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I got triggered!
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Topic: I got triggered! (Read 353 times)
zachira
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I got triggered!
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on:
July 25, 2025, 12:10:22 PM »
For the first time in a long time, I got triggered by being mistreated by a professional I have worked with for many years. I had some reasonable questions any client would ask, and he told me he does not want to work with me anymore. I found myself asking him what I did wrong, practically begging him to keep me as a client. Then I calmed down and asked him for references for another professional to do the work he was doing for me. I cried after the conversation ended.
I have been doing well the last few years since ending my relationship with my sister with NPD and distancing myself from most of my large extended narcissistic family. I am every day better able to set boundaries with people who resemble my disordered family members, and not feel negatively affected by doing so most of the time. I thought I had healed from taking the blame for another person abusing me, yet somehow I went into a reactive mode. For my whole life, I have been one of the chosen scapegoats since birth, and treated like this professional did. For most of my life until recently, I thought it was my fault that most of my family members did not like me. I am still struggling with how badly he treated me. Thanks for reading and listening.
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Notwendy
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Re: I got triggered!
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Reply #1 on:
July 25, 2025, 02:17:55 PM »
While we tend to think of being triggered as "going backwards" as - we aren't as recovered as we thought- I think recognizing this and what we are doing is progress! When we see that we have been triggered and go into "automatic" (our usual) reaction, but we are actually aware of it- we can then see how we want to change.
I think the reality is that we are probably going to be in situations that trigger us but we can learn to recognize this and so, they don't have the same emotional impact they did before.
A while back, a co-worker snapped at me over something. I felt the usual shut down reaction and went to my office and closed the door. Inside, I went over what happened, from the viewpoint of what did I do to cause this.
A while later, she came to my office and apologized. She was under stress over another issue, not anything to do with me. She felt badly for snapping at me. It had nothing to do with me.
I do feel triggered by angry people and people who seem to have a PD. I don't know if we can stop feeling that way but I think we can also rationalize it better.
Progress- not perfection- and Zachira- that was progress.
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zachira
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Re: I got triggered!
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Reply #2 on:
July 25, 2025, 03:16:20 PM »
Notwendy,
Thank you for your caring thoughtful reply.
Yes, this incident with the professional has made me think about how I want to change, most of all what kind of questions I will ask and what I will look for in the next professional I hire from this profession. I hired this man when I was in a very emotional legal battle with my sister with NPD. I have grown a lot since then and am much more savvy in distinguishing disordered people I need to set strong boundaries with from people who are genuinely decent human beings for the most part. I was very triggered by this man in particular because part of our discussion dealt with out of necessity some of the problems I had with my connections to my sister, and he clearly saw me as the problem, as he is likely a narcissist himself, and does not welcome any kind of constructive feedback, even though my questions were routine normal ones for someone in his profession.
The key going forward is to keep on being the kind of person I want to be, to continue to make healthier relationships with self and others. My therapist often used the phrase with me: "Progress not perfection". Certainly I was raised to believe that I was a horrible person and there was never enough I would ever be able to do to be considered a person worthy of love and validation by my disordered family members. It has been a long time since I have been treated so badly by someone like my disordered family members, because I am now more skilled at distancing myself more quickly when a person is mistreating/abusing me because of the kind of person they are while making so much progress on surrounding myself with decent people. Before this incident, I had spent the last couple of weeks feeling gratitude to so many people who have been kind and generous to me lately. The interaction with this man was a brutal reminder of what the opposite feels like.
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Notwendy
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Re: I got triggered!
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Reply #3 on:
July 27, 2025, 06:34:11 AM »
Yes, people like this may be everywhere. I think we will at times, run into one and possibly react to one.
I think, where we make progress, is in how we recognize our reaction and that we are able to emotionally reguate it better.
Sometimes it might even be a stranger. Just because someone says something mean to us or yells at us doesn't mean it's because of us, but we may be used to experiencing it like that.
One idea that helped me is to think of being triggered in a different way. I think we think being triggered is a negative experience- something someone does to someone else. If someone feels triggered- this is their trigger. It's not the person who does the triggering's fault. It's not possible to "trigger" someone who doesn't have that trigger to begin with.
The good news is that- if you felt triggered, that trigger point is yours. If it's yours, you can work to change it. We don't usually see our own trigger points- but if we are feeling triggered- it's a chance for us to see it, examine it, and work on it.
It's also something that may protect us. You felt triggered by a person you now know to avoid- that's a good thing. Feeling triggered by someone when it has nothing to do with you- like a coworker having a bad day- may not be someone to avoid. We can work on how to decide this.
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zachira
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Re: I got triggered!
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Reply #4 on:
July 27, 2025, 09:45:59 AM »
Notwendy,
The most disturbing triggers for me are directly related to how badly I am/was treated by so many of my disordered family members and their flying monkeys, and all the childhood abuse I suffered in addition to bad choices I have made through the years due to trauma reenactment. This professional had contact with my sister's professional, as they had to work on resolving some things together. No doubt he had heard some bad unfair things about me, in addition to being part of my trauma reenactment of choosing people to be in my circle without proper vetting. It takes time to know people, yet it is pretty obvious who is who if we value ourselves enough to look and have enough experience to know who is a safe person and who isn't. The red flags with this professional and his organization were there for some time, and I choose to hope it would all work out, another part of my trauma reenactment hoping people aren't as bad as I think, that I am being too judgmental.
Thank you taking time to answer and as always leaving me with more things to think about. Indeed the triggers are mine to own. With the Complex PTSD I have, I will always have my moments though certainly they will lessen with time as long as I continue to set better boundaries and continue to work on self awareness of how I feel when in the presence of different kinds of people. I try to remember that your body often knows first before the mind does.
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Notwendy
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Re: I got triggered!
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Reply #5 on:
July 29, 2025, 06:35:40 AM »
With anyone in my BPD mother's circle- I have a similar response- assuming that their perception of me has been influenced.
BPD mother made her will and POA documents with her own attorney. I had some questions about them after that and contacted them, and got a cursory reply. I assumed they didn't want to speak to me- because she must have said something to them.
After she passed, I needed to contact them again. I was apprehensive about how they might respond, but they were nice and they did answer my questions. So perhaps their reason when I first contacted them was to avoid any conflict of interest in general, not personal.
With your experience with the professional - although you felt his response to you as personal, it's also possible that how he responded may be influenced by conflict of interest since he worked with your sister. Maybe your sister did say things to him about you, and after working with you, he saw some discrepancy in the stories, and felt it was better to not be involved. I think our response is to think it's about us, but it may have also been that he perceived the family issues were more than he thought and even if there wasn't a conflict of interest yet, best to avoid the possibility. Maybe you weren't wrong entirely and he was influenced by your sister, but it also may have been partly wanting to remain objective.
I think you did the right thing by finding someone who only has worked with you. Knowing there's no potential bias or conflict of interest, you will feel more secure about the advice given and also the professional will not feel a conflict either.
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