Triggers

[angelface]

I am only starting to try and understand my bpd ways, and over the years i have been asked what are my triggers however i have only just recently realised my moods shift suddely. but being asked all the time what is my triggers i don't know what they meant by triggers what are triggers. Sorry if this sounds really thick.

[Ginny]

Angel - I guess what they mean is what is it that makes you feel intensely emotional or out of control - for example, my triggers are things like people leaving me and not being where they are supposed to be at the right time, people saying things that make me feel rejected, people not sticking to exact time lines, etc. I suppose its anything that threatens your sense of self or the securities we set up for ourselves....

Hope this helps a bit.

Ginny :blink:

[Daisy]

Ginny said it very well.

TRIGGER is something that THREATENS YOU and sometimes your safety.

For me a trigger is often a memory of something, like seeign carpet thats the same, a shirt, a face...this makes me upset and sometimes out of control.

TRIGGERS are something we wont be able to escape but in time hopefully learn to Manage our reactions to them>

**************

I did a dictionary search to see if their words could explain it better and this is what i got, kinda does help!

"TRIGGER"

An event that precipitates other events.

trig·gered, trig·ger·ing, trig·gers

To set off; initiate: remarks that triggered bitter debates.

Hope that helps.

Hugs Daisy.

[Amy]

I am still trying to figure out what all of my triggers are. My moods change very quickly as well. When I talk to my therapist about a rage that seemed to have come out of nowhere she will ask what triggered me. I usually don't have an answer.

In my therapist's explanation, a trigger is something, anything, that happens right before you experience a depressive, angry, rage, etc, mood swing.

I have so many holes in my memory from my childhood, (not many clear memories before age 17) that it could be as little as a particular noise, but I don't realize it, yet my mind does, and I react. I hope that made sense.

If you don't know what triggers you, don't get upset with yourself, or frustrated, just say you don't know. There really isn't much more you can do and your doc will/should understand this. I have come to realize a couple of triggers, but I have so many more to go. My therapist said I may never know all of them, only know better how to manage them.

Good luck.

Hugs

Amy