How to Overcome Your Triggers
because reality doesn’t always come with a warning
“…On one of our adventures, Rick and I basically destroyed the whole world, so we bailed on that reality and we came to this one, because in this one, the world wasn’t destroyed and in this one, we were dead. So we came here, a-a-and we buried ourselves and we took their place. And every morning, Summer, I eat breakfast twenty yards away from my own rotting corpse.”
— Morty, from Rick and Morty.
Much like Morty — aside from the interdimensional adventures and actually dying — something similar happened to me earlier this year. Every morning for the past six months, I wake up beside the spot where I tried to take my life. And every day at the top of my staircase, I am burdened by the memory where I almost accidentally lost my life.
These things are no fun to be reminded of.
Some of us have incidents in our lives which create experiences that leave scars behind.
Instead of allowing these scars to heal naturally over time, most of us leave these memories to fester in to something much larger than life. Something which is otherwise known as a trauma trigger.
Triggers are a response to a psychological stimulus that prompts recall of a previous traumatic experience. They don’t always come in the guise of a place or a memory, some triggers can also be indirect or superficially reminiscent of a time, such as a particular item or a scent.
My own personal tale of death ironically started with the ending of an era.
I’d done-and-dusted the whole travel thing, discovered my independence only to return home a little too independent. So much so that it became the basis for isolating myself from the rest of the world. What I found in my efforts to be the modern-day archetype of a ‘pioneer of my own individualism’, was actually a below-the-surface depression that revealed itself in time…
What luck.
During this spiral into depression I’d noticed that too many things around me were becoming triggers for my own personalized insanity. I’d justify not leaving the house because “crowds were triggering”, or “can’t do this because XYZ” also triggering, and even ruminating on past events became seedlings for later triggers down the line. It was burden on burden. Sheer madness, no-way out thinking going round in circles.
Suicide became the only conceivable option to escape. In the midst of my soon-disappearance, I wrote a goodbye to some close friends on a group chat, who thankfully reckoned in time to help and get me hospitalized.
Fast forward to this day, I understand now that there are no permanent solutions for temporary problems. Or at least, there shouldn’t be.
The same goes for triggers.
Addressing the demons in the closet
Once we’ve etched that snapshot of the past in to our minds, moving on doesn’t always seem easy. Please know that it doesn’t have to be that way. Time will be your greatest friend in the process of healing, other times, its a matter of ripping off a bandaid there and then.
If you keep that bandaid on, whether you are concious of it or not, something will inevitably hit that very same nerve again. You can debunk the myth that a trigger has to be the basis for your entire response surrounding that issue later on in life.
Whether that’s a suicide attempt, a concept, perhaps a word you hear often or a smell. Those memories don’t have to own you for the rest of your life.
I had a friend once who would get triggered by any word they heard someone say that they felt subconciously described something negative about them. Instead of asking, “why does that word trigger me?” she would bluntly tell you to “stop triggering me” and then bury that word in her mind with all the other words accumulated as trigger responses.
This isn’t healthy, and some people do it more than others.
In fact, emotional triggers are not dissimilar from “treading on eggshells” around someone. Think about it — if there are shells to be trod on, then there are issues that need to be addressed.
Those shells are remanents of neglect for something that you’ve built a wall around, instead of choosing to make peace with.
I had to make peace with the part of me that wasn’t okay and thought ending it was the right thing to do. If I hadn’t made peace with that, then I’d forever hold up walls to protect myself from ever allowing myself to grow and learn from that mistake.
Chances are, you have one or more demons you’re not facing right now.
Morty is a great example of a hero under the guise of a wishy-washy protagonist. He chooses to bail on a destroyed reality and come back to a reality where everything is normal. He does this in-spite knowing that he’s eating breakfast twenty yards away from his own dead body.
Think about the destroyed reality as your current present, the one where you coexist with all your triggers. They control and define your entire life because of the fear they evoke in you, so in essence, you live in an already destroyed version of reality. But you can re-define your reality anytime that you choose. You do this when you choose to address your triggers.
You can peacefully exist beside the corpse of your old-self and still enjoy breakfast without letting the corpse define you.
Understand that overcoming any kind of trauma isn’t easy at first, that’s why we perceive it as traumatic to begin with.
To soldier on must mean that we continue to define our reality without the burden of all these triggers. Take a lesson out of Morty’s book in times of crisis and gain some clarity about why you fear certain things, then pull the trigger on those triggers for good!
You can and will learn to heal naturally from these responses at your own disposal. It’s all a matter of when you decide to let the healing process permit its place.
