victim's home environment or perpetrated by an adolescent against one or more adults in the child victim's home environment.
- Victim/Witness to Community Violence: Extreme violence in the community, including exposure to gang-related violence.
- School Violence: Violence that occurs in a school setting, including, but not limited to school shootings, bullying, interpersonal violence among classmates, and classmate suicide.
- Natural or Manmade Disasters: Major accident or disaster that is an unintentional result of a manmade or natural event.
- Forced Displacement: Forced relocation to a new home due to political reasons, generally including political asylees or immigrants fleeing political persecution.
- War/Terrorism/Political Violence: Exposure to acts of war/terrorism/political violence including incidents such bombing, shooting, looting, or accidents that are a result of terrorist activity as well as actions of individuals acting in isolation if they are considered political in nature.
- Victim/Witness to Extreme Personal/Interpersonal Violence: Includes extreme violence by or between individuals including exposure to homicide, suicide and other similar extreme events.
- Traumatic Grief/Separation: Death of a parent, primary caretaker or sibling, abrupt and/or unexpected, accidental or premature death or homicide of a close friend, family member, or other close relative; abrupt, unexplained and/or indefinite separation from a parent, primary caretaker or sibling due to circumstances beyond the child victim's.
- System-Induced Trauma: Traumatic removal from the home, traumatic foster placement, sibling separation, or multiple placements in a short amount of time.
According to Chopra Treatment Center, here are some ways to heal from trauma:
- Be Willing to Heal. The desire to feel better can be your best ally on the road to recovery. Don’t give in to the ego, which will try to tell you there’s something wrong with you: there’s nothing wrong with you. The reactions you experience because of trauma are only responses— they are not who you are.
- Accept Support From Loved Ones. When healing from emotional trauma, it’s important to connect with others regularly and avoid isolating yourself. It takes a village to raise a child, but it also takes a village to heal a person. Surrounding yourself with those who support, love and respect you will be invaluable on your path to healing.
- Seek The Assistance of Trained Professionals. You may wish to attend individual or group therapy, seek out expert opinions and receive the help of someone trained in the field of emotional trauma, who you feel comfortable with and trust. Treatments may focus on education, stress management techniques, the release of body memories, and suppressed emotions that are causing physical and psychological pain.
- Practice Meditation and Mindfulness. Meditation helps quiet the chatter of the mind, to allow you to experience wisdom, acceptance and a new appreciation for life. Emotional trauma gets stored inside the body, so in addition to therapy sessions, the body greatly benefits from entering thoughtless moments and having a mindfulness practice.
- Incorporate Movement Into Your Daily Routine. Yoga and other forms of physical activity release endorphins, and make you feel safe and stable. It’s vital to ensure you regularly engage in physical activity to help create positive feelings which have been torn down from emotional trauma.
It may be hard to believe this now, but you must remember the heart does heal. Love yourself enough to believe that you deserve refuge from pain and suffering. With faith and willingness to take the right steps, you’ll experience new levels of joy, appreciation, and vitality once you’ve healed.
“If you are to free your heart, you must embrace your painful feelings, have faith that your thoughts will arise and cease of their accord. They will pass if you can face them head on, with kind eyes. Your thoughts and feelings will dissolve if you don’t try to hold on to them or push them away. Thinking will dissipate. Trust in this universal law of change.”
For further information, here’s an 11-minute video that will make you understand trauma and triggers more:
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