How To Stop Being So Easily Triggered.

Are you tired of people saying that you are too sensitive? Are you sick of being the nice one all the time? Do you wish you could not care and stop being bothered by things that aren't that big of a deal? Do you also play video games? Okay, Great. Lets Talk.

Trigger Warning:

We are about to talk about triggers. By the end of this video, you should be able to explain what triggers are, how they affect you, and what to do to prevent them from ruining your day. And to talk about them, I have to name some, so here is the warning.

I was looking up an article to reference so that you know I am not just pulling things from the deepest recesses of my colon, and as I was reading the article, I got triggered.

I had no problem with the beginning of the article, which states that triggers are sensory reminders that cause painful memories or specific symptoms to resurface.

It tells us how triggers form around a traumatic experience and that you will remember specific sensory imagery, such as sites, sounds, or smells.

When you encounter similar imagery in the future, you may feel a sense of anxiety, panic, or unease.

It explains that a trigger can be anything and person dependent.

What might be a trigger for one person might be hilarious to another.

The main point is that triggers develop in response to experiencing a traumatic situation.

[Definition] A traumatic situation is any circumstance where a person goes through something that no one should ever have to endure.

When discussing what it means to be triggered, the article makes a point to differentiate between "being uncomfortable or offended" and "having a true mental health symptom".

I understand the point they are trying to make.

We live in a world where the worst type of people use "being triggered" as an excuse to do unimaginable things.

They believe that just because they have a mental health diagnosis, their toxic behaviors are justified because it isn't their fault.

Being triggered is used as a way for them to shield themselves from criticism and accountability.

With that being said, I can only partially agree with the distinction.

We don't need to decide whether or not someone is "just offended" or "having a true mental health symptom" because two things can be true at once.

If we take seriously a mental health system whose diagnoses are literally voted into existence by a panel of psychiatrists with more conflicts of interest than a dentist with a candy shop, then perhaps being offended is a symptom of some yet uninvented disorder.

It goes on to say that the reaction someone has to a trigger might be surprising to people because it seems like the person is making a big deal over nothing.

They then list the example of a person who experiences feelings of abandonment after not having a text answered in a certain amount of time. Not receiving the text back is the trigger, and the response might be anything from sadness to a really emotionally dysregulated text.

I wonder why they didn't use the example of a white person reaching out to touch a black woman's hair or an indigenous person seeing their traditional dress being sexualized as a Halloween costume.

The article discusses the formation of triggers and a 2004 study that hypothesized that triggers feel significant because of the link between them and our senses.

When we are in a traumatic incident, our body takes a snapshot of all the sights, sounds, tastes, smells, and textures around us.

Imagine early humans discovering quicksand for the first time; side note does anyone else remember all the training we got on what to do if we got in quicksand?

Anyway, imagine discovering it and almost dying. It would be beneficial for your body to code everything in the environment so that if you come up against something similar, you don't have the same experience.

You might even create generational trauma in your family by passing down stories of the time you almost died in quicksand, so much so that it becomes the standard teaching curriculum for kids instead of how their bodies work.

The article states that "trauma affects each person differently" and that "the same event could cause two people to respond completely differently. One person might reach a point of acceptance about an unsettling experience, and another might develop PTSD".

This difference can be anything from personality traits, the type of traumatic event, emotional development, and the event's meaning to the person.

Ironically enough, I was about to read the section on examples of triggers when I saw an ad for Betterhelp.

My heart began to race, I felt my face flush red, and the only thoughts streaming through my mind were those of rage at the mental health system.

This had happened before as I made a video a while back that is safely hidden on my Patreon, where I was taking a self-diagnosis test online, and at the end, I saw an advertisement for better help.

I did not respond professionally.

It pisses me off to see an advertisement for them in the middle of what should be an informative mental health article because I know that somewhere someone is reading this article to understand triggers and are simultaneously being subject to direct-to-consumer advertising from a company whose entire business model relies on therapists who are entirely oblivious to their self-worth.

It also calls into question the entirety of this article and whether or not it is just one massive advertisement.

It is another example of the marriage between capitalism and mental health; when the goal is profit, getting better is terrible for business.

Have you ever wondered why no one talks about cures for mental illnesses outside of "acceptance" and "life-long medication?"

The therapeutic relationship should be between therapist and client, not therapist, client, and a pimp named Betterhelp, who is more than happy to sell all your personal information to the highest bidder.

It solves the problem of accessibility, but when all you can access is mediocrity, has any problem been solved?

Betterhelp is one of my triggers because its existence is a symptom that the mental health system has problems, and its inclusion in this article indicates that the problem is systemic.

I digress. There are many triggers, including anniversaries, sensory inputs like sights and sounds, individuals who raise their voices, observing arguments, being lonely, breaking up, sexual harassment, injury, or violence in the news.

I would go one step further and say that the daily experience of life itself can be triggering for some people.

Knowing that one has to get up and exist in a world with apparent and unnecessary oppression and inequality is enough to cause a sustained state of being triggered, called hypervigilance.

To help mitigate these triggers, we as a society have adopted the use of trigger warnings. Trigger warnings are used before any content that might be "potentially disturbing".

While its usage originated in online forums, it has now expanded enough in popular culture that you have probably seen or heard one before. They usually precede potentially upsetting content.

The article says that trigger warnings help "certain people" with PTSD, mainly if they are in a vulnerable state at that given moment.

It also notes that there is some debate about whether or not they are helpful.

The article points to a study that says trigger warnings reinforce a survivor's view of their trauma as central to their identity-something, which the article states is counterproductive to healing.

It also laments that trigger warnings have become widespread and have casual usage leading people to believe that people who need trigger warnings are weak.

Furthermore, the opine that the word triggered has lost its meaning because people say it anytime something angers or upsets them.

If you don't know what to look for, you might miss the elitism and gatekeeping surrounding what being triggered is.

I agree that some individuals say they are triggered anytime something angers or upsets them.

And it is possible to recognize people's usage of the language to describe their experience and also have a clinical and diagnostic usage of the word so that therapists can keep getting their insurance reimbursement checks, but I don't think that people using it to explain their subjective reality causes the word to lose its meaning.

The article defines triggered as a stimulus that causes a painful memory to resurface and is provoked by a stimulus that awakens or worsens symptoms of a traumatic event.

Why such a narrow definition? Why can it not also include being angered or upset? Wouldn't being triggered into anger or rage be the proper response to witnessing injustice?

Who gets to decide what the word "triggered" means?

Why do we only seem to take seriously trauma involving experiences we've seen played out in movies?

What do you mean that the casual and widespread use of trigger warnings sends the wrong message to the general public?

People believing that people who need trigger warnings are weak and unable to handle stress sounds like a people problem.

Why are they trying so hard to make the idea of being triggered inaccessible? They want to lower the reader's confidence in themselves about whether or not they can tell they are triggered and instead enlist the help of one of the self-help books that can talk that work at Betterhelp.

The article then ends with four steps to take if you are triggered.

First, you should "try to have perspective" as soon as you "feel triggered," stop being triggered and recognize that your feelings are not because of the trigger; they are because of a previous experience.

The next thing they say is, "remind yourself you are safe," You should take deep breaths and repeat a mantra like "I am safe. This is not then".

Thirdly, they suggest practicing self-compassion and acceptance by not being upset with yourself for being triggered.

Finally, they suggest practicing meditation.

The article abruptly ends with a recap of what a trigger is and then a plug about reaching out to a mental health professional to get a treatment plan.

We're then greeted with another advertisement for better help.

While these are all great suggestions, notice how nothing in this article has anything to do with addressing or calling out the environment producing the triggers.

If someone was trying to figure out how to avoid being so easily triggered, they might leave this article more confused than when they started, but thankfully there were two advertisements for Betterhelp for them to click.

This information is useless to anyone who gets triggered by how the world is, not just the things that happen within it.

It seems like it was written with everyone and no one in particular in mind, but when viewed as an advertisement for Betterhelp it instantly makes more sense.

It offers no new information and is sadly in line with other mental health articles that only exist to reinforce the status quo.

So how about a different approach?

I will explain triggers and how to be less sensitive to them so that individuals who bounce their legs up and down in social settings will understand.

What is a trigger?

A trigger causes you to have a rapid and extreme emotional response.

It is like an emotional allergic reaction to a person, place, thing, situation, or idea.

Unless you have committed daily practice in recognizing, acknowledging, and soothing yourself after being exposed to your trigger, it will lead you to engage in behaviors you will feel guilty, ashamed, or embarrassed about later.

What causes triggers?

Triggers are caused by exposure to a situation that is traumatic.

By traumatic, I mean overwhelming to one's ability to process what is happening to them.

As a survival tactic, your central nervous system, which includes your brain, categorizes the sensory data from the incident and logs it as potentially threatening.

When you are exposed to those sensory experiences or something like them, you may end up experiencing the same emotions as you did when you went through the initial event.

What do people do when they are triggered? People can engage in a variety of behaviors when they are triggered.

Some people do things that look like a traditional fight, flight, freeze, or fawn responses.

Others do things that might cause them to be labeled crazy, such as spam text messages or phone calls, binge consume food or media, and even go on shopping sprees.

Why do some people respond this way to being triggered?

For the same reason, when you see a wallet, you might look for the owner, and someone else may pocket the contents and throw the wallet away.

We can never really know; it combines unconscious influences and conscious choices.

So how do we stop being so easily triggered?

Know what your triggers are.Accept It is okay to Be Triggered By Them.Play Videogames

You first need to know your triggers and how they affect you.

What is something you can't stand or don't vibe with?

What do you hate?

Because America is a country founded on Christian principles and Christian Supremacy is baked into every facet of our existence, most of us feel like hating things is wrong.

We were taught that you should never hate and always show love. But the definition of hate is simply an intense and passionate dislike.

You are easily triggered because you haven't accepted that you have every right to hate certain things. It is okay to hate ideas and behaviors but not people.

I hate when parents hit their kids.

That triggers me because I grew up being hit as a child.

When I see a child being hit, everything about it reminds me of my childhood abuse.

I am triggered by the look on the parent's face, the pleading of the child, the sound of the belt hitting flesh, and more over the knowledge that this parent thinks they are doing the right thing.

I hate seeing a commercial advertising psychiatric medication directly to consumers.

Besides the fact that the diagnoses are all made up and have no scientific meaning, it further promotes the idea that the emotional suffering we all go through is a result of some problem within us instead of the world we live in.

A person suffering would be led to believe that all they need to do is take a pill, but a drug isn't going to teach them how to set boundaries with their environment.

I hate it when I walk down the street and see the Jehovah's Witnesses, The Black Hebrew Israelites, Scientologists, or just Jesus people. There is nothing wrong with religion unless your religion says that people will burn in hell for not believing in your religion.

Knowing your triggers is the first step to being able to overcome them, but many people have no idea how even to identify them because they assume that their trigger "isn't a big deal", but just because you don't understand why something triggers you doesn't mean it isn't a big deal.

When you come to a stimulus, whether it is a person, place, thing, or idea and you feel your body become flooded with emotion, that is a good indicator that you might be triggered.

The second stop should be easy; it is simply an understanding that it is okay to be triggered by things that are triggering to you.

The problem is it is very difficult to self-validate when you have grown up in an invalidating environment. And if you have ever heard the phrase "you are being too sensitive, " congratulations, you grew up in an invalidating environment.

Throw out that diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder and grab a seat at the Chronic Post Traumatic Stress Disorder table!

The problem is not only the triggering situation but the fact that your boss, teacher, or mother refuses to acknowledge that you have a right to feel the way you feel.

This would enrage anyone on the receiving end of behavior that our society considers normal.

Hazing in the food service industry is a perfect example.

I have been made to "chop flour", "mop the walk-in cooler", and "taste how sweet the wasabi is".

When I complained about the treatment, my boss told me that I needed to "toughen up if I wanted to keep this job" and that I should "stop being so sensitive" and "learn how to take a joke".

What is funny about being so concerned about losing my job is that I trust that when you ask me to do something, there is a reason you are asking.

No amount of cognitive behavioral therapy will address the problem of people who think hazing is an acceptable strategy for seeing if the new hire will fit into the company culture.

Cognitive behavioral therapy will also not address the influences of white supremacy on working environments and how these hazing pranks disproportionately affect black and indigenous people of color who don't have mommy and daddies' generational wealth to fall back on should, they lose their job.

To stop being so easily triggered, you need to surround yourself with individuals with the same level of understanding of the nature of injustice as you.

This doesn't mean living in an echo chamber where your views are never challenged, but when it comes to oppression and injustice, some people are triggered by it, some people trigger others, and some haven't read a book since high school. You cannot seek validation from a scorpion that it was wrong for them to sting you. Surround yourself with people who have been stung too.

Finally, you must practice not responding the way you always respond when triggered. Even though overwhelming feelings of anger or rage are logical responses to the invalidating environment that passes for "normal society", society has made the full expression of that anger and rage a diagnosable mental illness unless it occurs within specific times and you have the proper permits.

It is a valid emotional reaction to be triggered into a rage by watching your fellow food service workers haze the new hire as they hazed you. Expressing that rage by slamming plates will get you fired even though the initial stimuli was the problem.

Unlike much of mainstream therapy thought, the problem is not the emotion you feel; in this case, anger, the problem is what you do when you are angry or feeling any other undesirable emotions like sadness or hopelessness.

Being triggered does not cause you to make those choices you will regret later, but being triggered makes deciding to choose better impossibly hard.

And that is ultimately what must happen.

You have to choose to act in opposition to how you feel and make a choice that is illogical to your emotional state. You will only be able to do this if you practice doing it in situations with much lower stakes, which is where video games come in.

One of the biggest problems with being easily triggered is an inability to enjoy the fullness of life. Because yes, there are times when people purposefully and with malice say things to get a rise out of you, and if you are not in control of your trigger response, anyone can make you look unreasonable by saying something as simple as "I don't know TsitchT I got spanked as a child and I turned out fine".

Meditation is a beautiful way to calm a nervous system's response to a triggering stimulus, but it is a passive activity.

Using your favorite video games to meditate with is a much more enjoyable way of doing the same thing, which is getting in touch with yourself and knowing how you are affected by your environment.

My favorite way to meditate in gaming is to find a music rhythm game, puzzle game, platformer and especially a driving game and allow myself to get into a flow.

When something happens that breaks that flow, I practice acknowledging my frustration while at the same time not engaging in reactionary behavior.

For example, in Forza Horizon, I often drive and listen to music on Spotify and do my best not to run off the track.

As I get more and more comfortable, I increase my speed slightly. Inevitably, I get to a speed where mistakes occur, and I pull back.

At times I might make mistakes like over-correcting or misjudging the speed to approach a turn and I can feel the frustration rising, which in the past has led to me quitting the game but now, mainly because of my elevated ability for compassionate self-talk, I can quickly calm myself and get back into focus.

If you aren't into driving games, action games, shooters, or anything with the potential to frustrate you will work. Your goal is not to run away from the emotions or do anything in reaction to it; your goal is to feel the emotion fully and let the energy that would drive you to do something you might regret instead fuel you to the next level of patience.