Nothing in the past can hurt you unless you bring the hurt with you from the past

What is PTSD? What is involved in ‘being triggered’ and why do we use the phrase in the first place?
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is the most recent iteration of what was once called ‘shell shock’, the phenomenon where soldiers returning from battle in WW1 would display agitated and distressed emotions which rendered them incapable of living a normal life.

Many years later Vietnam veterans would display erratic, depressed suicidal, or even murderous tendencies due to the sustained stress experienced during that ill-fated campaign, where they faced enemy fire every single day. The subsequent stress on the nervous system proved to last for decades, with some men still feeling like they were fighting the war a decade after its cessation.

That’s the most prominent aspect of PTSD. It causes a sufferer to not only revisit old feelings when reminded of old scenarios but to relive the effects of the event as vividly as when first experienced. The reactive part of the brain, the amygdala, feeds information to the body before the rest of the thinking brain can do anything about it. This results in a severe reaction all but indistinguishable from the original traumatic experience. A person relives the experience in their body with all the acute feelings of whatever caused the memory to create the reaction in the first instance.

The repetition of this trauma fastens the reaction in place and the body remembers how it feels with the same intensity with each new recurrence. Those recurrences are triggered by events or perceived similarities between current events and the original trauma. That’s what being triggered means.

It doesn’t refer however, to when a person feels a certain way on being exposed to a viewpoint that elicits an emotional response in a negative way. That’s just hearing something you didn’t like, something that offended your sensibilities or that you feel threatens your safety. There are similarities I grant you, but to say something triggered you just because you didn’t agree with it or because it runs at odds with your worldview is to mislabel what being triggered means.

Developing an ability to hear a differing viewpoint and not forming an emotional attachment to what’s being said or to what you say in response is the cornerstone of maturity and learning to listen. How often has someone rubbed you up the wrong way because of something they said? How often have you listened just to make a counter argument without really asking why someone held the position they do?

Here’s a method to allow you to argue in a way that makes sure you are not only hearing but listening. Let the other person speak without interruption. When they finish you repeat their argument back to them. It allows you to fact-check their side with them and to give you enough time to disengage your amygdala and start to think. The old amygdala doesn’t work so well when you are using your memory instead, it’s a bit of an ‘either-or’ thing.

This means that things that are said are less likely to inflame your anger which would stop you from hearing and discourse can begin.

For real PTSD I recommend finding someone who can help you unpick the underlying causes. Counsellors offer spaces that remove you from your environment and which allow you to make enquiries of yourself and your story.
That’s all it is at the end of the day, a story we tell ourselves over and over as a means of protection from further damage but it’s one that locks us into a cycle of often poor and reactive behaviours.
Nothing in the past can hurt you today unless you bring the hurt with you from that past.
Learning to understand the layers of repeated hurt takes lots of time and effort. You’ll face parts of yourself you don’t even know exist for the most part.

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They manifest in lots of ways from feelings of anger, depression, fear, self-loathing or even numbness. They inform how you make decisions, who you gravitate towards, how you react in stressful situations and more importantly how you tend towards creating those situations and then wonder why bad things always happen to you.
I have personal experience of all of this. I have been shell-shocked from a very young age. I’ve been through the wars and they left scars that I somehow made normal. It wasn’t until I was forced to confront my hidden fears and the behaviours they triggered that I learned to recognise the patterns and signs. With much help from my friends and family, I have won the war for the most part.

There are still rebellions to quell from time to time but I am living proof that it can be done.
When you feel triggered by something ask yourself why. Is it because on some deep level your past is trying to tell you about danger or is it that you simply don’t agree with what’s happening now because it is other than how you want the world to be?
Both are potentially valid by the way, but don’t confuse them. Just because they share the same symptoms doesn’t mean they are the same issues.

If PTSD is something you think you may struggle with, reach out for help. The world becomes a lot calmer when you know why it feels like chaos!