Triggers: Unwelcome Journeys into Past Emotional Turmoil

Today is not a good day.  After over three years of a journey toward healing I find that I can still be thrown backwards and into trauma by simple words or situations usually hurled at me by others. Today is one of those days. In that I'm now embroiled in the aftermath of Triggers, I thought that I should share with you what this is like, what brings it on, and what to do about it.

What are Triggers?
'Triggers' are composed of a variety of factors that can re-traumatize those who experience them. In my case, triggers are related to the situations that resulted in my initial nervous breakdown. Because the factors that culminated in the breakdown and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder were so many (separation, a fire, involuntary admission to a psychiatric unit, loss of family), a wide range of triggers can incite a re-awakening of dark emotions within me.

In my case, some of my triggers can be: simple discussions of the events that I went through during and immediately after the breakdown which causes a re-awakening of memories and the feelings that are related to them; the smell of acrid smoke; the blare of a fire or police siren; the sanitary smell of hospitals; fights or arguments that I am either involved in or that I witness; being blamed for something that I did not do; or any large stressful situation that I am powerless to control. These are only some of the triggers.

I am not suggesting that I am re-traumatized every time I encounter one of these triggers.  But sometimes, when my defenses are down or when I'm tired or when triggers such as these come out of the blue, I will re-experience the emotions and memories of the original trauma that I endured.

What is it like being Re-Traumatized?
What happens when one of the Triggers above hits me is that I am bowled over by a tsunami of emotions. I become dizzy. I cannot focus (I was re-traumatized about an hour ago because I encountered an unexpected trigger - consequently writing this is very, very difficult. It's as if my brain is wrapped in cotton wool. I have trouble choosing words, constructing sentences, and figuring out what to say). I have 'ghost realities': that is, my reality becomes twisted by past memories. For instance, I might smell smoke when it's not there.  I will become paranoid and expect something evil - an enemy - to come barging in the door at any second. My day will be wiped out because doing almost anything - even simple chores - becomes almost impossible.

I am filled with feelings of fear that can completely swamp me and that can - at least for a time - result in feelings of hopelessness, shame, guilt, and self-loathing.

Being Re-Traumatized is a step backward in a journey to healing from nervous breakdown. But it can also be used to re-engage in the healing process.

How to Defend Against Triggers
It's not easy. Trying to protect myself against Triggers is, I find, almost impossible. What I have found is that by becoming aware that I am experiencing a trigger, and that I am being re-traumatized, I can then work to minimize the negative effect that they will have on me.  This is what I do to defend myself from Triggers:

1. Breath - it sounds silly, but when I'm being re-traumatized I will forget to breath; my breathing becomes very shallow. I will no longer be aware of my body only the feelings that are consuming me. So when I suddenly become aware of experiencing a Trigger (and I'm getting better at it) I'll begin taking deep breathes. Breathing helps, doesn't it, if one wants to keep living :)? When breathing deeply I can then focus on those simple breathes. This takes the focus off of my emotional turmoil and back to my body, a part of me that I can control.
2. Using My Body to Calm Down - having started to breath, and if I remember to do it (and memory is often short-circuited during these times of being re-traumatized) I'll then engage in some exercises that I've learned along the way. These are simple things: pushing hard against a wall, for instance. Or sitting in a chair with both feet planted firmly on the floor, breathing in, and pushing my feet (one at a time) hard against the floor. Then breathing out, then breathing in and repeating. Or taking a walk. Exercise again helps me to take the focus off the emotions flooding my brain and person, and to activities with which I can ground myself.
3. Defeating Excess Adrenalin - when I'm re-traumatized due to a trigger, I have been taught that my brain, operating again in a fight or flight mode, can be flooded with excess Adrenalin. Adrenalin, I have learned, is my enemy. It can overwhelm my senses and is the primary instigator of the fear that I feel. The exercises outlined above help me to rid my body of this Adrenalin simply by grounding myself in safety. If I'm having a real bad case of being re-traumatized, I'll take a long walk or do Yoga. By doing so, my body will generate serotonin, a natural neurotransmitter that contributes to feelings of well-being and happiness. Deep meditation can do the same thing for me. 
4. Talking About It - I talk about these experiences with my trauma counselor. By doing so, I not only am able to put this episode to rest, but can also somewhat desensitize myself to the next event which helps me to deal with these more effectively. And if I need to I'll reach out to friends for help. Just knowing that someone is there can be of great comfort and help me to get through this horrible time of being re-traumatized. As an example: right before I sat down to write this I phoned a friend. I said simply: "I'm having another one." She replied, because she's helped me before: "I'm right here." Knowing that someone gives a damn gives me hope and helps me to fight on.
5. Writing About It - and, just as I'm doing now, I write about it. I do so to help me to tease things out: what's happening to me, why it is happening, and how to deal with it. I've been writing for an hour now, and in that time I've grown calmer. The negative emotions are beginning to recede. I feel a bit better, and when I finish I'll go for a walk.
6. Accomplishing Something Simple - I'll also do something simple just to tell myself I can do it. For instance, I might do some ironing or wash a floor or clean a room or weed a patch of garden. Often when I'm feeling unwell like this, I don't think I can do anything at all. But by focusing on one small chore and finishing it, I feel a sense of accomplishment because at least I am able to do something 'normal'. 
7. Being Patient with Myself - often during these periods, I'll get angry at myself. I feel that I should be recovering quicker. But I also know that these periods of being re-traumatized are happening less and less often. I'm slowly, ever so slowly, getting better. But I have also learned that I have to be patient with myself. Three years ago I had been very, very ill - to the point of death. I have learned that it is going to take an age to fully recover.  And even then, I suspect that I will still experience some of the symptoms, and that I will still occasionally be triggered into the ghostly, surreal memories of nervous breakdown. However, over time I also know that those symptoms will become less and less.

Triggers leading to being re-traumatized can be real nightmares to those who have suffered from nervous breakdown or similar traumatic events. But we can learn to deal with these periods, and those that support us can learn to help. By taking each day one at a time, by getting through these dark periods, we can continue our journey to healing and a life worth living.

I hope this has helped.

Recovering from Nervous Breakdown - What to do with Betrayal

If you or a loved one have - or are - suffering from a nervous breakdown (or any number of mental illnesses) be warned: you're not going to like this post very much. The reason? The subject for today is Betrayal - the betrayal that nervous breakdown sufferers can cause, and the betrayal that those same sufferers...well, suffer. It's a painful topic and one that can possibly trigger negative emotional reactions.

But it must be discussed.

In my case, betrayal (or my perception of betrayal), and its aftermath, has been the single worst cause for anxiety and depression during, and following, my breakdown. Betrayal - caused by friends, colleagues, and loved ones, and directed by me to those same people - shattered my paradigm of living. Everything that I believed in - my family, my God, myself and the values that I held dear - crumbled to dust. The anchors that I had used to stay strong during emotional gales tore and snapped, and my ship was swept out into a maelstrom of illness. And this feeling of being lost and without hope on a lonely storm-tossed sea is, I suspect, common among those who suffer - and those who do not but who witness the pain of breakdown.

In short, betrayal - both by the sufferer and by others - destroys trust: trust in ourselves and trust in others.

When You Have Betrayed
Today, three years following my breakdown, I know that I betrayed those that I love and care for. It would be simple to say that I was only ill: that I was not responsible for my actions during my breakdown. Much of the time that was true. What I said and did often came from a person that I did not recognize. A wild man that behaved irrationally, fearfully, angrily, sometimes horrendously because I was possessed by mental illness. And mental illness can be expressed in a maelstrom of emotions and behavior that inflict harm on others. I screamed at my ex-wife. I screamed at my children. I was convinced that complete strangers had hurt me deeply. I lashed out, venting my toxic fear on many others. My paranoia was such that I had little grasp of reality. At the time, much of what I said and did seemed perfectly logical because what I thought and what I felt had become a whirlpool of horror. It was like living in a land of Nightmares, a perpetual Steven King novel, and I was the star and also the victim. It is embarrassing now to write about it, so sick was I.

And because I was sick I took actions that hurt me and most around me. I pushed away my children. I pushed away my ex-wife. I abandoned two businesses that I had sweated to build for over 20 years. The consequence is that my actions fractured my ability to make a living. I bought crazy stuff, expensive stuff, for reasons that were only logical to my crazy mind. A truck. A boat. A house. A complex set of computer equipment. I had no need for any of these things and in my right mind I would never have purchased any of them.

I sent friends horrible emails, venting small long-held resentments that became mountainous in my sick head. Many of those friends have never returned despite my abject apologies.

Yes, I was crazy. But yes, the 'recovering' me must also take responsibility if I am going to heal. I realize now that even though I was nuts, my actions and words were still a betrayal because they hurt others. I think back on what I did and I am filled with guilt and shame. While I know that the 'sick' me was not responsible due to illness, the 'healing' me must take responsibility. Those that I have hurt need to understand that if I could wipe the slate clean I would. They need to realize that  I would never have said or done the things that I did if I had been well.

But that is the problem. Because mental illness is often not understood, those that I have hurt will have a hard time differentiating between the 'sick' me and the 'well' me. When I am able to talk to these people - and yes, some now talk to me - they still don't grasp it. "You were a complete b**tard," they might say. "You knew what you were doing. Now you're going to pay for it."

These people, unfortunately, will never choose to understand that I was ill and will therefore never forgive me. For ages, and even now during dark days, I suffer due to the immense guilt that I experienced because I was 'unforgiven'. Then I finally realized that I can't change these people, that I had done everything that I could to make up to these friends and colleagues, but they will never hear me. For that reason, I finally walked away from them with a relatively clear conscience. At least I know I tried. I still regret, of course - my life is full of so many regrets! - that I have had a nervous breakdown and that it hurt so many. But at least I am still alive. And for the rest of my life I will do what I can to make amends.

Betrayed
But while I betrayed I was also the subject of betrayal. And those hurts compound the difficulties in recovering from nervous breakdown. As a husband, father, son, and friend, over the years I had done my very best to help others when they were troubled. During, and after, my breakdown I thought that my earnest efforts to help would be returned. How wrong I was.

Remember this: because mental illness and breakdowns are not understood by the general public, people who have been affected by your breakdown may at best turn their backs on you and at worst actually compound your mental illness.

In my case: some of my friends turned hostile. Others, not knowing what to do, dropped me as if I had leprosy. The people that I thought I could count on wouldn't talk to me. Business partners in a project that I had worked on for 10 years took legal action, stripping me of my shareholding, an action that cost me tens of thousands of dollars.

A counselor that I was attending leading up to the breakdown, and who had never encountered behavior or thinking such as mine, took one look and ran the other way.

My family - my adult children, only sister, and father - misdiagnosed my behavior. Rather than showering me with concerned love, safety, and help, they first contacted a doctor to have me hospitalized in a psychiatric unit against my will (which only compounded my breakdown), and then when I had convinced the psychiatric unit to let me go, stopped talking to me for over three months. During that three month period only two friends understood what was happening and stood by me.

Aftermath
Because I had betrayed and because I was betrayed, my ability to trust people - a characteristic that was always strong in me - was shattered. It has taken me years to be able to truly trust someone - anyone - again. Today, when I talk to people or they seem to 'like' me, I'll find myself wondering if they have an ulterior motive: what are they out to get from me? What harm will they do me? Why are they interested in me in the first place because today I am only the shell of what I once was?

The inability to trust is a sad, sad state of affairs. Without trusting, we are consigned to live alone in a world of fear. The inability to trust actually hinders our ability to recover from mental illness.

But what can we do about it?

Healing
I know that I don't want to live a life that is full of fear, anger, shame and guilt. I want to trust people again, fully and without reservation. Trusting also means loving, and without love what is there in this life worth valuing?

With the help of my present counselor, reading, meditation, and simple contemplation, I've decided to take some action. Here is what I'm trying to do.

• Letting Go - in the case of those that I've betrayed, from whom I've sought forgiveness, but who are unwilling to forgive, my only course of action is to Let Them Go, at least for now. Eventually, they may get over their hurt. If not, I know that I can't change them. Yes, I miss those friends that no longer speak to me or who have taken actions that have been extraordinarily hurtful to me. But I can't let my wish for reconciliation hinder my journey to wellness.
  
• Pushing Away the Bad Thoughts - my healing is often stopped by 'bad thoughts': missing my friends, as I've said above. Shame for the way I treated people and decisions that I made when I was ill. Anger at the way I have been treated. The thoughts of revenge against those that had treated me poorly. Fear for my future which shatters hope. On bad days, those feelings can overwhelm me. I've learned that these emotions are triggered by negative thoughts. To counter those emotions, I try to gently push away those thoughts. This can be a hugely difficult task. I use a combination of breathing techniques, yoga, and simple rest to do this. But when I'm successful I find that I am also much less dark, much more well, than I was when the thoughts intruded on my well-being.
  
• Compassion - my journey to health also includes my ability to develop more compassion; for those that I hurt, for those that hurt me, and for myself. And I found that I needed to start with self if I am to have any hope. I discovered that I hated myself for what I did when I was ill. Self-hatred breeds hopelessness which is no way of living. So I have had to start there.
  
  And why compassion for self and others? Because without it, I find that what I have gone through has no value. If I can use what I have learned, what I experienced, what I have felt to help others, then perhaps the pain that I endured and that others had to endure because of me can be useful. My breakdown can be transformed into healing myself and others. And by doing so, I will also learn to fully trust again.

Recovering from nervous breakdown is difficult. It requires patience with self and others. It can be a journey made more difficult by self-doubt and the difficulty in learning to trust others again. But it is a journey that must be taken because the alternatives are unthinkable.