Two Days of Triggers
There's times I don't even know why
Two Days of Triggers?
Ok, so maybe it wasn’t exactly 2 days of triggers. More like 2 days of being triggered. Once triggered though pretty much everything feels like a trigger as well. So it felt like 2 days of triggers. Truth be told my wife and kids had to deal with me in a pretty shitty mood all weekend last weekend.
I still don’t know what exactly triggered me. I woke up normal tried to be pleasant, and suddenly felt everyone was against me and acted accordingly. Anyone who has been through the counseling knows how important it is to identify what triggered you to begin with. Take a step back, analyze the situation, decide is this really as bad as I THINK it is or is it just me getting wound up? For the life of me I couldn’t figure it out. I still don’t have it figured out.
It’s Ok to Not Know
All the events, smells, sounds, etc. that trigger a person makes it difficult to identify the cause of the whole thing. Sometimes you won’t be able to connect the dots to the primary cause of what triggered you. I want you to know that’s ok. That’s ok because it may take a few times of that same trigger before we figure out what happened. It’s not a failure to not identify the trigger. It’s frustrating as hell, even more so when your wife brings up immediately that you’re triggered and need to figure out what it is. Oh boy, I went off on her. She was right though.
I’m lucky to have the wife I have. She sees me being triggered before I even know I’m triggered. She’s also absolutely right about me needing to figure out why. I couldn’t figure out why, and it pretty much carried on through Sunday night until bed, when a bit of “what the heck?” came through and I realized my wife was correct on all.
After the Fact…
After the fact, I’m still trying to sort out what may have triggered me this weekend. It’s possible that I never figure it out. My wife and I both prefer that I figure it out because once you have it figured out you can try and flank the trigger next time so it doesn’t hit so hard. But, as I said, sometimes it’s going to have to happen more than once for me to realize what it was exactly.
Why do I even bring this up when I don’t know any answers to what happened? Because there are many times I discuss triggers of us combat vets and we go into why it was a trigger and better ways to handle it. I go into this to let you know not all days are good. There are some days that the cause of the trigger won’t be discovered. Especially if you’re new at admitting you have PTSD, let alone know how to deal with any of it.
Don’t Dwell on Unknown Triggers
After the trigger has worn off it’s healthy to reflect on the past events to attempt to flag what it was exactly that triggered you. Do not dwell on the past though. Don’t hold it over your head, and for God sake continue living life it’s not the end of the world. It’s like anyone who has ever been on a diet or workout and you cheat or miss a day. You can’t let that affect you, if you do you’re going to lose all the progress you have gained along the way.