North American culture is all about avoiding triggers; getting rid of them; deleting them. If we have a trigger we expect those around us to accommodate us and make the trigger disappear.
According to Ridgeview Behavioral Hospital, Triggers are “things (e.g. memories, objects, people) that spark intense negative emotions,” (1). So, shouldn’t they be avoided?
In my opinion, not necessarily.
As the definition goes on to explain “This change in emotions can be abrupt, and in most cases it will feel more severe than what the trigger would logically call for (1)”. This is very important to note: the reaction that is elicited by the trigger is more severe than what is logical. That’s because the trigger itself is not “bad”. The trigger is the symptom, not the disease. However, the trigger is the sign that there is a disease to be treated. If we simply get rid of the symptom, the disease will not be any better.
For example, a partner expressing anger, even in a healthy way, might be a trigger for you if you have suffered through violence in your past. But, to tell your partner to not show anger, in any way, because it triggers you, is both unfair to your partner and yourself.
First off, you are not allowing your partner to be honest about their feelings. In a way, you are gaslighting them because every time they want to express a legitimate reason for being upset, it is flipped around and they are told that they are the villain, being made to feel that they are not allowed to ever be angry at you, regardless of what you do. They are made to walk on pins and needles in their relationship with you, with your feelings always being more justified and therefore, more important than theirs.
Additionally, you are not facing your trauma and working through it. I am not suggesting that your partner shouldn’t accommodate you at all. After all, they care for you and want to help you on your healing journey. However, you should be going on that healing journey and not simply placing all accountability for your emotional wellbeing on your partner’s actions.
Another example is one that I’ve seen lots of posts about on Instagram lately: how to formulate texts so as not to trigger an anxious person. There was an entire discussion about how texting “ok” to an anxious person should not be done. This will make them wonder if you are angry at them and just hiding it. Instead, you should text “ok!😊”. A follow-up discussion then ensued about how many exclamation marks and which smiley faces were the right ones, because if you have too many exclamation marks or use the wrong smiley, that might also trigger the anxious person.
Hmmm…..
If someone goes down a spiral of anxiety because of the wrong smiley in a text or one exclamation mark too few or too many, that is not the fault of the smiley nor of the person who sent them the smiley (in an honest attempt to express…a smile). The anxious person needs to take accountability for their anxiety, not place the accountability on everyone who comes into contact with them via text. That is not helping the anxious person deal with the true causes of their anxiety nor grow as a healthier human. And, in fact, it is creating anxiety for everyone who ever needs to text them.
Avoiding all triggers and/or making the people around us accountable for the feelings that triggers may elicit, is us avoiding responsibility for dealing with the reasons we are triggered. It is us, taking the easy way out: we don’t need to wonder why a simple exclamation mark makes us anxious. We can simply place blame on the person who sent it, because they texted us “wrong”. We don’t need to deal with the reasons a show of anger terrifies us. We can blame the person feeling angry at us — and in this example, we also never need to deal with any incorrect actions on our part that lead to those around us ever feeling upset.
Unfortunately, all of this leads to those whom we have bombarded with accountability, to feel emotionally bullied by us. And they are right to feel that way.
No one should be told that they are responsible for making sure another person is never triggered. Sometimes, we are not ready to deal with our triggers yet. That’s ok. We can tell those around us this and ask for reasonable accommodation. Those who love us will always try their hardest to provide that. But, we should accept our personal triggers as ours to work through, when we are ready.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
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