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  • The concept of being triggered, though it may  at times be overused, sits on top of a hugely  

  • important concept in psychological life - which  demands our respect, compassion and attention.  

  • To be triggered is, in its most basic formto respond with intense fear and anger to a  

  • situation in the here and now which, to other  people, may seem blameless and unconcerning.  

  • One moment we are calm, the next we  are catapulted into despair and terror;  

  • only minutes ago, the future looked hopefulnow only ruin and disaster seem to lie ahead.

  • Most of us who suffer from these episodes would  very much like to better hold on to equanimity and  

  • hope. It may be important to know how to be scared  or incensed when situations actually demand it,  

  • but - the triggered person typically  feels after an episode - it is also  

  • deeply counterproductive and plain exhausting  to be visited by powerful emotions that aren’t  

  • warranted by what lies before us and that  fail to advance our interests in any way.

  • The way out of being uncontrollably triggered  is to understand how the mechanism operates. The  

  • mind is triggered when it believes it recognises  in the world around it a situation that it feels  

  • from memory to be highly damaging and dangerousOur triggers are a secret guide to our histories;  

  • they tell us about things we were once  very afraid of. The triggering element  

  • is like a piece of a jigsaw that will  precisely fit into an analogous puzzle  

  • in the past. We are triggered now  by what we were devastated by then.

  • Even if we don’t remember too much about our  past, we can surmise everything we need to  

  • know from reverse engineering our triggersIf we are constantly afraid we are going to  

  • be excommunicated and mocked, this willin some form - be exactly what happened to  

  • us at some stage long ago. If were terrified  that someone is going to overpower us and not  

  • listen to ourno’s’, this is an almost  sure echo of what we once experienced.  

  • The precise relationship between  trigger and catalytic event may  

  • not always be literally equivalent, there  can be some displacement along the way,  

  • but the link will be strong all the same. The  trigger contains and maps onto a traumatic event.

  • Let’s imagine a person who is triggered, that isthrown into powerful despair and self-loathing,  

  • by images on social media of blatantly  attractive and popular people. No sooner  

  • have they seen these than they start to  doubt and despise themselves, reflect on  

  • their inadequacies and remember all the reasons  why they are fated to be a failure and unloved.

  • The trigger is not entirelynothing’. There is  something a little dispiriting about the beauty  

  • parade on certain sorts of social media. But the  point at issue is the scale of the reaction that  

  • is generated. In seeking to account for itwe have to look backwards. The person has been  

  • triggered because the contemporary event containsin a garbled, disguised and unconscious form,  

  • the essence of a profoundly traumatic  dynamic in earlier life which lies mostly  

  • unknown and unexplored - and thereby commands  immense and unending power over the victim.

  • Let’s suppose that this person had a mother who  favoured their more ebullient younger sibling  

  • over them and that their looks were part of what  damned them to horrific neglect and emotional  

  • coldness. It doesn’t, in the circumstances, take  much to be returned back to this place. We are  

  • animals who are primed to sniff out in the present  the slightest sign of the dangers of the past.

  • The tragedy of triggering is that it fails to  notice the differences between then and now;  

  • between the awfulness we suffered long ago and  the relative innocence of the modern moment.  

  • In so far as bad things do happen nowadaystriggering also fails to account for the way  

  • in which we are no longer children, and are  therefore able to respond to the threats that  

  • do come our way with a lot more creativitystrength and calm than we possessed as four  

  • or ten year olds. Were things ever to get as  bad as they once were, we have so many more  

  • options than we did - and therefore so many  reasons to feel less agitated and vulnerable.

  • To be triggered is to lose our powers of  discrimination. In the heat of the moment,  

  • we can longer distinguish between A and B. So  frightening is A that everything between it and  

  • Q is, at heart, another A. We can’t tell that  someone is not telling us that we are guilty,  

  • that the situation isn’t evidence of doom, that  we are not being mocked, that our colleague isn’t  

  • attacking us, that we aren’t being reprimanded  unbearably, that we haven’t been told were an  

  • idiot or a monster. We can’t distinguish between  looking a bit tired and looking fundamentally  

  • unacceptable, between something theyve done that  got them sent to prison and something weve done  

  • that won’t ever be noticed. So primed has our  history made us to appalling scenarios, we have  

  • no ability not to refind them at every turnespecially when we are a little low or tired.

  • Though we might assume that we’d want to  escape our triggers, we are also drawn to  

  • them through a compulsive sense of familiarityCalm and confidence aren’t our resting places;  

  • they don’t feel normal and are therefore worrying  in their own way. We want our awful hunches  

  • confirmed. It can feel right to put ourselves  in environments where people might be mocking,  

  • to look out for stories of disgrace or ruin  or to befriend people who are constantly on  

  • the edge of undermining us. When our mood  feels eerie and sad, we might go to the  

  • very website that triggers us or call up  the person we know is going to alarm us.

  • The cure for triggering is love; love understood  as a process of patiently holding someone and,  

  • like a kindly and soothing parent, helping  them to discriminate between black and white,  

  • terror and calm, evil and goodness. The cure lies  too in learning to work backwards from our current  

  • triggers to the dynamics that once created themRather than worrying yet more about the future,  

  • we should ask ourselves the simple questionWhat does my fear of what will happen tell me  

  • about what did happen? What scenario from my  past is contained in my alarm at the future?

  • To overcome our triggers is to come to navigate  the present with all the confidence and excited  

  • curiosity that should have been ours from  the start. And maturity could be defined as:  

  • knowing what triggers us and whyand a commitment to dampening our  

  • first responses in the name of a patient  exploration and understanding of the past.

The concept of being triggered, though it may  at times be overused, sits on top of a hugely  

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