Triggers Are A Good Thing
Written by Tony Ziolko, MS, LPC | Owner, Licensed Therapist, Clinical Supervisor
Believe it or not, we don’t all need “safe spaces” with noise cancelling headphones, blankets, pillows and fidget toys every time we get triggered, uncomfortable or offended.
It is even possible that these approaches are not helping us.
We have to start with WHAT “triggers” are in the first place.
Triggers are merely the alarm system in our bodies to alert us if the bad thing is going to happen or happen again.
This stems from our trauma system that is wired and designed to optimize survival. This trauma system gets activated and sends our systems into a state of hyper or hypo arousal, aka disregulated, when we are presented with perceived threats in our environments. It is to help us optimize our survival if our tribe was attacked by lions, tigers, bears…oh my.
These perceived threats don’t even have to be real. Did you know that your chances of being attacked by a bear is only 1 in 2.1 million? Crazy, right? However, we act like every bear will kill us. That is because this survival system is not rooted in the facts, it is rooted in the perception of what could happen. Plus, you don’t want to be the idiot who sticks around quoting this statistic. You want to get the hell out of there and not take the chance.
This trauma system can also be nicknamed our “survival mode.” Within this survival system, we have FIVE patterns of survival. We have and use all 5 depending on the circumstance. They are Attach Cry, Fight, Flight, Freeze, & Collapse.
Our triggers are the alarms in our bodies that activate this survival system that danger is possible and to brace for survival.
The main problem with how we handle triggers in our current day and age is that we are afraid of our triggers and we are afraid of being triggered.
Our triggers are a good thing because it means the alarms work! Thank God!
Are you afraid of the alarm system at your home? No, of course not.
When the alarms go off, it doesn’t actually mean there is danger or a real threat. It’s a perceived threat. It’s our responsibility to check in with the alarm to see if it’s an intruder or a cat that triggered the alarm by accident. And more times than not, it is just a false alarm. So, we reset the alarm, take a few minutes to get our heart rate down and then go back to bed…maybe after shooting that stupid cat that woke you up…okay I’m joking…haha…maybe…because let’s be honest, I don’t think the cat did it on accident…
When you get triggered in your personal life, it doesn’t mean that it is real. We are thankful to our systems for protecting us and alerting us, but it’s our responsibility to check in with that alarm to see if it is a real threat or just a perceived threat. Is this a real, actual threat or is it just an offensive speaker with thoughts or opinions that are offensive to you and that you think is harmful? Because honestly, most of the time, it isn’t that the speak is actually dangerous or a “threat” like we like to claim, it’s more rooted in the perceived threat of what could happen.
When the alarm goes off, make no mistake, it can be scary and startling; of course it would be. But it doesn’t mean it’s actually an intruder. At the end of the day, we have to simply check in with the alarm system, determine if it’s an intruder or just a cat, reset the alarm and move on.
Otherwise, the alarm goes off and we hide in our rooms freaking out. When we get asked if we checked the video feed on the camera, we tell them no, that the alarm went off, therefore it must be danger and we spin around in circles screaming for help in our rooms when it was likely just a cat. When we don’t check the video feed of the alarm, we end up just believing that every time the alarm goes off, we are in certain danger.
Unfortunately, we end up spending more time being afraid of the triggers than the actually problems.