Trigger Words
Ah, the trigger. An older friend was sharing with me an experience about a woman he met on a dating site. Only it didn’t sound like a date (least to me anyway). I’ll call him Tiger. He was telling me about how he had to pick her up — - because her car got toad a few days before the date. Plus she already asked Tiger for money and they haven’t known each other that long.
Here Comes The Trigger
Alright, like a trooper he still presses on to pick her up and spend some time with her. Somehow someway he got her to cook burgers for him. After they got to know one another, he ended up driving her back to her place. Mark told me the words she said that set off his trigger. She said ‘’you drive too slow, you should let me drive’’.
Now from an outsider's view, that part cracked me up. But if I was in Mark’s shoes, I would have been triggered too by these remarks.
Trigger Words can creep up on us at any time. We never know when someone will say something that causes us to have an impulse reaction to their words. Some people know what they’re doing, they try to intentionally trigger us and then blame us for having an emotional response to their trigger words. This practice seems to be common in the social media world.
I see this a lot on Twitter. One user will comment on a post, another person will feel triggered by that post, then they will use trigger words against the first user, then the first user will feel triggered by their triggering and the cycle continues with hurt egos.
Embracing It
It isn’t easy to admit when we’re triggered. We’ve been taught to not acknowledge it didn’t happen. There better things to worry about. This may be the truth, but to act like hurt feelings don’t happen is a huge disservice to our well being. The triggering may go down, but it will never stop nor go away.
I wish I had the answer to this neverending problem. I thought I finally reached a point in my life where trigger words couldn’t affect me in any way anymore. I was wrong. Trigger words still find a way into my stomach. It could be any word that brings up a horrible memory in your life. Any word that brings that effect on you is a trigger word.
I’ll learn that this problem won’t go away (at least for me). So I’ve embraced that I will get triggered throughout my life. I used to go to a period where I would look to be triggered so I could outdo the person who sparked the inner rage in me. Not anymore. That wears you out. It's start to admit that I can’t be non triggered 24/7. It’s just not realistic.
