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This is about triggers in the technical sense, of the "cues" mentioned by the DSM-IV in its criteria for PTSD: "intense psychological distress at exposure to internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event."
I have a much more detailed explanation of triggers here. (Warning: uh, triggery in that it contains descriptions of PTSD and abuse.)
In LJ/DW culture, people often use "trigger" in a much more colloquial sense, to mean "a thing which is upsetting/disturbing/unpleasant." But in the technical, trauma-related sense, this is what a trigger is:
Triggers are not merely upsetting in general. They are things which bring back memories or feelings associated with trauma.
Triggers are highly, highly idiosyncratic. (There are exceptions to this, which I'll get into in a moment.) They don't have to directly relate to the general nature of the trauma. In fact, they are at least as likely to relate to some random thing associated with the trauma, not with the nature of the trauma itself.
For instance, a person who was raped in a car would be at least as likely to be triggered by hearing the song which happened to be playing on the radio during the rape, or by the feel of a vinyl car seat, as she would be by fictional depictions of rape, discussions of rape, or the word "rape." (Some people, of course, do end up triggered by all fictional depictions of rape, etc. I'm just saying, not all people, not always.)
I suspect that the reason for this is that "rape" is a very general thing. But a specific trauma is specific. A fictional rape may bear very little resemblance to one's real rape, and so not touch off any specific memories. But the song, the vinyl seats, the smell of the man's cologne, and so forth, are real things which get burned into the very cells of one's brain, and the fibers of one's nervous system. They may bring up reactions which happen before you even know why you're reacting.
ETA: Forgot about the exceptions to the "idiosyncratic" thing. There's two big categories of those:
1. Most people whose traumatic reactions reach the level of diagnosable PTSD will be physically triggered by sudden loud noises and unexpected touch. It has to do with how our nervous systems are wired. Those things are inherently startling, and if your startle reflex is cranked up past a certain point, inherently startling things will provoke the same level of physiological/emotional reaction people normally have when, say, someone suddenly leaps out of a dark alley and sticks a gun in their face.
2. When similar sorts of traumatic things happened at the same time, in the same space, to large groups of people, you can take a pretty good guess at what triggers will affect many or most of them simply by looking at notable features of the trauma or the area in which it took place. For instance, some insensitive landscape designer stuck a bamboo grove on the grounds of the Veteran's Administration. Unsurprisingly, you can tell who the Vietnam vets are by which ones are taking a very wide path around the bamboo. In the unlikely event that burning papers start fluttering down from the sky, the people who have very strong reactions are probably the ones who were present in New York during 9/11.
End ETA.
People often warn me about fictional depictions of child abuse. I am not triggered by that, or by fictional anything. I was tied up and abused. I'm not bothered by rope bondage in fiction. (Feel free to rec me rope bondage in fiction!) But I did have something trigger me yesterday, and I'm writing it up because it was such a great example of how triggers actually work - and can be dealt with.
We were all sitting on chairs in a semi-circle in class, with the professor at the front. She dropped her pen. No one was close enough to be able to easily reach over and pick it up, and she reached down and picked it up herself.
This completely innocuous moment reminded me of how, when I'd been a child and a teacher dropped a pen, every kid would dive forward to grab it and hand it back. If you didn't do that - if you were nearby, but didn't move fast enough, and the teacher picked it up herself - that would get you a beating.
Sitting in class yesterday, I registered that I hadn't moved to go for the pen. I registered that I'd had the dropping of the pen set off that memory. As the professor went on with her lecture, I let myself mentally check out for long enough to consciously evaluate what had just happened and how I was doing with it:
This thing just happened. This is a trigger. This is the memory. How am I doing right now? (Okay.)
Briefly review associations: the memories themselves. Don't go too deep, just a little "this is what that reminded me of."
Mentally check back into class. Do I need to be paying attention to the present? Should I be paying attention? Or should I take a little more time to mentally deal with myself? Decide to take a little more time.
Check in with myself physically. Breathing seems normal. Heartbeat seems normal. I can feel my body, the floor under my feet. (If I couldn't, or if my heart was racing or anything else was off, I'd have worked on that.)
Think that ten years ago, that pen dropping would have sent me into a physical and emotional tailspin. It didn't this time. I'm okay. I'm okay.
Set it aside for further review. Mentally check back into class.
That being said, I do think I was a bit off-kilter for the rest of the class. I got really defensive at something someone said to me, and I felt briefly tearful at something else - both reactions I might have had anyway, but stronger than they probably otherwise would have been.
I wrote the whole thing up because I don't usually go through that process that step-by-step, or that slowly. (I think I took three to five minutes with it.) It's normally a matter of seconds - That thing happened. It reminded me of that other thing. Am I okay? I'm okay. The pen was more of an intense, direct reminder than my triggers usually are, now. (Mostly they involve stuff like, What was that noise? Who's behind me?)
Written out in full, it sounds kind of laborious and like I'm still deeply damaged, etc. But it doesn't feel that way. It's certainly better than what I used to do, before I had these tools, which was generally to suddenly and, inexplicably to onlookers, burst into tears, flee the room, and be a depressed, jumpy mess for the next few hours or days.
I look forward to teaching these sorts of skills to others. It is amazing and wonderful how completely we can rebuild ourselves from what seems to us like rubble and ash.
I have a much more detailed explanation of triggers here. (Warning: uh, triggery in that it contains descriptions of PTSD and abuse.)
In LJ/DW culture, people often use "trigger" in a much more colloquial sense, to mean "a thing which is upsetting/disturbing/unpleasant." But in the technical, trauma-related sense, this is what a trigger is:
Triggers are not merely upsetting in general. They are things which bring back memories or feelings associated with trauma.
Triggers are highly, highly idiosyncratic. (There are exceptions to this, which I'll get into in a moment.) They don't have to directly relate to the general nature of the trauma. In fact, they are at least as likely to relate to some random thing associated with the trauma, not with the nature of the trauma itself.
For instance, a person who was raped in a car would be at least as likely to be triggered by hearing the song which happened to be playing on the radio during the rape, or by the feel of a vinyl car seat, as she would be by fictional depictions of rape, discussions of rape, or the word "rape." (Some people, of course, do end up triggered by all fictional depictions of rape, etc. I'm just saying, not all people, not always.)
I suspect that the reason for this is that "rape" is a very general thing. But a specific trauma is specific. A fictional rape may bear very little resemblance to one's real rape, and so not touch off any specific memories. But the song, the vinyl seats, the smell of the man's cologne, and so forth, are real things which get burned into the very cells of one's brain, and the fibers of one's nervous system. They may bring up reactions which happen before you even know why you're reacting.
ETA: Forgot about the exceptions to the "idiosyncratic" thing. There's two big categories of those:
1. Most people whose traumatic reactions reach the level of diagnosable PTSD will be physically triggered by sudden loud noises and unexpected touch. It has to do with how our nervous systems are wired. Those things are inherently startling, and if your startle reflex is cranked up past a certain point, inherently startling things will provoke the same level of physiological/emotional reaction people normally have when, say, someone suddenly leaps out of a dark alley and sticks a gun in their face.
2. When similar sorts of traumatic things happened at the same time, in the same space, to large groups of people, you can take a pretty good guess at what triggers will affect many or most of them simply by looking at notable features of the trauma or the area in which it took place. For instance, some insensitive landscape designer stuck a bamboo grove on the grounds of the Veteran's Administration. Unsurprisingly, you can tell who the Vietnam vets are by which ones are taking a very wide path around the bamboo. In the unlikely event that burning papers start fluttering down from the sky, the people who have very strong reactions are probably the ones who were present in New York during 9/11.
End ETA.
People often warn me about fictional depictions of child abuse. I am not triggered by that, or by fictional anything. I was tied up and abused. I'm not bothered by rope bondage in fiction. (Feel free to rec me rope bondage in fiction!) But I did have something trigger me yesterday, and I'm writing it up because it was such a great example of how triggers actually work - and can be dealt with.
We were all sitting on chairs in a semi-circle in class, with the professor at the front. She dropped her pen. No one was close enough to be able to easily reach over and pick it up, and she reached down and picked it up herself.
This completely innocuous moment reminded me of how, when I'd been a child and a teacher dropped a pen, every kid would dive forward to grab it and hand it back. If you didn't do that - if you were nearby, but didn't move fast enough, and the teacher picked it up herself - that would get you a beating.
Sitting in class yesterday, I registered that I hadn't moved to go for the pen. I registered that I'd had the dropping of the pen set off that memory. As the professor went on with her lecture, I let myself mentally check out for long enough to consciously evaluate what had just happened and how I was doing with it:
This thing just happened. This is a trigger. This is the memory. How am I doing right now? (Okay.)
Briefly review associations: the memories themselves. Don't go too deep, just a little "this is what that reminded me of."
Mentally check back into class. Do I need to be paying attention to the present? Should I be paying attention? Or should I take a little more time to mentally deal with myself? Decide to take a little more time.
Check in with myself physically. Breathing seems normal. Heartbeat seems normal. I can feel my body, the floor under my feet. (If I couldn't, or if my heart was racing or anything else was off, I'd have worked on that.)
Think that ten years ago, that pen dropping would have sent me into a physical and emotional tailspin. It didn't this time. I'm okay. I'm okay.
Set it aside for further review. Mentally check back into class.
That being said, I do think I was a bit off-kilter for the rest of the class. I got really defensive at something someone said to me, and I felt briefly tearful at something else - both reactions I might have had anyway, but stronger than they probably otherwise would have been.
I wrote the whole thing up because I don't usually go through that process that step-by-step, or that slowly. (I think I took three to five minutes with it.) It's normally a matter of seconds - That thing happened. It reminded me of that other thing. Am I okay? I'm okay. The pen was more of an intense, direct reminder than my triggers usually are, now. (Mostly they involve stuff like, What was that noise? Who's behind me?)
Written out in full, it sounds kind of laborious and like I'm still deeply damaged, etc. But it doesn't feel that way. It's certainly better than what I used to do, before I had these tools, which was generally to suddenly and, inexplicably to onlookers, burst into tears, flee the room, and be a depressed, jumpy mess for the next few hours or days.
I look forward to teaching these sorts of skills to others. It is amazing and wonderful how completely we can rebuild ourselves from what seems to us like rubble and ash.
From:
no subject
My mother and I once had a brief and extremely weird conversation where we both managed to agree, out loud, that I have all the hallmarks of being a survivor of childhood sexual abuse: expressions of kinky sexuality from a young age, hardly any memories of childhood (like, nothing before I was about 12), violent reactions to being startled or tickled or having anyone hold my wrist or put an arm around my shoulders, constant low-grade fear and distrust of men. But neither of us can figure out how or when it might have happened, or who might have abused me, because I was absolutely a mama's girl and she was the most protective mother ever, and had anyone done anything to me that I didn't want, I would have gone screaming to her, twice as loud if they told me not to tell. (When I was three or four years old, I got her to fire a babysitter because I didn't like the poor girl's long fingernails.) So... it is all a mystery. And I kind of envy you for knowing what memory is being triggered.
From:
no subject
That being said... given what I've recently learned about trauma, I can think of a several possible explanations. Want to hear them?
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
Even the most devoted moms are not literally watching you 24-7. It only takes seconds for a child to be abused.
Maybe it was something as fast as her literally glancing away for a moment, just long enough for some random passing creep to say something horrible/flash you/touch you/etc, and then pass on. I had a couple of those incidents as a child, and they really were traumatic (though for me, not significantly) and took only seconds.
You never said anything because it was traumatic and incomprehensible in a way unlike anything else you experienced, that you did feel okay complaining about. Also, don't know if you looked at my extremely tl;dr notes yesterday, but trauma affects Broca's area, which regulates speech. Traumatic events are very difficult to discuss. And, as you know, they can affect you on a deep level without ever being recorded to conscious memory.
2. Something traumatic did happen and affected you as noted above, but it wasn't sexual abuse. It might not have even been anything most people would perceive as traumatic. It just happened to be the exact thing at the exact moment that would hit child-you hard.
It could have been a disturbing scene in a TV show that no one else was disturbed by. It could have been something in real life that you misinterpreted as dangerous, or something that was dangerous, but no one else noticed or remembered. A speeding car that didn't come all that close. A person who looked scary to you. As a child, I was so terrified by a single glimpse of a horror movie poster that I had nightmares for weeks. Little kids are very, very quirky and impressionable that way.
I had this sort of theory vouched for by a trauma expert who thought the DSM-IV's definition of PTSD should strike the "cause" portion, since some people have the entire symptom set without a known cause. He speculated along similar lines about what might have happened. For others, the cause is known, but might seem trivial. But it wasn't trivial to them.
3. There was no trauma. You coincidentally have a cluster of issues, each with a different cause ranging from "some people are just wired like that" to "because of the gestalt of your life experiences," which, all put together, do create the classic "sexually abused child" profile. But it's not a coherent whole, but a collection of individual, unrelated parts that happens to resemble a coherent whole.
All that being said, you don't have to know the source to work on the issues, should you want to work on the issues. Plenty of survivors of known trauma have no memory of the trauma, but only know it happened because other people were present.
As you also probably know, don't bother trying to get the memories back. They almost certainly either don't exist (if nothing happened) or were never recorded (if something did.) I will put up a scientific explanation of the latter when I take notes on my next set of articles.
From:
no subject
And yes, I know better than to try to "recover" memories of childhood. My only regret there is not having more memories of my grandmother, who died when I was 11. Beyond that, I don't think I'm missing much.
From:
no subject
Wow, I'm rambling. Getting back to your response, memories are absolutely tied up in being able to talk about things. There is a lot of research that shows that only-children are not able to retain as many memories as children with siblings, particularly siblings close in age. The conclusions that most psychologists draw, especially in thanks to other studies that indicate the same thing, is that the more a memory is discussed and reminisced, as siblings tend to do, the more likely people are to remember and remember the specific details as they are discussed ... whether those memories are exaggerated or not. That's such a fascinating aspect of the way our brains work, our memories formed, and those memories reinforced. And even though I just rambled on about that, I mostly wanted to thank you for pointing out how hard it is to talk about trauma, and particularly for children to talk about trauma. Like I've said, I can easily remember the trauma I endured. I was barely able to tell a trusted adult after it happened and I was nearly 13 and terrified it might happen again. Even with that fear, the fact that not much happened to protect me and the incredibly intense shame of being abused and something internal telling me there was something wrong with me to lead me to be victimized, I did not tell another soul for 5 years. It's now nearly 17 years later and I've still only told a total of 8 people, and even a majority of those people in the vaguest of terms. Even now that I've dealt with this trauma, forgiven my abuser who got help and reformed, and I do not feel triggered by anything associated with the abuse, I still do feel shame and even as an adult, it is incredibly hard for me to talk about the abuse in more specific terms than I have in this comment. Even this vague comment on a semi-anonymous website is difficult, although ultimately freeing. Perhaps one day the shame will go away and the trauma won't be so terrifying to discuss. But I just want to reinforce what you had to say about trauma being hard to discuss, particularly for kids. And I, again, wanted to thank you for what you had to say in the comments and in the main portion of the post. And for, without even knowing me, making me feel comfortable to discuss this here with you. Over a year after the original post/comments. Very well done!
From:
no subject
And yeah. Trauma can be very, very hard to talk about (though sometimes easier to write about.)