I am triggered… Respect what I said. Back the fukk off…

We hear words like: “triggered”, “trauma”, and “toxic” so often that we devalue them. We misuse them, and we strip the very definition by doing so. I got time today… Lets talk about being triggered. What exactly does that mean? I can’t speak for everyone but I can share my experience in dealing with PTSD and Anxiety.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a mental health condition that is usually brought on by a catastrophic event(s) or experience(s). In psychology, a trigger is defined as any sort of stimulus that jars a memory of past trauma. Something as simple as a smell or a site can set off an episode.

I remember personally hearing  the acronym PTSD  for the first time in the summer of 2002 during the Ft. Bragg murders of Fayetteville, North Carolina. It was after the murders of these four military housewives, within a six week time period, making national news, that a dialogue opened up. The world began to speak more on mental health and the effects of being exposed to trauma.

Symptoms of PTSD

What happens when you are still left with a life to live after surviving trauma that should have physically killed you?

For years, I didn’t know what I was dealing with. As ignorant as it may sound; I felt like my thoughts, behaviors, and reactions to certain things were all side effects of being a black woman. I learned from my mother who learned from her mother: “As long as the kids are good.” you are okay… No one ever taught that embodying such “strength” came with many repercussions.

That “black woman strength” comes with a lot of pain. I didn’t  realize that for years that I was dealing with PTSD. As I get older and live a little more life, my condition reached a new tier… It is crippling, especially when accompanied by anxiety…  I am at a place where I am finally in therapy and learning how to breathe outside out of the isolation that  I have created as both my peace and safe haven.

As black women we are inadvertently told by the world that we don’t matter and that we are NOT good enough…

I am a mother before anything. My family needs me.  Living this way can be emotionally and mentally exhausting. Some things can trigger a memory from ten years ago that still feels like it just happened…  That is all the more reason why, I have made my mental health a priority this year.  So, if I can even mouth the word “trigger” without shutting down, that’s personal progress for me, not me capitalizing on a trendy word.

If you are dealing with someone and they ask you not to do something or bring someone around them because it  is triggering, please respect their wishes and just comply.

Please stop. That’s Triggering…

The word “Trigger” itself should set the tone.Whenever I hear the word, I automatically think: explosive. Naturally, a gun comes to mind. A triggered reaction for me personally can vary from rage, to depression, to feeling attacked, to  even vomiting.

Whenever you squeeze the trigger of a gun, a bullet comes out… For me, my reaction, is the bullet. In this life, we cannot necessarily control everything that happens to us. Our reaction is all that we have. My struggle, is having a logical reaction when I am triggered and sent into a dark space…

Let’s be real… WE ARE ALL FUKK’D UP IN SOME KIND OF WAY… It’s a problem when you choose to stay that way.