“Is It Them or Is It Me?” The Story Behind our Triggers
Have you ever met someone and had a visceral, overwhelming negative reaction to them? We’ve all been there. And we seemingly have nothing to back this up. It’s not logical, there’s no evidence, they haven’t done anything, we simply “have a feeling.” We’re activated and we don’t know why. All we do know is that this feels real – it feels unsafe, and to your mind and your body, it is.
We’re not supposed to like everybody, nor is everybody meant to like us. We know when we click with certain people, and we know when we don’t. When we do, we “jive.” It feels fluid and there’s a natural flow. When we don’t, it’s clunky, with little reciprocity or ease. This is a matter of preference. And as long as we remain respectful, self-aware, emotionally regulated, law-abiding humans – identifying who we get along with and who we don’t is exactly what individuates us. Being unafraid to be liked is what makes us truly authentic. These are our personalities; innate to who we are as humans. A blueprint no different than our own fingerprint.
The difference between the intense, negative reaction I mentioned earlier, and our individual personalities lies within our bodies. Does this visceral response match with the situation at hand? Is it weighing heavily on your psyche? Is it consuming your thoughts or becoming obsessive? If the answer is yes, it’s an invitation to look deeper.
Our bodies are our greatest resource. They are the keepers of our health, time, and memories. Our bodies carry more information than we often realize – much of which we’re not even conscious of. In many ways, we don’t allow ourselves to be fully aware of our bodies because at no point in our development has it been encouraged. We live in a culture that normalizes emotional bypassing, offering quick hits of dopamine at the first sign of any emotional distress. Feeling depressed? Have a drink. Feeling anxious? Use cannabis. Feeling bored or isolated? Scroll Tik Tok. Buy something. Consume – anything. But that activation is critical information – it is the key to our well-being and to our suffering.
When I use the word “activation” I am referring to triggers. I’m sure many of you have heard this term before – it’s become the word of the decade it seems, especially through various self-help “influencers.” While I’m glad this language is becoming more mainstream and less stigmatized, it has a tendency to be weaponized – used against another – “you’re triggering me.” This othering quickly leads to isolation, to estrangement. A severance of ties due to an internal reckoning. When we are afraid, we avoid. And avoidance only exacerbates the problem.
It's a good thing that we’re starting to recognize the activation because, as I mentioned, it’s not a skill many of us we were taught. But are we asking the hard questions? Are we going a level deeper? Is this about them, or is it about us? News fah-lash: part of it is about them, but most of it, is about us.
So, what’s happening when we’re triggered? Simply put: our nervous system is activated. Our mind and our body perceive a threat in some way, sending us into a protective state. Let’s break that down from a neuroscience perspective.
The human brain consists of three distinct layers: the reptilian brain, the mammalian brain, and the frontal cortex. The reptilian brain, otherwise known as our brain stem, is where our most basic, instinctual responses live. It’s what drive us to eat, sleep, pee and poop. It’s the first to come online. And we know it’s online when we feel sensations and impulses. It’s our basic survival functioning.
The mammalian brain, also known as the limbic system or emotional brain is next. This comes online around three months of age. We see this when a baby begins to recognize its attachment figure (or parent) – they giggle, smile, wiggle – emotional experiences and attachment are starting to develop. It’s the nonverbal part of the brain.
The final layer to enter the chat is the frontal cortex, also known as the thinking brain. This is where our cognition lives. It’s where the “you” part of you lives. It’s the part of us that can speak and be funny and engage with others – our consciousness. It’s not until this part comes online that we can match words with our emotional experience (or the limbic system). This is the verbal part of the brain.
Research tells us that the limbic system is dominant the first two years of life. Children remember by feeling, and adapting to the environment requires learned responses, not verbal dialogue (Fisher, 2017). This is an important piece of information. If the limbic system is dominant first, and we live in an unsafe environment with emotionally neglectful or abusive attachment figures, then our habitual responses are going to be orientated towards reacting in an unsafe environment. These experiences have become the internal working models of the world through which we perceive most, if not everything.
The human brain is biased towards the negative. It is naturally primed to look for potential threats in any given situation. It’s actually easier for the brain to process negative memories than positive ones. The limbic system, which handles the perception and response to threat, contains a small, pea-like structure called the amygdala. The amygdala acts as the brains alarm system. In fact, two thirds of the amygdala’s cells are dedicated to scanning for negative stimuli (Fisher, 2017). This was imperative for ancient humans who relied on this survival response if they were going to make it to the next generation. And we don’t even have to look back as far as ancient humans - pick any war in the last century, or genocide, or financial depression, or slavery, or human rights movement, or terrorist attack. We are all, in some way, descendants of those who survived – and that is the essence of intergenerational trauma.
When we experience threatening events, it activates our emergency stress response, also known as fight or flight. The sympathetic nervous system turns on – noradrenaline is released, heart rate increases, we feel this rush of energy to our muscle tissue fueling us with the strength of Super(wo)man. Cortisol is then released triggering the parasympathetic nervous system to turn on, which is our bodies way of preparing to recover once we survive whatever threat we are faced with. The parasympathetic nervous system slams on the breaks – adrenaline is metabolized, resulting in shaking, trembling, numbing, and we may have rebound gastrointestinal activity like nausea (Fisher, 2017).
Once the threat has passed, the consolidation and retrieval of what just happened is compromised (Fisher, 2017). And to make matters more complicated, memory is not stored in just one area of the brain. There are many structures that support our memory bank. Perhaps the two most important when processing new memories are the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex – which are both totally compromised under threat. The hippocampus, which processes experiences prior to them being remembered, and the prefrontal cortex, or the thinking, logical brain, goes offline completely. Leaving just our most instinctual, primitive, emotional circuitries to store the raw data of the memory – divorced of any narrative, reasoning, or clarity that could explain it (Fisher, 2017).
The fallout? Our feelings, our senses, our muscle memories, our automatic responses. The knee-jerk reactions, our over-reactions. Our rage, our numbing, our dissociation, our depression, our anxiety, our escapism. Our gut issues, headaches, nausea, sleeplessness, restlessness. Our impulsivity, our withdrawal. As Bessel van der Kolk said, the body truly does “keep the score.”
The negativity bias also promotes avoidance but logically, we’re not thinking like this, because we remember negative stimuli less in words and more in feelings and our bodies (Fisher, 2017). The conscious mind is not aware of the subconscious activation. You don’t know you’re remembering. So, not only are we not aware of this activation to our nervous system in any real way – at least, not yet – but we also feel justified in our reaction. The limbic system has highjacked the higher levels of the brain and now we can no longer dispute our reality with any logical data, leaving our limbic system in charge of our perceptions (Fisher, 2017). So, we externalize – “you’re defective, the problem, not good enough, there’s something wrong with them.” Or internalize – “I’m defective, the problem, not good enough, there’s something wrong with me.”
And since the amygdala is the alarm system of the brain, the result is a sensitization to even subtle reminders of the negative stimuli (Fisher, 2017). Suddenly we can’t do the thing. The world becomes a dangerous place. And we have a right to feel this way – the evidence was there. The evidence IS there. The world can be a dangerous place. Events happening on the world stage today are directly impacting our sense of safety and feeling like we can operate as our truest selves.
By now you may be asking yourself, what if this person is just an asshole? Well, two things can be true at once. You can be activated, and they can also be an asshole. There are lots of wounded people out there, many of whom haven’t done the work to develop self-awareness or take accountability for their actions – likely due to their own unresolved pain. They show up as horrible bosses and in toxic, abusive relationships (platonic or intimate), acting out of pain, rage, hate, and despair, without caring who gets hurt. While others don’t even realize what they’re doing is wrong (Shapiro, 2012, p.244).
American psychologist and educator, Francine Shapiro, who originated and developed Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy, wrote in her book Getting Past Your Past, “If you feel abandoned, worthless or different in your own family, how do you identify with the rest of society? And if you don’t identify with society, why obey the rules? Make up your own, that way you’re in charge and you do the hurting.”
My own therapist once said to me, “If it’s hysterical, it’s historical.” In other words, if someone else triggers such a strong reaction in you, it is likely tied to something from your past. The antidote to our suffering is having the courage to ask ourselves whether our reactions are serving our highest good today. Ultimately, it’s up to us to take responsibility for our behavior, our triggering or activation, and our resolution, while acknowledging that your past experiences were beyond your control.
Take this week to simply notice. Pay attention to moments when your nervous system feels activated. Write these down. This could manifest as anxiety, depression, numbness, irritability, or anger. If you tend to live in a state of hyperarousal (increased agitation) or hypoarousal (numbing), this may be more difficult for you to identify, as these states may be your baseline. There may never be moments when you feel safe. If that is the case, simply notice where you feel this in your body. Often, where we feel emotions in our body is closely tied to what we lacked during a triggering event. For example, if you experience constriction in your throat, it may reflect a time when you felt you didn’t have a voice. This connection is often linked to our belief system and how we perceive ourselves—again, usually without conscious awareness.
To ground yourself, practice exercises that orient you to the present moment by activating your five senses. Place your feet firmly on the ground, then scan your surroundings: what do you hear, smell, touch, or taste? By engaging your senses, you activate your thinking brain, which as discussed earlier, shuts down when we’re triggered. Bringing your thinking brain back online helps down-regulate emotional activation.
Then ask yourself these questions:
Does this person or situation remind you of anyone or a specific time in your life? Who were they, and how old were you at the time?
What emotions are you feeling? Do they feel familiar? If so, where do you feel this in your body? Can you trace that back to an earlier memory when you felt this way?
What negative thoughts or beliefs are you having about yourself as you bring up this person or situation?
How has your response, or reaction to triggering, kept you safe over time?
Fisher, J. (2017). Working with the Neurobiological Legacy of Trauma, Certified Clinical Trauma Professional Training.
Shapiro, F. (2012) Getting past your past: Take control of our life with self- help techniques from EMDR therapy. New York: Rodale Press.
