Check-in: Navigating Boundaries Around Triggers
Hello everyone!
I hope we're all doing okay today. Whether or not you're having a tough day, I'd like to invite you to come sit down and have a cup of tea (or milk, or soda, or whatever you feel like having right now) with me. It's been over a year since I last posted a check-in in this community, so I don't remember the format we usually use; I hope this is okay.
I had a particularly difficult season recently, and wanted to pen down my thoughts about how we could handle situations like that. I hope these ideas will be helpful to anyone who's going through something similar.
This is the problem: how do I tell people about my triggers without telling them about my trauma?
The thing about trauma is that things that were once trivial and light-hearted can become really upsetting. I'm at the age where many of my peers are interested in dating and relationships, so they talk about it all the time. As a survivor of SA, these topics easily send me into downward spirals that take a long time to recover from. But I didn't know what to say to stop them from talking to me about topics that trigger me.
I wanted to be honest with my friends about how uncomfortable I was with topics that trigger me, but I didn't want to talk about what caused these triggers. Thankfully, I have some wonderful friends, who listened when I finally opened up about how uncomfortable they were causing me to feel. But this is a reality I will continue to struggle with for a long time, and it took a while before I came up with better long-term solutions.
Still, everyone has a different experience with trauma, and what works for one person might not work for another. So maybe we can simply try to be honest with ourselves about the things that we're not okay with. If you're having trouble with this, maybe try sitting with your discomfort for a few minutes, and see what comes up
When you're ready, we can start thinking about what to do about it. If you decide to talk about it, it's possible that not everyone will understand, and that's okay; my friends didn't understand why either. To me, the most important thing was to keep myself safe and stable, and if that meant having a few uncomfortable conversations, then I figured it was worth trying. It you think it will help, maybe you can find a way to try it too
I managed my triggers by firmly telling my friends that I wasn't interested in certain topics and didn't appreciate it when they talked about me in certain ways. Someone else might simply walk away from these conversations. Or have an honest discussion with their loved ones about what triggers them and how the people around them can help. Or take a break and practice a bit of self care. Maybe one day, I'll even choose to stay in these conversations, and practise seeing them for what they are: harmless, light-hearted conversations about a topic my friends are excited about; maybe one day I'll work on overcoming my triggers instead of running away from them
But for now, this is good enough for me. I hope you'll find something that works for you too ❤️
Check-in questions:
1. What is one thing you can change in your life that would help you to manage your triggers?
2. Can you think of one way you can help a friend who's struggling with triggers? What would you do if you wanted to help but didn't know their story?
@hopebeyondpain
What a wonderful topic to discuss. I've found that I also struggle with figuring out how to communicate triggers without going into why I get triggered by particular topics. I have A LOT of triggers. I actually have a similar experience with a roommate right now in that I need to discuss certain things that trigger me, but I keep "gaslighting myself" into "toughening up". The trigger is my problem, not theirs, but it is negatively impacting my mental health and causing me to lose sleep which then is effecting me in other areas of life. I have had people tell me it is my responsibility to manage my triggers and shouldn't expect others to respect them. I don't expect the average person to respect them, but it's been hard for me when I've communicated with family or friends, people who say they care about me who just completely disregard my triggers and so it's made me sort of just "push through" and try to tolerate triggers that I may not be ready to face in my journey yet. Which leads me to answer your questions:
1. What is one thing you can change in your life that would help you to manage your triggers?
I could work on respecting myself and my limitations and being more willing to communicate my triggers with my cousin (the roommate) so that we can figure out how to avoid me losing sleep. The loss of sleep also causes me to be more irritable and I don't want to damage our relationship if I say something I don't mean when my irritability gets worse.
2. Can you think of one way you can help a friend who's struggling with triggers? What would you do if you wanted to help but didn't know their story?
I think if someone communicated their trigger for me, I do my best to be mindful of that trigger and avoid the topic when they are around. Sometimes I've encountered people who only sometimes get triggered by a topic and so I'll ask if it's okay to talk about the specific topic, if they're in the place to hear about it. I have experienced so much trauma in my life that a lot of times I'll talk casually about my trauma not realizing how it may trigger someone because for me, the story I'm telling was a "normal Tuesday" that my brain doesn't realize wasn't actually normal. I've gotten a lot better over time, but I definitely try to be more aware of others triggers and what I say, when I say it, and how I say it.
Thanks for this topic. I look forward to reading what others have to share!