Ask a Therapist: How to Handle Trauma and What is a Trauma Trigger
Welcome to an installment of our "Ask a Therapist" series, where I address the questions you've submitted on a wide range of mental health topics. This post is focusing on understanding trauma and knowing what are trauma triggers.
In this post, I dive deep into the intricacies of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), the concept of trauma triggers and how they can impact people, along with practical tips for how to handle trauma triggers and support your trauma healing journey.
Whether you’re seeking insight for yourself or looking to be a better ally for someone else, this discussion aims to provide valuable information and guidance on the path to trauma recovery and connection.
What is the best advice for how to handle trauma?
How to handle trauma is obviously a big question, as my entire blog series focuses on various aspects of trauma and recovery. My work as a clinical psychologist and online trauma therapist encompasses supporting clients, leading trauma therapy groups, and conducting educational seminars and workshops, all aimed at helping individuals cope with and recover from trauma.
It's essential to examine the different stages of trauma recovery we recognize, as each stage addresses specific themes and ideas. These stages of trauma recovery include establishing safety, remembrance and mourning, and integration and reconnection.
The stage of trauma recovery called establishing safety involves taking steps to ensure your physical well-being. This includes living in a secure environment, ensuring safe relationships, escaping dangerous situations, and assuring your basic needs are met. It's also crucial that your surroundings feel comforting and conducive to trauma recovery.
In this stage of trauma recovery emotional safety is equally important; this means practicing coping skills and having a strong social support network to assist you when you experience emotional dysregulation.
One of the most effective skills group I offer is the Trauma Coping Skills Workshop where trauma survivors and allies can log in to a one time online workshop and learn fast and helpful trauma coping skills. Read more about the Trauma Coping Skills Workshop here.
The trauma recovery stage of remembrance and mourning represents the active phase of trauma recovery. This is when therapeutic practices, such as EMDR trauma therapy, trauma-focused therapy, art therapy, or family therapy, etc., come into play.
Various interventions, including energy work or trauma energy healing, can help your body and mind process trauma, facilitating a return to the present and releasing any parts of yourself that may be stuck in past experiences of trauma. Engaging in these treatments, along with group therapy for trauma or trauma support groups, aids in navigating the processes of remembrance and mourning.
For people looking for an ongoing trauma therapy group, I facilitate the Group Therapy for Trauma. In eight weeks, this trauma skills focused group helps people learn and practice skills for trauma recovery including building knowledge about how trauma impacts our brain, what to do when trauma is triggered, and setting achievable goals to build a life worth living. People walk away from this trauma skills group already taking steps towards the life they want to live, armed with useful and practical skills to manage triggers. Read more about the Group Therapy for Trauma and the next upcoming cohort here.
This phase involves recalling past events, grieving losses, and fully experiencing the emotions that arise, all within a safe space where those feelings can be held. The skills developed in the earlier stage are vital to supporting this journey.
Next, we move into the stages of trauma recovery of reconnection and integration, where we reestablish our connection to life, relationships, and personal values—the core elements that matter to us.
This phase of trauma recovery is crucial in trauma healing because it helps us build a life that is truly worth living, one that justifies the effort we’ve put into overcoming trauma. The aspects of life that bring meaning and purpose often align closely with our personal values.
These values not only guide our long-term and short-term goals but also shape how we navigate life as a whole, enhancing our sense of connection to who we are and what is most important to us.
A critical aspect of integration during trauma healing is that trauma recovery enables us to create a cohesive narrative of our life story, one that encompasses not only our trauma but also the resilience and strength we've demonstrated throughout our journey. It acknowledges the pain, suffering, and loss alongside the healing and recovery that have occurred.
Integration and reconnection during trauma recovery involve taking this comprehensive story and using it as a foundation to reengage with the world, participate in our communities, and connect with our values and aspirations from a more complete and authentic place.
Do people recover from PTSD?
YES! People CAN and DO recover from PTSD. When coping with PTSD, it's essential to recognize that all three stages of trauma recovery—establishing safety, remembrance and mourning, and reconnection and integration—will be active at different times in our lives. We may find ourselves focusing more on one particular phase of trauma recovery as we navigate our healing journey.
The most effective approach to managing PTSD involves actively engaging with the trauma recovery stage you are currently in, while also practicing self-compassion and extending radical generosity towards yourself. It's important to be kind and understanding as you progress through each phase of trauma recovery.
What is a trauma trigger?
The term “trauma trigger" is often used in everyday conversations, with phrases like "I was triggered" becoming quite common. However, this usage of trauma trigger has somewhat diluted its meaning, as many now use it to describe any emotional response or activation.
In a more precise sense, a trauma trigger is an event or stimulus that elicits trauma symptoms in a person, both internally and externally. This is called a Trauma Trigger Response. A trauma trigger response can manifest as flashbacks, where the brain and body react as if they are reliving the traumatic experience, often leading to intense fear and distress.
Trauma Trigger Response
A trauma trigger response can also lead to dissociation, where a person feels disconnected from themselves, their body, or their surroundings in response to certain environmental cues. These cues could include specific smells, sounds, intrusive memories, or even hearing a particular name, all of which have the potential to activate a traumatic response.
Experiencing a trauma trigger response is a normal aspect of living with trauma and PTSD; they are considered active symptoms of the condition.
It's important to understand that trauma trigger responses are not permanent features of someone's life. Through effective treatment and recovery for PTSD, triggers often significantly diminish and in some cases, may even disappear completely, which is wonderful.
It's also important to distinguish between being triggered and simply having an emotional reaction. Feelings of anger, frustration, nervousness, or fear can occur without being triggered; trauma triggers, on the other hand, involve experiencing trauma symptoms in response to specific environmental cues.
What to do when you are triggered?
One of the most effective strategies to do when you are triggered is shifting your thoughts and focusing away from the trauma trigger. Instead of trying to analyze the situation or reassure yourself that everything is safe, it’s important to recognize that your body is reacting, and you want to support that response.
Dealing with triggers includes engaging in soothing physiological coping skills that can help shift your body out of the fight-or-flight response and into a more relaxed and peaceful state.
Dealing with triggers might include using techniques like the TIP skill DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy) or activating the mammalian dive reflex, which involves applying ice to your face to activate the parasympathetic nervous system.
When you are triggered, deep breathing exercises can also be very beneficial for dealing with triggers. Listening to calming music or using weighted items, such as a weighted blanket or specially designed stuffed animals filled with lavender, can provide comfort and grounding when dealing with triggers.
Additionally, when you are triggered, participating in things like cold plunges—if accessible—can be effective, though a hot shower or bath can also be soothing if cold exposure isn’t an option.
Engaging in activities that regulate your emotions, such as taking a walk in a safe and familiar environment, can also help dealing with triggers. What to do when you are triggered is stay aware of your surroundings to prevent dissociation, and do grounding exercises to aid in reconnecting with the present moment. All of these techniques can be incredibly helpful in the immediate aftermath of encountering a trigger and dealing with triggers.
When you start to feel grounded and calm after moving away from a trauma trigger, it’s helpful to make a note of that experience. Document the trauma trigger that occurred, how you felt physically, and any environmental factors that may have contributed to your response.
These insights about trauma triggers can be valuable to share with your therapist during processing. In practices like EMDR trauma therapy, we specifically work on dealing with trauma triggers to help reduce the symptomatic responses they elicit.
Remember when dealing with trauma triggers to approach yourself with radical compassion throughout this process. A trauma trigger is essentially a manifestation of the injury caused by emotional trauma. It can be likened to breaking an ankle—sometimes, when you’re hiking, your ankle might become sore or swollen, prompting you to pause and apply ice.
Trauma triggers function similarly in the context of trauma, representing ongoing reminders of that injury and emphasizing the need for continued healing.
Trauma Trigger Examples
I have specific trauma triggers examples submitted by someone regarding when trauma is triggered. I've made some adjustments and paraphrased the information to ensure everyone's confidentiality and privacy. These trauma trigger examples illustrate how when trauma is triggered, triggers can emerge from situations that may not seem inherently activating or triggering at first glance.
I didn't feel triggered when I saw the person who assaulted me on TV. However, while watching a YouTube video where someone else shared her story of abuse, I had a strong reaction. I froze up, struggled to breathe, and felt a tightness in my chest that stayed for hours.
The sensations this person describes—freezing up, difficulty breathing, and chest pain—reflect a bodily flashback, a trauma trigger response. Even in the absence of visual memories or images, the body can react with a nervous system freeze response, where it holds its breath and experiences tightness.
This trauma trigger response occurs as the muscles accumulate energy, preparing for a potential fight or flight response. This type of nervous system freeze response classifies as a type of flashback.
It's quite common to encounter triggers we aren't consciously aware of. There may be instances where we come across something that should be deeply triggering, yet we don’t feel that activation.
Conversely, hearing someone else's story—especially if it resonates with aspects of our own experiences that we haven’t fully processed—can unexpectedly trigger us.
When you experience this kind of trauma reaction, taking note of it and bringing it to trauma therapy for processing is important. Additionally, employing trauma coping skills to manage triggers can be beneficial for your self-care.
Sometimes, people question whether an unexpected trauma trigger indicates that they might be repressing a past trauma. Not necessarily.
Our brains are adept at forming connections between memories, which can be thought of as threads linking different sensations, emotions, beliefs, and experiences. A particular smell, sound, or visual cue may evoke memories that are reminiscent of a past event without being an exact replica of it.
While our brains do dissociate from especially painful and traumatic memories, blocking them to avoid overwhelming feelings, it's not typical for unusual triggers and flashbacks to surface as a means of revealing those memories. However, it's still essential to remain open to the possibility that they could be linked to something deeper.
You can still work through these trauma triggers with a trauma therapist and obtain the trauma healing and recovery you need, regardless of whether those past events actually occurred. The simple fact that the trauma trigger has surfaced is significant. In processing that trauma trigger, you can experience a sense of safety, peace, and healing.
Ready to start trauma focused therapy today? Sign up to work with me here. I offer trauma therapy with multiple approaches to best meet the needs of trauma survivors. Read more about working with me here.
You can also try out my online group offers: Trauma Coping Skills Workshop and Group Therapy for Trauma to connect with a supportive community and learn helpful trauma coping skills from home.
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