perhaps the meanest trigger in my own repertoire is security lights. those intense eye jabs carry me back to my experience as a child pornography victim, every time. over-lit church exteriors will convince my child self that it is a congregation of child pornographers and baby rapers.

saving face is on my "don't do" list. fact is, i find it hard to read social cues when i have my full faculty. in the midst of a trigger event, my read of social cues is totally disabled. the people around me look more like bullies and villans from my past that real time humans. further, few people recognize my condition, much less care enough to investigate whom they should gossip with to get the inside scoop. i don't ***get*** to know how my psychosis looks to passersby. energy invested in that quest serves no useful purpose. ply detachment exercises here. let the mystery be. what random strangers think has no bearing on my life. if they gossip about my plight, i'll just be some unidentifiable character in their story. the random passersby don't even know my name, far less where i live.

as for managing the trigger event, you described near enough the tactic i use to bring myself out of the resulting psychosis. the disruption in my day is just one of those things. schedules are guides more than celestial guides.

I've mentioned here many time before, Mars1212, that the same week my therapist diagnosed me with PTSD she had me join a weekly meditation group as well. I learned a lovingkindness meditation: May I be filled with lovingkindess, may I be well, may I be peaceful and at ease, may I be happy. May I have mental happiness, may I have physical happiness, may I have ease of well being.

It served me so well that I went on to become a hospital chaplain (Christian, not Buddhist, by the way) in an ER of a big medical center in Chicago. There trauma was constant, as expected. That meditation got used between ambulances over and over--once 72 times in an 8 hour shift when we got a lot of gunshot wounds in from a gang war that broke out nearby. Since you mention a gun here that came to mind for me just now.

I never did EMDR, that remains there for me to turn to should I need it some day. Please let us know how, despite how triggering it is, how useful it turns out to be.

It is turning out to be incredibly useful. I was initially really afraid of it, but as I continue, I realize that while it's initially kicking up and seems to exacerbate the trauma in the short-term, it might pay off in the long term. My meditation teacher remarked that I was much calmer during meditation.

Mars, what I can say is your going to have hiccups.

It happens.

Don't focus so much about saving face but focus on allowing it to process.

I once yelled at a guy in the middle of self defense training because I interpreted his teaching as trying to make me feel inferior and dominate. I ended up crying and I basically told him I need to step away for a minute. I sat in the car and cried it all out, let the hyperventilating happen. And then once I was calm enough I went back and continued on with the training. I since apologized to this person.

I have also overanalzyed situations and overreacted to things. It's normal.

I recently had a panic attack because a state patrol vehicle was behind me half way to the store. It triggered lots of flashbacks of being followed and some other stuff. I put my hand on my heart and kept it there for a while. People looked at me in the store but I didn't care. It was more of a calming mechanism.

EMDR is going to aggravate everything. My advice: Don't make stressful decisions the week of emdr.

Overtime you will develop a distress tolerance and things won't bother you as much. Even after EMDR therapy you will have triggers but it won't be as bad.

So glad to hear EMDR's turning out to be worth the trouble for you, Mars1212. Good to know for me and turning to it myself at some point in the future.