To be honest, I don't have ''triggers'', my panics are so bad, sometimes, I can feel when there is one coming....but, that has not happened in a long time. So, usually, I don't know when they will turn their ugly head! Suck, suck,sucky! If I am in the store, and, I have a panic, I try to go back to my car, that makes me feel better sometimes. I always bring along a ''goodie bag'' for myself, just for this purpose...chocolate helps a lot for me, anything with caffeine in it, also bottled water, and a sprizter to spray on my face...I also have magazines and word searches in my car, so I can get my mind off of the panic. I also write down in a notebook the reasons for me to go back to what I was doing...I usually have to just ''ride it out''... When I feel better, I go back in the store, and if I don't, I go home..I do call my boyfriend, that helps. I also call my sister, she does not live in the same state as me. Sometimes this means that I have to wait in my car until I can drive again....I have managed to keep a sense of humor, and, I will post some funny things that have happened to me when I was having an panic, of course, they weren't funny at the time! I have embarrassed myself so much in public, nothing phases me anymore!! Airports, airplanes, fancy resturants, vacations, ( that's especially ''fun''!)you name the place, I have panics. I have no pride left!! LOL!!! At first when I had a panic in public, I was mortified! But, it's been 12 years now, and I try to not let panics come between what I want to do, but, sometimes, I just have to adapt. I don't want to make panics seem easy to cope with, they aren't. But, I have two choices, either drop out of life, or learn how to deal...I am strong, and I want to give people hope. We can do whatever we want to do, we just have to go about it in a different way....This is a great site. Thanks Beaumont, for getting this site rolling again.....

Angelgrace55, thank you for posting your reply to this discussion topic. You have some great coping mechanisms that the rest of us here could use. I really like the idea of working word searches.

When I am around people who do rocking back and forth motions with their upper bodies while seated, or people who start gesturing wildly while shouting threatening words, or who are paranoid and blame me for their paranoia, it can trigger memories from my past. So my coping method for dealing with such incidents is to not interact with such people, move as far as possible away from them immediately, and find something else to focus on. My abusive mother was a schizophrenic woman with narcissism, and when people start behaving in ways that suggest they may be mentally ill and are about to act out violently, I can't be in their presence very long or I begin to feel suicidal and deeply depressed. I still have some work to do in finding coping mechanisms.

How about anyone else who is reading this?

i do grounding techniques my therapist taught me to use. my triggers are yelling/screaming or someone raising their voice and being snippy with me. blame, flip flop like a kid, name calling (whore, slut, hoe), degraded in a mean tone, certain vocal tones are hard for me to distinguish because you may tell me i am not yelling or fighting but i hear my parents within your voice in my ears. thats what i tell my bf and therapist everybody sounds the same to me, silent treatment, someone sighing a lot in such violent anger.

my therapist said i have some symptoms of ptsd but it doesnt help living at home in the negative environment and dont know how to get out of it since i dont have a job yet. i am volunteering to help me with my ptsd.

I've noticed that I do have triggers. Watching a TV show or movie where someone is tied up and beaten is a really big one for me, most likely because I was under the control of a psychotic person who liked to torment me when I was a child. He wound up in a state penitentiary for what he liked to do.

Cruelty to animals is a big one too. My dad used to abuse the family dogs as a way of tormenting us...getting triggered right now...have to sign off. That's a very bad memory I shouldn't talk about.

Good point, RichieD. I don't watch shows like Criminal Minds and SVU (Special Victims Unit) any more because they are deeply depressing and disturbing and remind of things in my past. Instead, I watch re-runs of Full House and funny cartoons.

I'm back, had to go do something else for a while to calm down.

I never, ever watch Criminal Minds either. I just can't take that show, no way. I guess it just reminds me too much of the bad things I went through.

My triggers are
Smelling fish, looking at it, taking abut it etc... I avoid the fish stalls and send the kids to grandmas to eat fish, I can't ave it in the house.
Pipe tobacco & cigar - told my hubs I would divorce him if he ever had one and i mean it. I would move away from any smell. Even walking past someone. In the street cand trigger me off
News at ten gongs of Big Ben -urg the pit in my stomach is churning
Dentist - I panic just making the appointment, opening my mouth, I have to do a check up in stages and be knocked ut for treatment
Shouting & any violence - now this naffed me off my body goes out of on control and while I'm deepbreathing and telling myself its ok while dealing with the intubation my body has a different I dea and shakes like hell.
Being told what to eat
I'm sure there's more

Thanks for joining in, Alijo. It sounds like you have had responses conditioned into you during your past. I used to dislike apples very much because they reminded me of my past. When I was a young child, there often wasn't food for days at a time, and when there was food, rotten apples was one of the foods available. I have partially conquered this problem with apples by avoiding not all apples, but just the variety of small mushy red apples we had when I was a child. I have discovered that I can eat other varieties of apples without becoming deeply depressed for days at a time as used to be the case. I hope things get better for you eventually. As much as you can, concentrate on what brings you joy in life.

Yep I can link all the triggers to events, I have tried to conquer them but find imported avoidance works better f I can. Obviously the dentist and shouting can't be avoided but what ever I try it didn't work.
The fish thing, I was held down nose punched and force fed kippers with bones and chocked all the next day with fish bones in my throat, yuck and a good eating. Now it just makes me feel sick so I don't eat fish and have boneless meat. I can live with that

I was 4 years old

I have many triggers. A certain tone a loudness of voice and I cringe or go into fight mode. A loud noise will still make me jump. If something jumps out at me, I will find myself standing there with my fist pulled back. If someone says I'm crazy or calls me "woman" in a demeaning voice, I will do everything I can to keep from being in their face. I went to a friend's house one day and we were watching a movie. It was absolutely terrible. I couldn't handle it so I finally got up and left the room. I ended up spending the entire night reading meditations on my phone and trying to get the images out of my head. It's usually only movies where a child gets hurt that I can't handle though.

I don't remember a lot of my past but my throat is a huge problem for me. I remember my abuser choking my mom but I never remember him choking me. I have an insane fear of people touching my throat. I can't even stop myself from reacting. If it's someone I trust I immediately grabbed their hands and shove them away. If it's someone I don't trust getting that close to me, I just swing.

I took a coping skills class.....twice. The thing that stuck most with me was stop and breathe. Don't react! After years of child abuse and then years of mental and emotional abuse by my husband, I became someone who reacted in anger. One of the only things that got me through that was for someone to remind me of my kids. So, my focus started to be "Breathe. Your kids need you."

I've learned that the more I talk about the abuse, the easier it is. It was never my fault. I didn't force people to do what they did to me. The nightmares haven't left me but I'm determined to make something good come of my past. I've learned everything NOT to do and my story will help someone someday. I'm writing a book on my story as well as other peoples' stories and I know that I will help someone overcome their past.

I can remember as a very young child, maybe around four or five years of age, being tied to trees by my younger sisters. It was a kind of game they liked to play. They would tie me to a tree with rope, and then run off and leave me there. Children do strange things.

Cleisure, I hope you get your book published. Always remember that in any interaction between a child and an abusive adult, it is the adult who is 100% to blame for their actions and for whatever happens.

I had never really thought it was my fault until a therapist asked why I never told anyone and I stopped dead in my tracks and wondered why I never did. I couldn't come up with anything. She wasn't trying to make me feel guilty. I was sure that was just a question, but for a second I actually started to question the fact that it wasn't my fault.

Well I'm a college student living in a college dorm so unless I'm living with very studious nerds (like myself) I'm always going to come across:
1.) Alcohol
Even though I don't drink, when I hear people talk about getting drunk or are drinking in front of me it reminds me of my alcoholic father and I automatically feel hurt. It's not an unbearable amount of pain but it still hurts.
2.) The mentioning of recreational drugs
reminds me of my teenage years of self-medication and the abuse I encountered from other drug users
3.) Rejection from the opposite sex
reminds me of the neglect and rejection from my father
4.) Doors being shut loudly/angrily
makes me shudder every time and reminds me of the severe anger of my mother when she did this all the time in my childhood
5.) The mentioning of "cum" or "blow jobs"
reminds me of when I was sexually abused by my first boyfriend