Humans have a tendency to dilute the meaning of words over time. While language is a living thing and evolves, sometimes, the speed at which a word changes can do more harm than good. One of those words right now is “triggered.”
When most people think of the word trigger, they think of a lever on a gun or a psychological stimulus that prompts flashbacks of a traumatic experience. There is a vocal minority who has helped change the meaning of triggered, which is doing damage to people with real mental health issues. This change has come to mean people who get angry at others with opinions different to their own, someone who is upset or annoyed at a person, place, or thing, or hearing or experiencing something you don’t like.
Being triggered is not something I would choose. If those that have warped the meaning of the word could experience what being triggered and the ensuing flashback are really like, I highly doubt they would choose it either.
I use triggered in my therapist’s office, but I hesitate to do so every time because I am acutely aware of how the word is becoming bastardized and cheapened. My therapist knows what I mean and I know what I mean, yet it has become a hard word to speak because of what is happening in society.
I don’t often use triggered publicly because of this. When I do try to help others understand my experiences, I will describe it instead.
Flashbacks can be triggered by a variety of things. A trigger is specific to each person. Imagine some object, taste, smell, or sound provokes a strong emotion, reaction, or sensation in a person. This provocation creates such a reaction that a memory is brought to the surface. Though a majority of my flashbacks happen at night when I’m trying to shut my brain down and get some sleep, it can happen anywhere, at any time.
For me, it brings back the memories of some of the most horrific moments in my life – moments I never chose to have. The trigger sets off a flashback. While people with PTSD experience a range of symptoms, flashbacks are a common thread among them.
For those who do not struggle with flashbacks, they may think what happens is a pleasant memory, such as remembering your first baseball game. Flashbacks are not like that.
During a flashback, I am reliving the moment the event happened. I often feel paralyzed by the wave of emotions that hit all at once. I am, at the same time, that child and the adult re-experiencing rape, sexual assault, physical abuse. I live it in vivid detail. Sometimes, it’s just part of an entire event. Sometimes, it’s the whole thing.
When this occurs, I can’t tell what is real and what is not. Every one of my senses is reliving that event again. I experience every pain, fear, and horror of that moment in time. It feels as if it is happening all over again.
When it’s over, my heart is racing, I’m sweating, and I’m nauseous. Sometimes, I actually throw up. It is debilitating and exhausting.
I don’t yet recognize all of my triggers. I surmise this is because I am only now dealing with what happened to me four decades ago and because there were so many incidents.
One of the things I work on in therapy is recognizing my triggers and finding ways to lessen their impact. Sometimes, I’m successful. Sometimes, even with my coping mechanisms, I fail. That’s okay. I just have to pick up the pieces and try again next time, because there will always be a next time.
While coping mechanisms work, there is also a side effect. I spend a lot of my waking hours being mentally exhausted from all the energy I need to use to keep my PTSD in check and make it through the day.
If you ever wonder why you don’t see me out in public much, it’s because I’m mentally drained by the end of the day and spending time around people is practically impossible to do. I simply don’t have the energy to be sociable. If you ask me how I’m doing and I reply with, “I’m tired,” this is the tired I’m talking about.
Along with triggered, people have also started to use the words “traumatized” and “PTSD” in trivial ways that deny those who live each day enduring the circumstances that traumatized them and/or resulted in a diagnosis of PTSD.
This muddying of the waters only causes more confusion to people who are trying to explain their experiences to others.
So, when people say they were triggered because you disagreed with them, it does make me angry. The fact is, you were upset someone had an opinion that was different from your own. You didn’t then end up on a roller coaster of fear, being terrified to be alive.
Right now, there isn’t a better word than triggered. I know my true friends understand and will ask questions, respecting my wishes if I can’t share. Right now, my therapist and my husband are the only ones I explain my triggers to in detail. Even then, it’s incredibly difficult to do so.
To so radically change the description of a word does real harm to people who used to use the word to near-universal understanding. To make the word a joke or into a meme lessens the effectiveness in which another person attempts to communicate their very real situation, cheapening everyone’s chance to learn, to grow, and to make the world a little bit better place to live in.