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subconscious triggers

deleted_user
deleted_user
Do you ever figure out that some things trigger you so subconsciously that you didn't even realize it?

Yesterday I saw my therapist and the first thing I told her was that I hate Halloween.

She asked why and I shrugged and said, "I don't know, I just hate it for some reason."

She talked me through it, how I used to like it and now I hate it, and we pin-pointed that I stopped liking Halloween after/around 2001. I was raped earlier in the month in oct 2001.

We figured out that it brings back all of the memories of that horrible time in my life, not having any help or support but needing, needing help so badly and being all alone with this huge secret... trying to go to a halloween party with my friends and hating it that one of our "friends" had raped me and I couldn't tell anyone...

it was huge for me; figuring out that's where my dislike of halloween stems from.

Has anyone else had any realizations like that? times or places that trigger you and you didn't even realize they were triggers due to PTSD until you really analyzed it?
deleted_user
deleted_user
always always finding out things about myself that trigger me and i never knew they was a triger - just thought id feel like crap or didnt really know why i hated red cars or something like that.
deleted_user
deleted_user
Yep, that's how I find things out all the time. My weirdest one was those little half circle tables. Turns out that I broke one as a child that sparked a chain of abuse. Now when something triggers me for no reason, I try to look a little deeper because my brain is trying to tell me something.
Desertdancer
Desertdancer
My therapist once told me that so much happened to me when I was growing up that I was triggered by something as simple as which way the wind blows. I've spent so much of my life in such a triggered state I wonder sometimes what it would feel like to just be ok.

Quite a few years have passed since my therapist said that. Now I do have lots of times when I feel grounded and ok.

But it is weird to look at all those years and years when I was almost always in a dissociative state and didn't even know it -- I just called it life.
deleted_user
deleted_user
I don't know if I can make any sense today - my brain isn't working too well.
My second husband would often comment on my heart rate being so fast. I went to the dr. and she said my heart was fine. I realize now it was because I was constantly being triggered by his behavior. I was very confused during this marriage. His treatment of me was also abusive, and it fit a pattern that I've just realized matches my first husband and my father. So how about being being abused in the present, having it trigger abuse from the past and being dissociated from both?
Another one was just realizing how scared I had become of therapists. It just hit me that I was being triggered every time I went because of a bad experience with a therapist about 15 years ago. I think there are many things going on like this with me. I have had them called "blind spots" by therapists. I don't know if I am talking about the same thing as you are.
deleted_user
deleted_user
It is so funny you bringing this up. I have only just worked out a couple of my most odd and hidden triggers myself. it is funny, to me at least, how the body has it's own memory as well as the brain.
deleted_user
deleted_user
for years I had selective asmnesia and didn't remember anything that happened to me. but for 6 weeks from 1st Sept I would feel more and more depressed not knowing why. then the flsahbacks and nightmares started and I still didn't know why until one day I realized it was a memory of the rape I went through. every year on the 'anniversary' of it the same thing still happens, but now I know what and why.
deleted_user
deleted_user
solongago...

indeed, the body does have its own memory.
deleted_user
deleted_user
Hmm...I am sure there are things that trigger that I am not aware of...but I am not aware of them yet.

I haven't settled to really look into anything.

Interesting though you were able to track it back...hopefully you will be able to replace a happier memory in October instead...like TORI AMOS!!
deleted_user
deleted_user
I have just had a medical that triggered me good style. I have figured out some of the reasoning behind this but have a sneaky feeling that there is more buried about childhood and doctors and stuff which I will have to look at. So yes there are "hidden" triggers for me to. Unfortunately there are so many "open" triggers that I am a little scared to add to my already large repertoire of triggers!
deleted_user
deleted_user
hannah... indeed!
deleted_user
deleted_user
You'd think after a couple decades we'd have figured out all our triggers, then bam! Out of the blue comes something new.

I just found another one, actually, this week. My husband has made a vet appointment to have our pup Wistala spayed. I had to get off the phone with him because I was at work and could feel the tension building up to a flashback. On the drive home I cried miserably. I couldn't figure out why it should bother me - after all, it will be better for her, and we have an unneutered male (her dad) here, and don't want anything *unexpected* to happen.

Then I realized it's because I feel I'll be sending her off to a doctor that will do something similar to her that happened to me to start my PTSD. It will also be taking away her "choice" of whether to have pups later... Silly, I know it is! But after my trauma, I never wanted to have kids... That "choice" was taken away by the trauma. Egads, now I'm cryin' again. Grrr... I wish I'd just toughen up and get over it already!
deleted_user
deleted_user
You know this is a good question. I just had my first appt. with a therapist. I was telling her that after all these years and only the most minimal memories I suddenly had a flash back that confirmed what I had suspected all along. She kept asking me if I knew or could guess what brought it on and for the life of me I couldnt tell her. I havent had one since. I wish I knew what would start it because I dont ever want to experience that again!
deleted_user
deleted_user
Absolutely. Triggers happen to me all the time lately. Halloween-for one. I'm not into ghosts, monsters, murderers, rapists.
deleted_user
deleted_user
It has taken a lot of cognitive process therapy for me to understand my subconscious triggers. The first one was obvious, and it sent me into such a state that it was instrumental in my PTSD diagnosis. That was seeing a woman cry in silence - no sobs, no sniffles and her voice had no inflection that would indicate crying, yet tears were streaming down her face. It brough back years of me crying in silence because that only brought on another barrage of abuse by my ex-h.
deleted_user
deleted_user
oh yes, those sneaky little triggers that pass through i mind so fast we dont even catch them! happens all the time. im trying to be more aware of them now. if im triggered off, i sit and try to figure out why, usually i will find the answer.
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