Triggers Make No Sense

Not again, I say!  I’m tired of these.  Triggers make no sense and drive me crazy.  They come in like a thief in the night and do a hit and run on me.  The latest had me feeling very angry when I woke up this morning.

The trigger is one that I’ve experienced many times before.  If something rubs my back in a certain speed and pressure, it sends anxiety and panic and a startle through every inch of my body.  At night, this can be as simple as one of the sheets or covers on my bed just barely moving against my back.  I kind of like a cocoon of blankets wrapped around me because it feels safe.

Then if I proceed further, the trigger that amplifies things is when I wake up, and enough covers aren’t lying on me, and I’m feeling cold.  That coldness is like a megawatt speaker cranked to full volume so that anything else going on is magnified many times over.

I can understand the covers thing to a degree because I had the monsters (a.k.a child molesters) staring at me while I got dressed or undressed growing up.  Of course, they got their rocks off by doing this.  Sometimes they would watch me in the middle of the night after I had gone to bed.  Even in the sweltering summer with no air conditioning in the house, I would sleep with covers over me.

Triggers Make No Sense

I still don’t get the back trigger.  The trigger makes no sense.  It haunts me constantly.

The cold weather is one that I’m sure probably goes back to when I was a kid.  We lived in some old, poorly insulated houses in the country.  The heating system was inadequate, and it was difficult living in those homes.  We had little money, and so the houses were not warm at all.

I still don’t get the cold trigger, especially at night in the middle of my sleep.

I’m sure there is more to this story, and I just can’t access in my memory bank.  There is hardly a day or night that I fail to realize its presence.  Even with all the extensive work on my body and healing, I still struggle with this trigger from the trauma I’ve been through in my life.

The triggers make no sense.  Of course, most triggers from trauma don’t make any sense until they come into clear view.  I know this and understand that part, but it still doesn’t make it easy for triggers that do not make sense.  I realize it is connected to trauma that I’ve been through, but it doesn’t make it any easier.

I’m sharing this in hopes that it helps others and it documents another part of my journey.  For now, I just try to identify when it happens, rather than staying unconscious to what is taking place.

I know I’m not alone.  I’m sure others feel that triggers make no sense.  What are some of the triggers you face?

(Note:  Written in my journal on December 19, 2015.)

Further Reading

• What Is A Trigger