triggering situations

[schrödinger's cat]

I've recently found out that I find Sunday afternoons triggering. Seriously. Once I thought about it, it made sense, and I could identify why this was so. (Short version: emotional neglect, explosive parental rages, spending my entire free time by myself keeping myself busy doing quiet and inobtrusive things - that always was worst on Sunday.) But still - Sunday afternoons? Of all the weird things that can trigger you...! 

Another situation that triggers me (mildly) is dropping my kid off at school. I did that today and I'm still spooked. I'm feeling antsy and fidgety, like something bad happened or like I did something wrong and I'm just not sure yet what it is. I know everything's okay, but I don't know it know it. It feels a bit like this ---->


Sooo... I'm now wondering: how on earth do I deal with this? I'll probably have to do some grounding/relaxation kind of things, and I'll have to confront the past trauma that got me these triggers in the first place. Bleargh. I'd been hoping to put that off for another while. But if I simply skip that step, those EFs simply don't stop. They're on the mild-ish side, but they last for a looong time. Soothing my inner child probably helps, too. Or angering. Angering's doable. I'm too afraid to grieve or be sad - it would make me feel even more vulnerable/helpless.

How do you deal with situations you find triggering? I'm talking of situations that are almost always triggering and yet happen with dismaying regularity. Do you have methods in place for dealing with this?

[keepfighting]

No way of avoiding Sunday afternoons so you're gonna have to find a way to redefine them so you feel comfortable. Make so many good memories of Sunday afternoons that you can fall back on those when triggered by bad memories. You've already identified why Sunday afternoons trigger you, now you can concentrate on what you would have liked them to be like and make it so! You're an adult now and have the power to make your Sunday afternoons a nice and fun time for yourself and your family. As a kid/teenager you weren't in a position to change them (...nor the other days of the week...) into something positive but you are now. What activities do you all like to do? Who is good company to invite over sometime? ---- It doesn't have to be 'extra special' to make nice memories. 

Why exactly does dropping off your kid to school make you feel spooked? --- For this situation, a grounding exercise might be useful to reduce your anxiety. Do you experience this every time you drop your kid off? If it only happens occasionally, might it be something else that triggers it (like the parfume or haircut of someone you saw today or some other little detail that has little/nothing to do with the actual act of dropping your kid off to school)?

If the grounding exercise doesn't work, you can also use your reasoning skills to reduce anxiety, tell yourself things like:

"How big is the chance of .... happening really?"
"Me worrying doesn't cause .... to happen, so me worrying cannot prevent .... from happening, either."

[spryte]

For the Sunday afternoon thing.... Absolutely. That's exactly what I would do in that situation. Reclaim your Sunday afternoons. Do whatever you need to do to make them as awesome as possible. Are you artistic? Do you have a hobby? Anything that you can trigger Flow in? (Are you familiar with the Flow concept?)

As for the second thing...Like I wrote in badmemories thread...this would be a good place to employ awareness.
1. You've already identified that you're having an odd emotional reaction to a mundane thing/activity. (You became aware of a 'red flag')
2. This is obviously an activity that happens over and over again so you can observe it over and over again. You can employ the mindfulness technique of observation. From the moment you start getting ready to drop your son off, start observing yourself. See if you can tell the moment those odd feelings begin.
3. Once you've determined when they started, go back and look at what was going on. Like Keepfighting mentioned, did you pass by someone wearing a particular perfume, or haircut, or did someone say something to or around you?
4. Once you've determined what it is, you can come up with a further plan to deactivate it.

I'm not so sure that it's entirely necessary to "confront the past traumas" to deactivate every single trigger that we have. I've been deactivating triggers for years, and yet unable to really access many emotions/specific memories about stuff. A lot of times, just understanding WHY I'm having an emotional reaction to something is enough to deactivate it. I use this specific analysis a lot.


Example
1.)I used to have weirdly strong negative emotional reactions to interactions with certain people.
2.) I noticed I was having those reactions (I use any kind of "strong" emotional reaction as a red flag as I don't normally react "strongly" to anything.)
3.) I started observing myself having those reactions to those people in those situations. ("Oh look, I'm getting angry."
4.) I analyzed what was similar about those people in those interactions. (Weirdly, I had several of them in my life.)
5.) I realized that each person seemed really full of themselves. Name dropping. One upper's. Story tellers. Everything about a lot of our interaction screamed "I'm better than you! I know more than you!" (Obviously, no one likes people like that, or likes to be around them but I was having serious feelings of like...disgust, ragey I want to punch you in the face, shut up and get away from me kind of feelings - I can usually put up with just about anyone)
6.) I identified what it was about those particular character traits that was triggering me. It all boils down to emotional manipulation and condescension. Both of those things were seriously present in my childhood/teen years and they are things that I react really strongly to.
7) I'm still working to deactivate these triggers completely, but once I realized what it was with those particular people...I could see past my initial emotional reaction to what was going on with them. One was a new guy in our group...a new boyfriend of someone and he just kind of desperately wanted to be liked by us and was going about it all the wrong way. When I realized this, I could kind of work towards making him feel more comfortable instead of just shutting him down like I had been (because I won't engage with people who are actively working me to try to get me to stroke their ego's - it's still a trigger) The more comfortable and accepted he felt in our group, the less he did it. The other guy was obviously similarly insecure, and I didn't have to change my interaction with him at all. He'd talk, I'd shut him down by refusing to engage, and he'd eventually shut up. But, I wouldn't react emotionally anymore.

So, deactivated triggers, no "reliving trauma".


I haven't observed whether or not this might be the case, because it's just now occuring to me, but I'm curious about whether or not immediately delving into this analysis might not short circuit those immediate unsettled feelings? A sort of "self-soothing"? Maybe creating feelings of taking control of the situation, problem solving, a positive reinforcement thing when you have the "aha!" moment?

[schrödinger's cat]

I'll give all of that a try, thanks for your tips! 

Spryte, the reason why this is so hard to get a grip on is, it's not really something that's happening. It's the place. It's just being near a school. My bad feelings start when I'm getting near it, and they stop when I leave. That's it, seriously. On a good day, it's okay, but even then, it just stresses me a LOT. It took me a while to realize why this was so. You see, I was a little bullied at school. I wasn't beaten up, is what I mean. I was mocked and excluded. In part, I excluded myself. The other kids were so boisterous and full of energy. Me, I had a depression, I had PTSD, I had a food intolerance that made me feel drugged and unable to concentrate, and I was watching my father die a slow death while my mother was working herself to death caring for him... I just felt like I was completely on the wrong planet. I couldn't even begin to relate to those people. We had very little in common. They wanted someone who was bouncy and fun and lively and self-assured, which I couldn't be. So I had no friends, I was completely on my own, at home and at school. So whenever I'm near a school, I get this feeling of... "oh dear, I'm not measuring up... there's probably something I should be doing, or maybe I should smile and be carefree... how does one DO that?!"

BUT it now occurs to me that your method might still work. I would simply have to make the "near-a-school" experience unlike my previous near-a-school experience. Small things might work - like NEVER wearing a raincoat (because that's what I wore then) and taking an umbrella instead (because that feels more grown-up). Or putting on make-up and a bit of perfume. Or listening to music I'd have never listened to back then - heavy metal or blues or soul, NOT folk music or pop. Or writing an SMS to my husband - just so I can pointedly do something that's very now and very grown-up. Hm. I might even carry my messenger bag instead of my rucksack. In short, turn the whole event into a pointed demonstration of how VERY different things are now.

Keepfighting, that's what you said about Sundays, isn't it? Funny, it's not occurred to me before that this way of doing things might be applicable to other situations, too, but it is, absolutely.

[keepfighting]

So sorry to hear you were bullied and ignored at school. 

BUT it now occurs to me that your method might still work. I would simply have to make the "near-a-school" experience unlike my previous near-a-school experience. Small things might work - like NEVER wearing a raincoat (because that's what I wore then) and taking an umbrella instead (because that feels more grown-up). Or putting on make-up and a bit of perfume. Or listening to music I'd have never listened to back then - heavy metal or blues or soul, NOT folk music or pop. Or writing an SMS to my husband - just so I can pointedly do something that's very now and very grown-up. Hm. I might even carry my messenger bag instead of my rucksack. In short, turn the whole event into a pointed demonstration of how VERY different things are now.

Go for it!

Sometimes changing your behavior in or towards a certain situation is the most effective way to change your feelings.

[spryte]

I see...I didn't realize that it was the PLACE that was giving you issues. I think you're definitely on to something with all the things you mentioned. I'm trying to remember exactly what it was that I read about memory - something about how memories are not static things, each time we remember something, it gets remembered differently, and thus the actual memory is re-recorded, now including the new aspect/changed part. Add to that the fact that those memories get deeper the more we remember them, reinforced...it's one of the things that we with c-ptsd struggle with. BUT it can be used in the opposite direction as well!

So, I wonder if maybe you did the things that you talked about, and then worked towards making better school memories...how old is your son? Are there things that you can get involved with there with him? If the discomfort is relatively mild, then maybe you could work towards creating happy memories of doing things there with your son. Sort of "re-writing" the old memories with newer, happier ones. Then, you could work towards really reinforcing those good memories. Maybe by taking pictures during the events, talking with your son about it, writing about it, creating a memory board with things from say, a classroom party...a napkin, a streamer...

I think that with a lot of things, it's about re-framing those things in our minds. I mean...we're animals, really. Pretty complex animals, but animals none the less. My dog hates the bathroom, because she associates the bathroom with baths, which she's not too fond of. She's made an unpleasant association with the bathroom. I started working with her and treats, so that she would associate the bathroom with treats...and she's not so afraid of it. If I start associating the tub with treats, and bath time with treats, she's going to have a much more positive association with it.

Mental and emotional manipulation isn't all that different than animal training. Even when we do it to ourselves. 

[schrödinger's cat]

Now I'm thinking I should give myself a reward every time I pick my kid off from school... Intriguing idea, that.