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Ashland13 posted 9/9/2013 12:20 PM

This is a subject that we all face, wether BS or WS, whether R or D or S or what our situation or stats may be.

Lately I've been studying this idea and it's helped as a way to combat the large amount of grief that haunts me still, sometimes.

Some big milestones in life have recently gone by and I did better when the day or event arrived and I see periods of activity on SI with people asking about what I call Anti-trigger control to myself.

Rather than get long with particular experiences, I wanted to share something that's really helped me lately with triggers, though I have the occasional set back still and have to re-hook my fishing line, so to speak and set the reel again.

The crux of the matter seems to be that when a trigger comes, outside forces created by it are so strong that I forget myself and lose track of my own thinking. Triggers are so powerful that they are able to separate my heart and mind again, like the A and other cheating did, and this is what I find for the root of my setbacks. I would love input here.

Anyway, when I can recognize for myself that a trigger is actually a trigger, I can begin to work on it. It can be any kind, from a holiday, to anniversary, to event...lately my triggers can be people like Perv/Happy Pants himself, so this makes me have to think harder and prepare my thoughts, often in short amounts of time.

I guess I will end there by saying that recognizing a potential trigger in the first place can go a long way toward calmness and reigning in our wandering minds...step number two has been to come up with ideas where the trigger can be about something else and not Perv/Happy Pants.

In this way,I was able to see how much of life he had taken over and it was shocking!

I don't know if this will help anyone, but it's been helpful here and I've been able to stop missing events or occasions very slowly.

sunsetslost posted 9/9/2013 12:47 PM

I've done the same thing but you've expressed it more eloquently than I ever could. It comforts me to know why I'm triggering and I can begin to work on it. A couple weeks ago I pulled into a fast food place to use the rest room. Next thing I knew I was disoriented and my heart was racing. After about 20 minutes I realized that we had gone to this exact place on the start of a really fun weekend vacation. Once I figured that out I was able to process my feelings and calm down. Thanks for sharing.

Ashland13 posted 9/9/2013 13:03 PM

Yea! It will cheer me to know I helped anyone with these ideas. And thank you, Sunsets, for sharing a trigger you had.

A big realization that I had recently was looking at photos with a relative -in law-and seeing just how many occasions or events I had been missing in the last year and a half. And I realized that I don't want to miss any more of life or have the stuff he did affect me anymore. It seems like it's ruined quite enough of life and maybe I can take over the reigns like you did, Sunsets.

I had something like that happen at a concert where I went to support my father and friend of his. They didn't tell me that it was full of love songs. So I sat in a room full of 100's and bawled , mascara and all. Some of the people sitting near me, total strangers, reached out and squeezed my hand. One hugged me and saw that my breathing was out of control and I was having a panic attack-when the reality was that there was no need...Perv/Happy Pants and the situation weren't even around or related.

So I sat and listened more-I did not bolt-and started thinking about the music instead of the words. It helped because my mind grabs instrument strains one at a time and I began to think about other ways that love was in my life and so by the end of the show, I was thinking about my kid(s) and parents, or the people who had reached out in our time of need, rather than love that was lost and negative, which is apparently the natural way my mind went.

It got me through the concert and I was able to semi-gracefully congratulate my father and be there for him after he'd been to so many of my shows.

That was kind of my turning point for trigger problems and ever since I've been at work on the anxiety part of it all. For it seems like if we can wrap our brains around that and what makes us tick at a trigger, we can be able to go to a place, or event or see a person and not have to avoid things any longer.

It's one way we can win.

SBB posted 9/9/2013 19:41 PM

Absolutely spot on. I can do this with the triggers I know are coming and I actually find myself being more pissed off than triggery when the surprise triggers hit me.

Like "Bloody hell - THIS again?!!??!".

Triggers are such a weird thing. OW of DD fame was Indian but I now have zero problem eating Indian food. Yet I can't stand a particular kind of fast food we used to eat together. Even the smell of it makes me ill.

I did laugh though - fatty, greasy chicken-thats-not-really chicken and full of fake flavour reminds me of him.