virgin-eater:

rabbitfeminist:

peterpansexual:

Most folks don’t really understand what being triggered is all about, let alone recognize when they’ve been triggered.

So, what’s a trigger?

Well, it’s anything inside of us or in our environment that evokes a strong physiological and/or emotional response. It can be…

I think it’s really important to have a more definitive definition of “trigger”, because I think a lot of people don’t realize it means more than being pissed off. 

Here is how being triggered works for me:

It has two types of onsets, fast and slow. 

• fast - I see, hear, smell, some sort of experience that “triggers” memories of trauma. My body starts to get the physical feelings that I had at the time of the traumatic event- usually dizziness, fast breathing, chest pain, panic, shaking, feelings of danger. I might cry and/or rock, need to be alone or with my partner. I might slip into dissociation (where I won’t be able to communicate with the people around me or very little, the “out of body feeling”) It all happens very suddenly and I completely loose my grip on emotional stability. It may last for a few hours or as little as thirty minutes, but it tires me out and leaves me shakey and nervous for a long time after. 
• slow - Seeing something related to trauma I’ve been through, and feeling somewhat unsettled but moving along with my day. Then more and more, a creeping sort of disturbing familiarity of feelings comes to me, and my emotional well being starts to unravel, slowly dissociating myself and/or reacting to my current surroundings/situations as if I was in the same sorts of dangers I was in at the time of trauma. This episode may end in being intensely dissociated with hallucinations/flashbacks for hours at worst. At best, breaking down crying and then feeling better afterwords. 

When I am triggered, I have more flashback nightmares than usual. They’re very disturbing, like reliving my trauma. They often leave me very low-functioning and feeling weak and scared for the next few days afterwards.

It’s not just “getting upset”. Triggers shouldn’t be treated trivially, and the trivial should not be treated as triggers.

Great description of what being triggered means. I will never forget when I watched this happen to my ex girlfriend. I wrote a poem about it.

A bottle 
Just a normal whiskey bottle to the average eye
Yet with first glance 
Memory trigger pulled detonation
In just a blink a drink changed the scene
Terror and agony radiated from her face 
Panic drenched eye socket 
Time stopped as I watched it 
Pains epitome captured and displayed 
Painted  the depths of her retina’s abyss
Horror dripped 
No sound from slightly moving lips
Like words wanted to form 
Yet couldn’t break free and slip
These seconds long as time ticked
Sudden emotion shift 
Everything was fine then went to shit 
Lost grip of bliss and it slipped 
No happiness when a bottle caught her eye 
To the average eye there was nothing special about it
Just a bottle of whiskey harmlessly there at a concert 
It was just a bottle 
Just a bottle 
Removed the stopper on the sewage pipes
Vivid memory horror show 
Flooding the now with the past 
In the moments of flashback past and present are the same
Reborn past 
Tamed at times but never dead
Flashbacks resurrect the worst moments of her life 
Till they climax with lethal force
Just a bottle 
Tapped into the reservoir of undead demon memories 
To me it was just a bottle 
That’s it 
It was just a bottle of whiskey 
But I was wrong 
It wasn’t just a bottle 
As her eyes read the label I could feel the detonation
Its pain shot out in every direction 
It was like a wound that never stops bleeding
Her pain broke my heart as I watched her crumble

I wish I had known that the bottle would be the detonator device
Programmed to set off explosives of PTSD 
Maybe I could have prevented this 
When it happened I understood the whys 
It was coincidental fact 
The label was the same as the one on the bottle she drank
When a rapist got her drunk and completely changed her life 
Never caught and charged as he slipped away into to the night 
what was just a bottle of whiskey to me
To her was a brand of alcohol forever stained by the worst moment of her life
My ignorance helped to trigger the reliving of hell
When that bottle caught her eye I saw somebody have a flashback for the first time 
And I will never forget it