Recently, trigger warnings have come under fire for coddling millennials - my generation. I want to explain, using my current triggered state of being, reasons why trigger warnings are integral for people like myself living with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
First, to clarify something: PTSD can be caused by a number of things, from experiencing combat or a terrorist attack to accidents and medical events to repeated negative experiences that build up over time.
I want you to picture this: I'm currently sitting in my office rocking back and forth, breathing shallowly, and freezing in my warm office. My hands are frozen and it feels like they are not getting enough blood to warm them. I'm swallowing a lot, wincing, and shaking my legs back and forth.
I chose to read an article today discussing traumatic brain injuries in domestic abuse victims. It's a fascinating article and one that I needed to read... but I thought I was mentally in a place to handle the subject matter.
I was not.
Growing up in a home where I witnessed physical abuse along with being the victim of emotional abuse and neglect means that I occasionally - read: once a week at least - wind up triggered. The bulk of those triggering moments come from sexual abuse, sexual assault, and child abuse or neglect.
Sometimes this comes as a result of me pushing forward despite knowing subjects mentioned in pieces thanks to trigger warnings. Knowing that there are mentions or depictions of these subjects helps me to prepare, like sending a text to my husband that I need to be reminded that I'm safe or having something funny to watch as a distraction.
Other times, these attacks come without me being prepared. This can happen at work, at home, and while traveling. They can happen in the most precious and intimate of moments from a smell, a touch, a random memory or song lyric.
Regardless of knowing or not knowing, the attacks follow similar patterns:
First, I get the immediate physical symptoms like goosebumps, shallow breath, and that feeling of a hallway elongating like in a scary movie.
There should be, at least, a German word for that feeling.
My conscious brain moves, then, into fight, flight, or freeze mode. The mode I wind up in tends to be associated with where I am, if others are around, and other factors I haven't quite sorted out yet.
In fight mode, I become argumentative and combative. Growing up, this type of reaction would lead into screaming matches between myself and my abusers. These matches rarely accomplished anything other than showing that I was my own person.
I've always been a good fighter, partially because this tends to be my go-to mode.
Flight mode has me wanting to just leave - go anywhere. Sometimes I want to fly spontaneously to some hidden corner of the earth where I know people can't find me.
Emotional shut-downs usually accompany freeze mode. I just go numb and stay that way, sometimes for days. It's akin to one of those montages from some loved television show or movie showing a character in the same position throughout multiple situations throughout a period of time - same look on their face, etc.
There is so much that goes on physiologically with PTSD, including changes to your actual brain.
It's hard to put into words everything these attacks bring up. Sometimes I think about all the mistakes I've made recently and head in a downward spiral where I hear abusers tell me how awful I am, how I'll never amount to anything without them.
Sometimes I think about all the mistakes I've made recently and head in a downward spiral where I hear abusers tell me how awful I am, how I'll never amount to anything without them.
Other times one trigger brings with it memories of another awful experience and another until I just have to nap or work out strenuously or something else to change what it going on both in my brain and my body.
It just took me an hour to write this piece - something as simple as completing sentences and thinking coherent thoughts doesn't come easily during one of these attacks. As I wrote this, I paused to do other things as reactions to these triggers like make a fist with my right hand and shake it back and forth as though I'm a three-year-old emphatically waving at someone.
If someone has asked you to tag triggers on your website or social media, this is why - so they don't end up crying and freaking out physically and emotionally. Please listen.
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