Managing Our Triggers (Part 3 of 8)

(This post comes from Gary Roe.)

"How do I discover my triggers?"

I suggest we ask ourselves these 4 questions: 

1. What am I feeling and what just happened?

2. When have I felt this way before?

3. When was the first time I felt that way?

4. What happened the first time I felt that way?

Here’s how this plays out. At a restaurant, an older man stares at me. Immediately I drop my head. Suddenly I feel nervous or anxious. I’ve been triggered, but if I’m not aware, I may feel uneasy for hours.

What am I feeling and what just happened? I’m feeling anxious and scared. An older man stared at me.

When have I felt this way before? I felt that way when an older man stared at me.

When was the first time I felt that way? When I was inside an older man’s house.

What happened the first time I felt that way? This older man called me to the back of the house and stared at me. Then he abused me.

Isolating how I feel and tracing it back to the first time I felt that way 

can help me identify the trigger.

Managing Our Triggers (Part 2 of 8)

(This blog post comes from Gary Roe.)

"How do I discover my triggers?" 

A definition of the word trigger from dictionary.com reads: Anything as an act or event that serves as a stimulus and initiates or precipitates a reaction or series of reactions.

The definition says anything can become a trigger—a look, word, situation, a scene from a movie or TV show, a song, noise, smell, or the tone of voice.

". . . initiates or precipitates a reaction or series of reactions." It’s not the initial reaction, but the subsequent ones that create the problem. If we don’t know we’ve been triggered, our emotions spiral downward and take us into depression or despair.

When we experience sudden, strong anger, anxiety, sadness, or fear that is out of proportion with what is happening, we’ve likely been triggered.

If my emotions are out of proportion with the circumstances, 

I may have been triggered.

Managing Our Triggers (Part 1 of 8)

(This post comes from Gary Roe.)

"What is a trigger?"

I was sexually abused between the ages of 3 and 6. It profoundly affected me by skewing my view of self, the world, and God. The abuse conditioned me to feel a certain way when certain things happened.

Here is an example. One of my perpetrators was female. She sometimes became angry and violent during the abuse. To this day, when a woman gets angry, I react strongly. Fear, or sometimes terror, instantly wells up in me. Anxiety isn't far behind. Those emotions control my mind and behavior.

The fear response operates like a reflex—involuntary and immediate—because a woman's anger originally triggered it.

As abuse survivors, it’s important we understand our triggers and how they work. As we become more aware of our abuse-victim-reflexes, we can respond differently when the reflex hits. Knowing what triggers us can aid greatly in our healing.

As I discover what triggers me, I can choose to respond differently.

Waiting to Exhale

(This post comes from Anonymous.)

One of the effects of my abuse has been the feeling of holding my breath inside. Because sexual addiction was a huge result of abuse in my life, I didn’t think I could breathe unless I was acting out the brokenness inflicted upon me through sexual molestation. I found my deepest worth in being used by a man. When that wasn’t happening, I didn’t feel I was breathing.

A therapist related my need to be abused to people who cut themselves. I’m not an expert on cutting, but my therapist said that cutters seem to feel as I did, existing miserably between periods of cutting themselves. He indicated they feel like they can’t breathe until they cut. Once they cut, they feel temporary relief, then all the self-loathing returns. That described me.

I lived for years holding my breath between acting out sexually online or with others as a result of my abuse. If I wasn’t engaging in my addiction I was thinking about it. My life revolved around secrets and shame, knowing that I wasn’t being the man I should be or wanted to be. I understand men who are living a double life and who often become suicidal because of the depths of pain and shame.

Yet the more I've come to understand that abuse wasn’t my fault and that I was victimized by older men, the closer I come to finding wholeness in my life.

I'm learning to breathe on my own and not just exist until acting out my addiction. I understand that my thoughts and feelings are often irrational and overwhelming and that I have to have safety precautions built into my life to help me to overcome them.

Learning to breathe emotionally is a function of the knowledge of being part of a caring community. Knowing I am a survivor is a great step, but I need support and understanding to overcome the abuse.

One day at a time I learn to take a breath, exhale, take a breath, and then exhale. I no longer have to act out my brokenness in order to breathe.

I’m no longer waiting to exhale.

Separation Anxiety

(This post comes from Anonymous.)

Sexual abuse began so early in my life that I missed the chance to become my own person in the way that I should have at an early age. My initial identity was formed as someone who existed to bring another a sick pleasure.

The secret use of my body to satisfy someone older and bigger was the first place that I felt valued as a human being and that identity stuck to me like hot glue. Fortunately for me, I have come to know that that was only a false identity and not the real me.

Babies and small children often suffer through what we know as separation anxiety. Having been so close to the mother in the womb and at the breast results in fear and anxiety when infants experience separation. I have experienced a different form of separation anxiety as I have faced the reality that the early identity formed in me on was the wrong one. Or worse, that it was forced on me by my abusers. I became an object and not a human to them and then to myself.

My abuse stretched out over many years, and I was acting it out in multiple bisexual relationships primarily as the sex-slave of others. I lived to pleasure others and took that role because it was the only thing I knew. I was the powerless one and the partner always the strong one. It was sheer hell in so many ways, even though I thought I wanted this. I didn’t know that I was living out the wrong identity for many years after the abuse. Eventually, truth broke through.

I've spent many years untangling the effects of abuse. I've made great strides in separating myself from the false identity forced on me and in developing the real me, the man who has power over my own mind and body. This causes anxiety at times when I seem to fall back into old patterns of thinking. Like a baby, I don’t know who I am apart from the abuse that "mothered" me in many ways. But with each day I find that I won’t die becoming the real me.

I will live and I will live well.

Shadow Boxing

(This post comes from Anonymous.)

One of the strange things about surviving sexual abuse is that it never quite feels like I’ve survived it. I have to remind myself quite often that the abuse was in the past and isn't happening to me today. However, having suffered so much in my childhood resulted in a nasty case of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that went undiagnosed for more than thirty years. I’ve realized that this is why I keep shadow boxing with the memories and feelings of being abused long into adulthood.

Someone older and bigger abused me. The size and age differential were massive and caused me to live my life in fear of other men. When I walked into a room or drove down the street, any man I saw was bigger and more powerful than I was, even if they really weren’t.

In business meetings the other men had advantages over me because I thought of myself as weaker than them. Even women were stronger and more powerful, especially if they seemed to be "together" or strong-minded.

One of the most difficult things I've wrestled with as an abuse survivor is realizing that these thoughts and feelings are irrational. They're the shadows of the past, the specters of abuse that rendered me powerless and feeling that I'm less than the man I really am. I struggle with continually giving my power away to other people, especially men, even if they have no advantage over me.

There's no way to win at shadow boxing. The shadows are real; they have no real power. As I continue to overcome my abuse, one of my greatest strengths is to realize that shadow boxing is useless. When I realize that I am caught up in an irrational thought pattern or feeling, I stop, surrender to God, and claim for myself the true freedom of who I am at this moment.

The Long Road to Forgiveness

(This post comes from Anonymous.)

I was ten years past the physical abuse before a therapist explained that I had been abused. I thought all little boys did the kinds of things I did with family members in secret times and hidden places. It never dawned on me that what was happening to me was wrong, though somewhere deep inside me I felt dirty and knew I couldn’t talk about it to anyone. I actually thought that was normal.

Now thirty years beyond the abusive behavior of my relatives, I realize that the struggle to forgive them is like a giant mountain I can’t imagine being able to climb.

They abused me.

They should have known better; they shouldn't have done it. I've paid an enormous price in my life for their horrible actions. There are times I have hated them for what they did.

The big problem is that resentment and hatred fueled my emotional distress, addiction, and dysfunction. Carrie Fisher once said, "Resentment is like drinking poison, and waiting for the other person to die."

Forgiveness means so much more for me than it does for my abusers, but it seems so counterintuitive to do it and almost impossible considering the damage they did to me.

For now, I take it a day at a time. Two of my abusers have passed away, and that releases me from the fear of having to see them again in this life. I sometimes try to imagine them standing before God as the men they should have been all along.

I know they have to reckon with him one way or another. I am responsible only for myself and for the kind of life I choose to lead. Forgiveness for me is like traveling on a giant mountain or a long road. I can live successfully by taking it one step at a time.