[Issue #3] When Trauma Morphs Into Trigger
Defining triggers and catalystic behaviors related to PTSD (with an assist from the 94th Academy Awards debacle)
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My wife often does the driving. Driving to/from errands, various medical appointments for me, doing the running around for the kids. Why?
It’s as if I step out of my front door, into the heaving heat of people-dom and the moment I leave the internal safety of my external walls, my sinister shadow sticks its head in and scares whatever bravery, empowerment or desire I might have had into a giant pile of dust bunnies. I’d like to creep out so slowly, no one could keep up but I refrain because of the fear. I’m tired of refraining. I’m tired of fear.
The idiocy of the general public is very triggering for me (the definition of social anxiety can be found here). When something doesn’t go the way I expect it to go, especially when it involves social norms and protocols, I generally tense up and can’t feel my legs. The anxiety fires out of all four heart chambers and then my guts are tangled up by the way my anxiety tends to possess me. I process all of this more slowly than on a typical day filled with typical anxiety.
I wanted to cover triggers anyway, to be able to define them so we can pick them out when we’re wondering why we just did that crazy thing we (or a loved one, or your neighbor) just did. Lucky for us, the 94th Academy Awards delivered, giving us a supremely hideous and perfect example of an extreme reaction to a “trigger”.
Last week, in my opinion, Will Smith had what I’ll call a “trigger response” when he stormed onstage and interrupted the live, internationally broadcasted prime time Academy Awards show (where Smith was finally awarded his first ever Oscar, that’s another nut to crack in itself) because the host, Chris Rock, made a disgraceful, body shaming and anti-femininst joke about Smith’s wife, Jada (who suffers from the auto-immune disorder Alopecia causing hair loss - “Not knowing” what a diagnosis is or that someone, who is the butt of your joke, is suffering from a medical disease is a poor fucking excuse for making that kind of joke in the first place. If that’s the first defense we jump to, we need to be asking more and better questions about the implicit misogyny of our language, how it affects us, and where the fingers ought to be pointed (not at Jada - who, as an aside, looked amazing and beautiful and stunning and did nothing to gain this kind of obsessive and negative attention)).
How is any of this a trigger situation? Wasn’t Will Smith just being an asshole?
Will Smith’s memoir Will released less than a year ago, and details horrid and tragic stories of his deeply traumatic, incredibly violent and abusive childhood. In his book, Smith divulges the pain of not being able to protect his mother from the anger and brutality of his father’s violence.
The trigger for Smith was Chris Rock’s completely detestable joke made to and about Smith’s wife, Jada. The joke wasn’t about Smith, but due to his childhood trauma Smith felt the need to jump in and “protect” his wife - and stole some of the needed and deserved derogatory light on the shitty joke Rock had made.
I have had these same feelings of needing to “protect”, in a different context. Protection was my job in the military. Growing up, I often felt as though I needed to protect my mother from the cutting verbal language my step-father used towards her, even in jest (giggles, then poking at a spot on her body, then making a joke about it, then walking away). It was hard to watch let it happen, day in and day out, as a child and young teenager.
The general anxiety I have from my PTSD never falters. It doesn’t cower down. I manage it, day to day, hour by hour. Some days, minute by minute (if you’re at all familiar with 12 step recovery programs, you know what I mean). Most days, having general anxiety pushes me against a wall. A concrete wall that slowly moves in to crush my will of finding hope and happiness. When I’m happy, I look for things that are wrong. That’s usually how I know I’m “happy”. I don’t know what to do when there’s nothing wrong so I align things in a way I know will come crashing down or I’ll find something to obsessively panic over. This is a special skill only trauma can breed called “self sabotage” (which I’ve also deemed myself an expert in).
In the 12 step recovery program I’m in, we like to say things like, “don’t hate the person, hate the disease”. At first, because we don’t understand why someone is flying off the fucking handle over a military discount for a burrito (yes, me), it seems impossible to separate the person from the disease. But, over time it becomes possible to understand how our triggers manifest into behaviors when we’re able to distance ourselves from the person the behavior is attached to. i.e.; the shedding of our own individual shame.
To put this in perspective, an experience I had relating to my own need to protect trauma occurred when a college-aged kid flipped my wife off, while riding his bicycle down the street. This kid made the gesture as my wife was driving away. Perhaps he is offended by gays, but who’s to know? Fast forward to another day, while riding his bike down the street, he yelled at both of us about how our Black Lives Matters flag was offensive. In his opinion, “all lives matter.” Who knew only his opinion mattered? Naturally, in my typical adult behavior, I flipped him off a day later as I drove past him. I’m lucky no one was slapped, and that I didn’t lose my shit (as much) as I have been known to do.
The things that set me off, or "trigger me”, and become the catalysts that kick off an internal 5 alarm fire and then go batshit bananas on a Chipotle employee, are not the types of reasons that a well-adjusted, emotionally regulated adult should or would display. (I’m sorry for my terrible behavior, Chipotle employees and I owe an apology to a young woman working the VAT desk at the South African airport, because I was screaming at her like a lunatic over getting my VAT ticket signed).
Charging onto stage (or anywhere) to slap someone as punishment is out of the realm of “typical” adult-like responses, thus morphing the context and content from something of bad-taste or offensive language to a full blown trigger response.
This is PTSD manifesting, without the skills and practice to manage it well.
The surreal truth is, deep into my 30s, I was unaware that I had been behaving in a way that was at the very least, completely inappropriate. At worst, behind closed doors, the way I was behaving can and has been construed as abusive (we’ll cover abuse and its relationship to PTSD and enmeshment of trauma types in future newsletters).
There is no excuse for anyone’s inexcusable behavior. Slapping people, screaming curse words at people, or generally behaving badly in any space - but especially in large public gatherings, either on or off the internet, is inexcusable behavior for a grown human being within the context of our everyday society. This isn’t Fight Club. And the world isn’t Mean Girls.
The problem is, PTSD defines most things and people as a threat. Most people being my wife. My best friend. Or things I love become my enemies, like my recovery program and quiet time.
Somedays I wonder if I have more triggers than not. Road rage, long checkout lines, canceled flights, too much loud noise, too many people, too much light, not enough alone time, too much alone time, feeling left out because I want to be left out….it’s a mess in here. Will any of this make sense, at some point?
A resounding maybe echoes through.
Triggers don’t have to be big, spectacular events. Often, it’s the small stuff that will set someone off. There is so much other shit that’s compounded deep below the surface of terrible behavior.
My biggest trigger is feeling disrespected, either with my time or my energy, and not being acknowledged when I’m in a space (being cut off in traffic, or in line, people being too close, someone driving too slow, or riding the line of the speed limit). I have some untested theories about why this is the case which I need to run by my therapist before I clarify or expand on them. The mildest reasoning I have is a feeling of not being seen or heard as a child, following me well into adult-hood. The military provided me a foundation of self-reliance, self-worth and a skewed sense of power with the always appealing illusion of control, in spite of my self-worth being tied intrinsically to my inner feelings of not enoughness.
That particular trigger is possibly housed in some complex of enoughness and self-worth. Due to my trauma, I’m a producer by nature, and only because I have a foundational belief that I am only worthy of what I am able to accomplish or produce, perfectly. When I feel disrespected, it kicks off some fire that takes over my inner workings and wise brain, making room for all the crazy shit that comes flooding in. Being able to look back with some insight as to why I behave the way I do feels validating and grounding. I’ve become able to tell myself the true story. Not the one I’ve inherited from everybody else.
After many years of therapy and a lot of practice, now I have some memories and experiences of me not behaving poorly. When I do slip up and my PTSD brain takes control, I’m often able to reflect back with some curiosity within a few hours or days and am able to apologize for what transpired. i.e. what happened on stage after Smith slapped Rock?
Eventually, Smith displayed the weight of his shame. What he did was wrong, regardless of any reasoning. Smith apologized to the audience as he became emotional from the whole ordeal. This is the worst part of having PTSD, besides having it at all. The shame that broods and steeps into whatever interaction occurred. I’ve learned once I allow myself to be curious, I have a greater chance of finding true understanding and gaining clarity, leading me to apologies (to myself first, then to others) and growth, no matter how uncomfortable. Apparently, all life’s joy happens in the discomfort of living.
Curiosity has motivated me to drag my shadow back into my own radiating sunlight. It allows room for questions to pop into my head like, what the fuck just happened? And why did I say/do that instead of following my too-magnetic shame spiral.
I’ve made inroads. Curiosity and the desire to sustain a life I consider happy have become larger than my shame as I’ve allowed myself to expand. Even as the noise of my constant musing of mortality runs wild inside my head and the echoes of memories I wish I didn’t have litter the inner city of my heart, I follow those roads. Rounding a corner as the sun settles down for the night, I’m led to a space of self compassion and empowerment. I’m led to a place where I’m able to access the Self I want to be instead of listening to the Self I don’t. Future Self says, I have no idea why that upset me so much, but I better talk it through with someone before I punch that motherfucker in the mouth. And present me listens.
Sometimes.
If you’d like to learn more about or are interested in reading more of my work, you can find fiction, non-fiction and poetry on my personal website, (not so very) Black and White.
I always enjoy hearing from you (yes, you)! Leave a comment and share your thoughts below.
You mold your thoughts into words masterfully. Your writing is a healing place, and in part, for me anyways, it's because you don't sugar-coat things.
I am so glad I didn't judge 'the slap'. I knew there was a bigger story simmering underneath.
I think I wrote this before, or maybe more (I tend to embarrass myself constantly), but I learn so much with each article you publish. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
The vulnerability you displayed on these pages is incredible! You speak to my soul.