How to Handle Emotional Triggers
c-PTSD triggers can get out of control if you don’t know how to handle them
If you have complex PTSD, you know that you’re prone to having emotional triggers. An emotional trigger comes when a situation in your current life, a person or an image triggers memories or feelings from your abusive childhood. That’s when you’ll start feeling anxious or as if the world is spinning and you don’t know how to handle it.
Knowing how to manage your emotional triggers is a skill. Here are some tips on how to deal with triggers and calm yourself down.
1. Feel the emotion
This is the first step to help yourself through the trigger. Let yourself feel whatever you’re feeling. Be in your body.
If you’re sad, feel the sadness in the body. Cry for as long as you need to. Stay in bed and be upset. Do not repress the emotion because, if you do it, it will come back to you later.
2. Talk to yourself kindly
Talk to yourself through this emotional response. This will bond you to your ‘ inner child’. The inner child is triggered because you have not yet recovered from your parents’ abuse.
You can say something like this to your inner child: ‘It is normal to be sad. Your friend’s mother treated you so nicely as if you were her daughter. It is strange to be treated this way. Your parents never made you feel important. So it is normal to feel triggered when someone you don’t know makes you feel like you matter.’
‘It’s OK. I am here for you.’ or
‘Crying is normal. Anyone with your abusive background would cry about this situation. Your childhood was so sad. I’m sorry you had to be there’.
3. Ground yourself
This is by far the best method of handling a huge emotional trigger.
Pete Walker, the author of ‘Complex PTSD: from Surviving to Thriving’ advises on how to deal with triggers. He says that, during a trigger you need to ground yourself. Try to remind yourself of what your current reality is.
It’s 2024, you are an adult (say your age), and you have your own place to live (mention where you live). You may or may not be in contact with your abusive parents. You have friends and a job. Therefore, you are not a child. You are not at the mercy of your abusive parents anymore. Whatever the situation you’re in, remind yourself that you are not a prisoner and you can exit any negative circumstance.
The people you meet are doing their own thing. They are not set out to destroy you. If you are triggered by a colleague at work, remember that they are just a coworker. They’re not your abusive parent trying to mess with your mind again.
4. Do journaling
Journaling helps me process my feelings. When I am upset, I write whatever I want in my diary. I might write a poem about how I feel or just a trigger I had. Journaling is a powerful tool to lower your stress and anxiety.
A 2018 study published in the National Library of Medicine found that the elevated anxiety levels of a group of 70 adults decreased significantly after 12 weeks of daily writing. Anxiety involves rumination, a mental process where you go over and over something negative you’ve done or something that happened. Journaling decreases rumination and leads to an improved state of mind.
Conclusion
Handling emotional triggers from complex PTSD is crucial to your well-being. When you are dealing with an emotional trigger, you are dysregulated.
You will learn how to overcome life’s obstacles and difficult interactions with people if you manage your emotional triggers.
