Disabling Emotional Triggers

The trouble with PTSD is how just when you think you’re on a good path and doing fine, something along the way triggers old emotion and you find yourself suddenly in a pit with no way out. Finding light in the darkness and disabling emotional triggers seems impossible. Panic ensues and you feel powerless to do anything, stuck with pain and fear swirling around you. The pit is familiar. So many times I have fallen, worked frantically to get out, only to fall again into what feels like the same black hole.

Triggers

Triggers are an interesting phenomenon. One therapist puts it this way:

It’s important to note that there’s a difference between being uncomfortable or offended and having a true mental health symptom. In general, when a person is “triggered,” they’re being provoked by a stimulus that awakens or worsens the symptoms of a traumatic event or mental health condition. When we experience trauma, our brains tend to store the surrounding sensory stimuli to memory. Then, when we encounter these sensory triggers years later, the brain may reactivate the feelings associated with the trauma. In some cases, we may not even be conscious of why we are afraid or upset. https://psychcentral.com/lib/what-is-a-trigger

The Pit

Two weeks ago, an unexpected trigger sent sirens off inside me. I somehow landed in the familiar pit, panicked at the emotion that was volcano-ing from my insides. Then the walls of the pit collapse in on me. Its heaviness makes it near impossible to do anything and strangles the happiness out of every piece of my day. Finding light in the darkness and disabling the emotional triggers seems impossible.

I try to act like the darkness is no big deal and maybe even not real. This shouldn’t bother me anymore, right? It has been years since I first faced the trauma of my childhood. I try to look past the emotions that are suffocating me and force my way forward. But the steep walls keep me trapped.

Sometimes I get mad that there are still triggers—still a blob of debilitating gunk waiting around the next corner to trap me. But the more I deny the emotion, the deeper the pit becomes. Praying brings only momentary glimpses of light behind the gunk that keeps me trapped.

Panic zaps my energy, and even the mounting anger does not give me the energy to fight my way out. Depression strangles the motivation out of me. Then I quit fighting. Letting go of the fight is when the answers come. Being open and sharing my fears in a safe place uncovers a light in the darkness. In that darkness is a bit more understanding of the hugeness of the trauma I’ve been through. And seeing my hurting self more clearly, I can begin to develop a sort of self-compassion. In those moments, the storm quiets.

Stopping the Fight

So yesterday, I quit fighting and banging against the walls of the pit and instead sat and pondered. What can I learn from where I am? What brought me here? And maybe there is something good that can be done from where I’m at.

First, I had to allow myself to feel the emotion that was keeping me trapped. The walls of the pit were made up of the intense emotion I was afraid to feel, made taller by the anger that tried to hide it. What was I angry at? That outside forces could tap into such intense, old emotion. I’m angry that I don’t have control. It feels like these emotions mean that those who inflicted this severe pain still has power over me. They still make me cry and scream and panic.

I don’t know why God does not allow me to be rid of all the boxed up fear, but maybe there is a purpose for good in it. In reliving my own pain, I am reminded that others hurt, too, and that we all need a compassionate listener sometimes. I am not alone. Others suffer from the same effects of their own trauma.

It’s okay to feel horrible. It will not kill me. Letting the emotion go makes me free. Feeling the emotion increases our capabilities to have meaningful relationships and frees us to have healthy connections with others—a desire that is innate in our beings. The light in the darkness-the key to disabling emotional triggers-is the truth that the dark is not all there is. It is only a small part of our existence. Sometimes the fear and pain simply closes our eyes to the light that is woven through our daily experiences.

Trapped or Free?

My friend Jodi Orgill Brown was diagnosed with a brain tumor in her early thirties. Everything that might have gone wrong with the surgery to remove it, did. It was a long road to her healing. She still bears the affliction of her trial in the form of partial facial paralysis among other ongoing health problems. But she didn’t wait for all of that to go away before she forged her way forward. She works with her trials and adjusts her life accordingly. Her path has adjusted, but she is still a force for good and inspiration to many. https://www.youtube.com/c/JodiOrgillBrown

There is light in the darkness and disabling emotional triggers is possible. Accepting and feeling our emotions dissolves the walls so we can see our way forward. What is the light I found in the darkness? The pain will not destroy me and is not the total of my existence. What keeps me in the pit is the intense fear that letting out all of the emotion will poison the life I’m so desperately trying to build. I panic that maybe the happiness and light I’m experiencing isn’t real. But believing in the good is what dismantles the power of the pain. The reality is that when the door of a dark of a closet is opened, the light from the adjoining room dissipates the darkness. The dark has no power to overcome the light.

Forward

Life is a process of accepting our pain and even our limitations. It’s okay to not be okay. Instead of banging our heads against a wall of denial, accepting the problem opens our eyes to ways forward. The barriers don’t go away, but new paths open up.

So, after two weeks of fighting, I sat in my pit and cried the pain of so many years ago mixed with the fear that my life will be swallowed by the ominous dark. The tears dissolved the walls of the pit and now I am sitting on my life’s path in a muted light that waits for me to decide if I will rise. Will I rise and be willing to try a new path? I slowly stand and the light in the darkness shows me the way forward.