healthyagain

What exactly is a trigger? Is this something that obstructs your recovery, or is this "just" a negative feeling (anger, fear, sadness, resentment) you get when in contact with something/someone that triggers you? Do you avoid triggers? Do you "face" them?

FeelingGreat

Triggers for an As are things that bring on cravings, or an urge to drink. For many, including me, it was leaving work and heading home because of the habit of evening drinking.
Other triggers could be in the form of people or situations that are upsetting, or even something to celebrate.
I suppose a trigger for non-As would relate to some habitual behaviour like losing your temper, or binge eating.

In the early days I dealt with triggers by planning to avoid them.

healthyagain

I was thinking that these cravings for a non-A (codependent) might mean craving for the A person, while triggers are the situations that make us behave (or tempt us to behave) in a codependent way. Meaning we want to "fix" the situation again, etc.

Perhaps, that is why reducing contact to minimum (even better, NC) is the best solution for me at the moment. But everything reminds me of my AH. I get triggered by a simple weather change, or scent in the air. I start missing him, missing the good him. But then I have to keep controlling myself and reminding myself of the bad times and why I left in the first place. It is strange how we forget bad things, really bad things.

TidyTeal

Triggers for me are things that touch on something I have an emotional problem with that cause me to freeze up and respond in a codependent way, or a "less than" way, usually due to it being tied to another incident I got hurt in the first time. If that makes sense?

Something mechanical breaks in the house? I freeze up, can't think straight, go back to relationship in my head with Hubby, get frustrated,
do my codependent thing, which is decide I can live without whatever broke ( totally unrealistic) cause I don't deserve to have a functioning light, hot water tank or whatever it is, and then beat myself up because I can't do what normal people do and just address the problem. My thinking is off, my perceptions of the problem are over in left field and I need a good push to understand that it's not mount everest.

Emotionally I'm stuck right back where I was yrs ago when I'd be on eggshells asking him to fix something and then the "games" would start.

I had no idea how bad I was until he died. Just how many triggers I had, how stuck I was, how many everyday things I dance around till long after he was gone. They just keep cropping up. A friend of mine mentioned my shrubs needed trimming out front cause they hit her car. I lost my cookies & froze up cause it's an old fight I used to have with him every year.

Simple fix was go out an give them a trim. In my head tho it was HUGE cause I "should weed out that entire side of the garden, cut down the two trees pushing the hedges, and on & on.....
Till she asked if I had a pair of loppers cause she'd just nip them.

Yeah....I never thought of that.
I was stuck in my head, having the old fight, only this time I noticed I was the only one having it cause, you know, he's gone. I was frozen & stuck for a week over it tho an beating myself up.

Away from my home I'm not like this. I swing the other way & I'm quite the competent "little fixer" for other people.....also not good, but I at least "appear" to have my cookies together. At work "fixing" or problem solving is valued. At home I just cringe & go right back to whatever emotional incident applies and tailspin.

Found Robert Burney's website and things began to make sense to me.
Joy2meU, You have to scroll down for the list of articles. It's easy to say Codependency is a dysfunctional relationship with self, but applying that to why things set me off into that familiar tailspin, understanding I punish myself for things that aren't actually my fault cause I don't know how to correctly handle them to begin with took awhile to sink in. Most of my panic attacks are my body telling me I just stepped into a "old situation" that my brain isn't recognizing, but my body does.

Triggers are individual, in my mind, it's whatever takes you back to an incident that is emotionally charged in a negative way. Rightly or wrongly. Cause I'm aware my perceptions aren't always accurate. Altho in all fairness some incidents were just actually awful and abusive.
Yep....I minimize things in my personal brand of disfunction too!
( laughing)
I tease with my therapist that " multi-tasking disfunction" isn't good????
Really???
LOLOLOL

ahem.....this may take me awhile to get myself straightened out.

FireSprite

Yep - triggers get "tripped" and send me down a codependent path, acting in ways I no longer accept of myself & cause a "slip" or relapse (or whatever) in my recovery process.

Mine are all over the map & many relate more to my ACoA issues than my RAH issues... probably because those behaviors & relationships have existed longer & have always been more entangled.

I think triggers are such personal, intangible things that it's hard to learn about your own from others... so while hearing shares about what other people identify as triggers was helpful for me, it came down to paying attention & being aware of my actions/emotions to fully understand how it related to me.

One of my favorite examples is the credit card statement - used to trigger me like MAD because it always became a battle. When RAH was actively drinking he'd spend like crazy & never say a word so the charges would astonish me every month, giving me extreme stress between the charges, the high balance, the LIES that the charging pattern showed.

Even after he stopped drinking & I took away his access to the account, I would still react just seeing the statement in the mailbox every month. Even without new charges, the inflated past balance sickened me & I still went down a bad path in my memory, remembering all the lies that made up that balance. Just replaying it all again & again every month. And it would sit until 3 days before it was due.... while I stewed in all the emotions it brought back, EVERY time I saw it, glanced at the envelope, remembered I hadn't paid it yet, etc. {I had used to open it immediately upon arrival & then we'd fight & argue about what it contained..... over time I started waiting until closer to it's due date because I got tired of the constant fighting.... except that didn't stop my anxiety, it just gave it more time to brew.} I ended up switching to paperless statements when I realized that these stupid papers were sending me into a tailspin for the better part of every month no matter how I handled it. I changed the trigger because I had some control over it.

When he stopped drinking & started to actually work his recovery I started to notice myself picking fights with him just so I could trigger my own binge eating ---- as he was recovering I was losing him as my trigger for this behavior so I would try to poke & prod at him until he reacted, giving me the justification to stuff my face & feed my emotions. Eating disorder issues are MINE solely but I'd gotten used to relying on him to trigger me & sending me spiraling toward the pantry (& thereby also receiving the blame). When that expectation wasn't met I melted down because I still needed that emotional outlet & couldn't see that I'd been fooling myself about the reasons why.

As an ACoA though, it's harder. It took me YEARS to see that I was reacting every time my sister had a problem. Even if/when she created the problem - her problems meant I lost sleep. The solutions have run the gamut from outright fixing stuff, paying for it, doing it myself, etc. Obviously, I can't just change the method of delivery to change this trigger, it involves a lot more emotional awareness instead. It means I have to be able to recognize the beginning of the cycle (trigger) before it results in a certain pattern of behaviors. When issues come up for her now, I listen instead of immediately trying to problem solve. I wait for her to ask for help (I'd been selling her short in thinking she NEEDED me to fix her life for her & sometimes when she did have that expectation it was due to having gotten used to receiving unsolicited help for so long..... we both needed help breaking this cycle.)

Triggers are also pretty non-threatening & hard to spot on their own - because it's not about the trigger, it's about the sequence of behaviors it sets off & how it affects change in a person emotionally. The trigger is just the initial shot that starts the race.

ScottFromWI

For me, "triggers" were just another name for excuses to drink. Being sad was a trigger, so was being happy. Nice weather was a trigger, so was bad weather. Celebrations were triggers, and so were disasters.

Triggers/urges/cravings...all just symptoms of untreated alcoholism IMHO.

LemonGirl

Triggers vary for each person. I have too many qualifiers in my life.... my mom, whom I live with drinks every night. I get triggered by her when she gets in one of her negative moods and at times I am unable to disengage.... the feelings of "I can't do anything right" consume me. I get angry and do the whole victim thing while a part of me actually believes that I can't do anything right and so begins my attempts at "fixing" what I did NOT break by going the extra mile to prove myself to her.... extra house chores, unwarranted favors, accommodating unreasonable house rules.... I fall right into the victim role and continue to try not to rock the boat because after all, I tell myself, she IS my mother and this IS her house. Even though really, I am 36 years old, capable, and I pay and do more than my fair share with rent, bills, and chores. But her angry controlling behavior sends me back into being a child that wants to please.
God that is nuts when I actually write it out!

My daughter's dad triggers me. Another victim role. I had to set up a third party communication application for him and I I'm order to cut down my contact with him because I was so riddled with anxiety and panic. He is still an abusive manipulator and I honestly cannot tell if he still uses meth or not. But just having to look at my messages can trigger me into an emotional mess. I feel as if he will always win and that he has some sort of power over me that he will always be able to get away with his behavior.... that I am weak against him... that he can manipulate things to make me out to be the bad guy and he will get off Scotch free....
Even with my stomach in knots, I have managed to get through it by reminding myself that the truth will eventually come out. That I have nothing to hide. That he cannot destroy my inner core. That he doesn't really have power over me.

I think that triggers will always trigger us to go back to some form of negative thinking.... but our choice in behavior is what will dictate the outcome. I know now that NOT over reacting to my ex will keep the situation calmer than if I did react. Now when he tries to push my buttons I simply point out a few facts and get right to the point of our communication which is our shared custody of our daughter.
But with my mother, the process has proven to be much more difficult. I am well aware of the resentment building within me and that I am likely to pop one day. I seem to fail at asserting myself as an equal in this house and that I am my own person capable of making my own life choices and allowing her to be responsible for whatever negativity she is feeling and that I virtually have nothing to do with her choices or opinions and that it is okay for me to move on with my life....

Triggers are probably signals that something in our lives needs our attention.... for addicts and codies alike. It's our approach that needs to change. Actually dealing with the issue is a good start! ;-)

knowthetriggers

^^This right here for me! Exactly why my screen name is Knowthetriggers.

I am almost one year on this forum and I have seen quite a bit of growth in myself with it comes to reacting to my triggers.

Great post, thanks for sharing!!