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How do I identify a trigger?

Profile: MeeelsR
MeeelsR on Jan 7, 2021
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I would say that a way to identify a trigger would be to pay attention to things - people, situations, topics -- that cause you to feel a way that is negatively related to something you are working on not participating or having in your life. Those things that cause heightened emotions or physiological responses, and may cause or result in stress, cravings, dark thoughts, negative feelings, etc. Also, this would be something that you probably will notice is a thing that has elicited these sorts of responses time and time again. Once you ID a trigger, it can be helpful to avoid them in the future.
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Profile: willow5963
willow5963 on Apr 30, 2021
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Generally, there are certain words that can be triggering for me. These words have been often repeated in my life, and help me identify a potential trigger. Often, people around me (friends and family), will bring something up like how they are trying to lose weight. "Weight" is one of my trigger words. This is because I have struggled with eating disorders in the past, and weight has always been something eating at me. Usually, when someone brings this up, I feel angered, especially when I find this person to be in a better position than I am. Although this is a trigger, I am finding ways to cope with it and learn to be less involved with my figure.
Profile: whimsicalWriting9073
whimsicalWriting9073 on Jun 3, 2021
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Something that you react to badly. Something you think you could never be or never do. Usually you hate it within someone else and can't see it within yourself. Or it could be trauma. Something has happened in the past, so when presented with a similar situation you think the past will repeat itself even though the circumstances are different. I did a lot of trigger work in the past 6 years. For me healing was finding the source of my pain, neutralizing it, crying, letting it all out and healing it. Whenever I see something that bugs me, I usually try to figure out why and figure out what that says about me as a person.
Profile: JeraTheWitch
JeraTheWitch on Jun 9, 2021
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Pay attention to your body and your thoughts when you begin to feel triggered, and pay attention to your surroundings as well. What do you notice? Are there certain patterns that emerge when you feel a certain way? Do you feel tense when looking at certain things? All of these could be signs that you are experiencing something triggering, and examining what's happening to and around you will help you identify the trigger. Hope this helps! It took me a very long time to figure out how to identify my triggers, so I hope this advice works for you. Cheers!
Profile: Anonymous
Anonymous on Jun 24, 2021
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Journaling my experiences of being triggered have helped me to identify my triggers better. There are also many other ways, like taking a moment to ground yourself during a period of being triggered, identifying what has led you up to the current state of being triggered. You can also identify your triggers while doing trauma work. It is also about respecting yourself, validating your experiences and being understanding, accepting and kind towards what triggers you. In all honesty anything can be triggering due to associations, an object, a sound, a smell, we often miss our triggers when we undermine or invalidate our struggles, so being kind to ourselves is a perquisite to familiarizing ourselves with our triggers.
Profile: Blink182andNirvana
Blink182andNirvana on Jul 18, 2021
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One way you can identify triggers is by taking notes during or after you are triggered. This can be in a dedicated journal or notes on your phone. The best way to do this would be to write down everything that happened that day and how it made you feel. Start backwards with what happened most recently. Over time, you will see patterns. Be as specific as possible. For example, if you were watching a movie and started to feel anxious or upset during a scene, be sure to describe it so you have an idea of what may have triggered you.
Profile: CiciTang0909
CiciTang0909 on Aug 8, 2021
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When you notice these signs, stop to consider what just happened and the response it activated. Say you spent the afternoon deep cleaning your apartment and rearranging the living room. When your partner gets home from work, you wait excitedly for them to comment. Instead, they head to the kitchen for a snack and then settle onto the sofa without saying a word. You’re disappointed that your hard work went unacknowledged, and you start to get angry and frustrated. You can hear your heart pounding and your jaw clenching. It takes everything in you not to snap and say something like, “Notice anything different?” or “I can’t believe you’re so oblivious!” Try following these feelings back to their origins by thinking back on other situations that made you feel what you’re currently feeling. Maybe it suddenly seemed as if you were a teenager again, trying to make the house look perfect to earn approval from an indifferent parent who traveled often. When the emotional trigger (your partner’s indifference) fired, you’re transported back to that time in your life, when you felt like nothing you did was good enough.
Profile: APaletteFullofColors
APaletteFullofColors on Aug 18, 2021
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If you feel comfortable journaling and reflecting, it can be a helpful way to keep track of certain influences and environments that might be causing you to feel triggered. For instance, you first describe: 1) the event itself, 2) the kinds of emotions that the event made you feel, 3) the kind of self-talk that you experienced while this was going on, and 4) the actions that you took in response to this event. And hopefully, once you've logged some of these things down, you could look back on what you've written and reflected on to see if there are any things that stick out to you like patterns and apparent triggers. And once you've done that, you could make a plan, either by yourself or with others on how to work through those triggers.
Profile: BeautifulSun298501
BeautifulSun298501 on Sep 17, 2021
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When we feel triggered we may notice it by a quickening of our breath, by a stinging feeling at the word of another, or the sight of something. If we do not know this is happening, we can go back to before we acted out of character and figure out why. What happened before you acted in the way you didn't want or mean to? This can manifest as anger, shutting down, walking away, being to move or speak. We can feel hot or cold. What happened before we felt that way? That is the trigger. For example, someone may have been accused of something they didn't do. The effects of defending them self was so traumatizing that whenever someone accuses them of something they didn't do they feel hot, their face gets red, and they just yell, "I didn't do it!" Their trigger is what causes them to react. Can you point out the trigger in this scenario?
Profile: LittleLantern
LittleLantern on Nov 21, 2021
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I'd suggest doing a sort of diary/logbook for those days. After you've experienced a panic/anxiety attack, text or otherwise log everything that you did, smelled, felt, heard and tasted about 5 to 15 minutes prior to the attack. Make sure to note if you had alcohol, weed or other drugs too. Once you've collected about 5 to 10 of those logs, cross-examine and mark all similarities. If you can't identify any, collect more logs. The goal is to make sure, not to avoid the trigger but identify it and take this knowledge to a professional that can help you deal with it.
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