I get extremely nasty when triggered. I find myself snapping at everyone for no reason at all. I'm not even aware that it is happening until it is too late. If it is at all possible I usually go back and apologize once I'm back under control. If I know I'm already triggered I usually just give myself time to cool off by just counting to ten before I allow myself to speak.

Thanks, atec. I know it's something most of us don't want to admit about ourselves, as we were victims of trauma to begin with. So I appreciate your candor.

The thing is, though, I've learned that when we're triggered we often aren't fully conscious of our surroundings.

So I was shocked when reliable people described to me nasty things I said to others when I was triggered. It was as if I dissociated and went into a nasty survival mode. I didn't lose my temper much less hit anyone or throw anything. But apparently I made hurtful and nasty remarks I would never make otherwise.

I'd like to learn how to manage this behavior.

Oh yeah. I can turn into the biggest beyotch ever. I've gotten better as I've aged (like wine or cheese?) but it's because of consciousness and control. My emotions are still snarl-roar-snap-growl-claw. I try to catch myself, but sometimes.... I get snappy, shrill, and then catch myself and hate myself and that doesn't help either, but.... Yeah.

I don't dissociate, I mostly *panic*, and sometimes I have to warn people to let me have *physical* space a minute (Hubby wants to hug, but I know touch can make it worse if I'm triggered), and it's like all this burden is on *me* and I already feel awful and exhausted and.... Yeah, I try, but being human, I fail.

Also, when we were kids, you and I, Muji? We saw our models (parents and family) go nasty whenever the least thing happened. It's part of our early programming. So I try to not feel anything negative, wind up overwhelmed, snap, and just awnt someone to say, "OK, yes, that was upsetting, be upset", and everyone is so focused on "don't be upset", and... I go in horrible circles.

If youf ind a fix, let me know?

Purring support,
Leo

"Manage this behavior"...why just manage it when you can heal it? Triggers are little clues into what needs to be healed. In this case it appears to be anger. You have a right to your anger and you have a right to release it in safe ways that don't hurt you or anyone around you. Many of us, perhaps you included, have been told that we can have our anger but we should not show it...we should control it. But that keeps it locked inside until one day...we pop or say something nasty to someone.

You have had a rocky past and anything from the warzone to your dysfunctional family could have created the anger that made you snap at your students. What did the students say that triggered your anger? Were you already angry before entering the classroom but you 'controlled' your anger by pushing it down inside of you? Are you angry because you have been told all you can do is 'manage' your anger and PTSD?

To quote Meg Ryan in the move French Kiss "A healthy person is someone who expresses their feelings. Express not repress." And it's so true. Search for the trigger and get angry at what you are really angry at...scream into a pillow or punch a pillow while being angry at your parents or the bombers. Direct the anger where it belongs and you will successfully release it. Once you have released enough of it....you won't be triggered by it any more. As long as feelings are trapped in you they can always be triggered.

Here is an example...One day I got into the drivers seat of my car. I had to move the seat forward because my husband had driven it last. This does not bother me. But the sun visor was down and I hit my head on it. That pissed me off but I held it inside because a little script ran that said "girls don't get angry". So I didn't get angry. Then I hit it again and this time I punched it. I was not angry at the visor - I was angry that it touched me when I didn't want to be touched. I was angry that I wasn't allowed to show anger. I was angry at the abuser and my parents. Once I got back home from my errand I punched my punching bag. I beat the crap out of the abuser for touching me and at my parents for teaching me such nonsense as I wasn't supposed to have anger because I was a girl. I released it...that is the answer. Release the anger safely and your triggers will become less and less an issue for you.

Oh, I'd love to heal PTSD in a way that meant triggers no longer would have to be managed. I have thought they were gone for good many times after this treatment or that only to find I've improved, but the job is not yet completely done. If I spent all of my time learning from my triggers, I would have little time for anything else. I would be PTSD, not Muji who happens to have PTSD. It turns out I have CPTSD, or "Complex" PTSD, the kind intertwined with all other childhood brain development over years.

With CPTSD from 6 years of constant war trauma in childhood, 2 incidents of sexual trauma, and constant trauma from domestic violence inside the home in that theater of war, CPTSD got hard wired into my brain as it developed. Pete Walker explains CPTSD pretty well on his web site. In his FAQ's on CPTSD he writes "What are the signs that Im recovering? Effective recovery work leads to an ongoing gradual reduction of emotional flashbacks. Over time we become more and more proficient at managing them....." Hence I use that word "manage."

http://pete-walker.com/fAQsComplexPTSD.html

So after every course of treatment, sometimes I have still found triggers reappear in my marriage, sometimes with my friends, sometimes on traveling back to where it all happened. I was lucky after I wrote my book about it to find work helping patients immediatly after trauma as a big city hospital chaplain. I was able to make a contribution because we now know that the sooner after trauma treatment begins, the better. Then when kidney disease took that, I was able to still find work again learning from triggers teaching about PTSD in college.

This time it affected that very work in those very classes on PTSD where I and my students were learning from my triggers and triggers like mine. In answer to the question as to what my students triggered in me, it was not them. It was the fact of talking about triggers in my own class designed to learn about triggers after car bombings after watching the great film about war PTSD ,The Hurt Locker. The situation is rich with irony, isn't it?

It's hard to detect those triggered moments yourself because you dissociate in them, you're not fully conscious in them. You can't observe something when you yourself are unconscious. Your brain has shut down as a trigger response in emergency mode to save your body once again. In your adrenaline rush you rudely tell others to get out of your PTSD fight or flight path. Here's an example of a triggered moment like mine from The West Wing TV series.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I523eR7CI_c

This week was the 40th anniversary of the military coup in Argentina that sealed our fate. 40 years. Wish I didn't remember it like it was yesterday, but I do, every day. In my case, a bomb's flames failed to get to my car's gas tank to complete the explosion after hitting it, years later on a gun jammed twice, so, miraculously, I'm here. To use the words of Northern Irish philosopher Pete Rollins, now I'm a haunted house trying to make holy ghosts.

On Sunday I'm speaking about PTSD at a church noting that the resurrected Jesus had PTSD after Easter Sunday. In the gospel story he shows Thomas the scars of his crucifixion are still there and makes Thomas touch them. Even a miracle didn't remove the scars of torture. In that story healing does not mean erasing the past.

Those of us who carry the past within us need witnesses. I was proud that I wrote my book on what happened to me and my generation. ON that book tour it was touching to meet readers who were witnesses for us. Thanks for being witnesses here for me.

This tenure issue stuck you in a really bad place, Muji.

Ironically, YOU seem to be making a "reasonable accommodation" for your employer -- the college. Sounds a bit backwards to me, huh ?

The hope is that the accommodation truly IS reasonable, and that having to go back on meds does you good without doing you harm.

It's hard to know the legality of what they're doing in this case, but ... as you and I both know ... that may be functionally irrelevant, regardless.

You've made a bold play ... for lack of truly good options. I hope it pays off for you, in spades.

I have to be honest and say that I think it is very sad that so many believe that trauma can't be fully healed. That it must plague our lives forever and can only be managed. I am very lucky that I found a therapist who believes trauma can be fully healed and who has helped numerous people fully heal from their trauma. In all the years she has been helping people heal she said she only encountered two people whose abuse was so bad she was surprised they lived. And those two people DID fully heal.

Perhaps the term "fully healed" means something different to me than to others. To me it means that if I happen to be triggered it is only a blip on my radar. It happens so fast that I barely notice it. I have seen all of my symptoms move from lasting months to lasting weeks, then days, hours and now most are down to lasting a few minutes. And once the symptom passes I move on with my day as if nothing happened. I can even say that some symptoms last only seconds. So to me, "fully healed", means that my symptoms do not cause me to dissociate, do not cause me to panic and do not cause me to stop my day. And it also means that my symptoms may show up once a year instead of once a week. My therapist is a survivor and is fully healed. She was triggered once last year and that was after not being triggered for so many years she couldn't even remember the last time she was triggered. That is my goal and I will get there just as she did. I CAN fully heal and I believe in my soul that everyone who survived trauma can too.

I have had many triggered moments like you describe and which is shown in the video you posted - but I don't have them any more. You say that you would have to spend all your time working on triggers and fear you would become PTSD instead of living with it. What you describe is exactly what I did. I immersed myself in the healing process. I lived it and breathed it and was frozen in fear from it for many years...but I survived it just as I survived the trauma. I rarely think about the trauma any more. There are just a few things left for me to heal. The trauma is successfully in my past and there it will stay. No more flashbacks. No more dissociating. No more trauma. Once I get through these last few memories that I am processing... I will not just exist in this life... I will LIVE. I will finally LIVE. And this is what I want for everyone who has had trauma in their lives.

I know, Lucky, and it's sad for me, too, just to have this condition. It's fortunate, though, that along with PTSD and CPTSD in this day and age more science is catching up with new revelations about CTE, too, Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy.

http://www.protectthebrain.org/Brain-Injury-Research/What-is-CTE-.aspx

NFL and other athletes have come forward and the league has acknowledged the science, the movie "Concussion" with Will Smith is raising awareness. The treatment of soldiers with PTSD from IED's (improvised explosive devices) in car bombings in Iraq had helped move understanding forward. It's not a matter of mind over matter alone, it's a matter of physical injury to brain matter itself, too.

Now, lots of parents are pulling their kids from playing contact football at an early age, and we even have NFL athletes quitting their careers early to prevent CTE. Knowing what we know now, my parents' mission board would have pulled me and my family from our war zone when I was as a child exposed to the IED concussions of Iraq soldiers. And that was just one form of trauma to the brain for me in that period. I'm glad to find that my kidney doctor gave permission for me to have medication to help me with that again. Medication is something I thought was over for me. The timing of my kidney doctor's decision after all these years is so good (right alone with my tenure decision) as to bring to mind karma, kismet, or God's will-take your pick in gratitude.

Coming back to the "nasty" behavioral affer effects that prompted me to start this thread, NFL star Junior Seau committed suicide in retirement from the after effects of all of this. So it's not surprising that I'm coping with after effects 40 years later myself. It's really admirable that I had made such progress that I never lots my temper when triggered in class, the classic PTSD triggered symptom. Those cutting remarks that were found in a minority of my feedback, though, are something my colleagues pointed out were still there.

I'm lucky my Vice President at my college is also a psychology professor who is up on all of this. Rather than just blame me, he pointed out to the tenure committee that my behavior was like that of a fox in pain when caught in a trap. I am lucky a boss with informed professional empathy like that was there to speak for me in my workplace. So my college may work with me now that my being triggered has shown up there, too. They haven't given up on me, so I won't, either.

Thanks to you who won't give up on me here as well. I cherish your support. I'm glad, Lucky, you have such a good therapist. I found mine, too, in 2007, the first one to address my car bombing incident directly since I started weekly therapy in 1995. Therapy is still catching up on the science of those of us from car bombings. I'm so lucky it just caught up with me and my car bombing in the nick of time.

Back to this weekend's Easter story. I like what you say about not just existing, that you say "I will LIVE." Me, too. After the resurrection, Jesus still had scars he showed to Thomas. Yet he LIVED again with his scars, right? So I want to learn how to LIVE again with mine. I admire Junior Seau, but I don't want to meet his end. The thing is to have faith and not to give up even though yes, it is sad.

From my corner?
I've been told to "heal" my epilepsy. That's nice. If the best neuros on the US East Coast can't do it, how pray tell should I? No, I *manage* it. And that is something that means I do in fact LIVE.

I'd be happy to *manage* my PTSD as well as I can my epilepsy. Knowing that some things are requiring X or Y or Z, but not *running* my life. And epilepsy, uncontrolled, da*n near killed me, soooo....

It's important to remember that when these traumas strike us as young children, the mark left is not unlike a hole in modeling clay. Once it "hardens", we have to work around and with it, b/c at a certain point,t he brain can't revert to the elasticity of early childhood, so there *is* not "true healing" in the sense of no wound exists, no scars remind us, etc.,

I'm expressing myself poorly, but in essence, even tying to find all one's triggers can take a lifetime, so we can be caught off-guard, and then, as was said, "fox in a trap". And not always in circumstances when we can just take ten minutes to go meditate, alas.
I'm in a bad headspaece, btw, b/c my medical PTSD is super-high-triggered, and how do I heal when the doctors who can help me are what terrify me? Yeah. It can seem so easy till the trap snaps shut.... For me, anyway.

Upshot? Muji, you can hold a job and function in society without meds. You're so far ahead of me that I stand in respect of the strength you show every day.

Hugs Muji, this is a good thread.

As to whether I personally get nasty when triggered... I don't lose my temper I internalize it. I may make a snarky response, not really stinging but creating an awareness to whom may have triggered me.

ex. "Dang, do you serve sauce with that shrapnel?" Usually they may not have even been aware of the trigger they hit in the moment.
Also I have a few "loud " talkers in my family of weird. I understand that it comes from not being heard when we were younger. That's a little harder to handle other than lowering my voice progressively until they do theirs ( tonal perception). Think of the movie Selena when the crowd was too hyped for their own safety. How she waited then started the song low and slow, lullaby-ish The crowd calmed.

i have a, surprising to me as i don'[t generally catch myself having opinions...maybe that was the before-i-came-here me..but i have a strong one now..

those damn idiots have you making up a scenario where-in your disability - which you work very well with, i must add - is somehow causing you to be the problem - when you are dealing with HORRIBLE students. the only incidents when you needed to be anything other than a wonderful professor were when you were confronted with atrocious people/students/children and the upper whoever they ares did NOT have your back but instead coddled the idiot brats and left you to the cruel devices of these brats - ie: the acid bathing of your car.

NO NO NO NO NO. please do not give this school any further info into the details of your disability. they are not legally privy to this information - so mad i can't spell and barely type,. this is just not ok by any means. please do retain and ADA attorney. i am so upset on your behalf i can no longer type. just to say, i am so sorry for what they have driven you to and xo

p.s. by the removing of YOU, they only hope to cover their own asses about the whole shit train of trouble they are in about the athletes in the class you picked up as a favour to your boss. also, them piling extra classes on you EVERY SEMESTER knowing you have a stress related disability - possibly in the hopes of putting you over the edge???? absolutely NOT ACCOMODATING your disability. completely against ADA LAW.

please pardon my French, but utter and complete BULL SHIT that has been being perpetrated on you, to you, at you, i don't know but for how long? and how hard?? but it back fired this last addition of a class and they are TERRIFIED. THEY SHOULD BE.

brat is furious. Lilly, she no so happy with this situation for you either.

it may, at first have been to exhaust you due to your kidney disease, but letting them know you have PTSD gave them even more amo to hurt you with.
you didn't make an error - THEY SURE DID.
they really did, Muj. and they still are. and now they are adding mental anguish to it.

at a more - in reality land school - your insights and experience and published books and possibly articles will stand you in good stead. there truly need to be classes taught to the many up and coming psych students to help them help us and people like us who have extreme difficulties finding counselors who know ANYTHING.

it is a sad case, your backwoods school, and i am very sorry for them. they continue to prove their stupidity - especially of ADA law. so foolish of them. nobody wants to do these things, but when they are causing actual and extreme injury to someone as good and caring and...well, as great as you and as injured as you are - wanting only to give more than you have to those students and that school???? draw the line Sir, please draw the line.

I love you Brat!

Interesting thread, muji!

As part of one of my traumas, I learned to compensate for my (then) physical inferiority through other means. I've become very good at detecting people's weaknesses, both physical and emotional. A survival mechanism.

Yeah, when I'm triggered, I turn absolutely nasty and often use those emotional weaknesses against whoever makes the mistake of approaching me. I usually try to stay away from anyone until I've regained enough control. One of my best working grounding methods is reciting the poem Invictus, it takes just enough concentration to redirect my focus while not being too difficult.

For me, the key is recognising when I'm triggered. Once I've done that I can usually keep it together, but I often have trouble recognising purely emotional flashbacks.