Triggers - can someone please explain 'em?

[VIDEO: "What is parental alienation?"]

Hello all,

I read so much about "triggers" and "triggering events".  Can someone explain this phenomena to me?

My exBPDbf is the type that attaches to places. He has a fierce, protective, possessive nature when it comes to this old, run-down lakehouse that has been in his family for years and years. Says it's "his" (it's not). When we were together, we spent a lot of our time there.

So I'm curious - would revisiting a place like that be an emotional "trigger" for a person with BPD? Possibly cause unwanted memories to surface? Or are they that good at detaching?

Thoughts / opinions ?  Thx!

[lipstick]

Hello all,

I read so much about "triggers" and "triggering events".  Can someone explain this phenomena to me?

My exBPDbf is the type that attaches to places. He has a fierce, protective, possessive nature when it comes to this old, run-down lakehouse that has been in his family for years and years. Says it's "his" (it's not). When we were together, we spent a lot of our time there.

So I'm curious - would revisiting a place like that be an emotional "trigger" for a person with BPD? Possibly cause unwanted memories to surface? Or are they that good at detaching?

Thoughts / opinions ?  Thx!

[schwing]

You can think of a "trigger" as any kind of cue that initiates an emotional response.

Whether or not you have BPD, you might find that anything that elicits a strong emotional response might be considered a "trigger."  An unwanted text might "trigger" you to have a very upset reaction.

The thing is, people with BPD (pwBPD) have very intense emotional reactions.  And quite often they may be in denial about what it is that is actually triggering them; often they blame us when their trigger is actually quite something else altogether.  So it would seem that pwBPD have lots and lots of "triggers" and if we only listen to their account, their triggers change very often.

I think that if you depend only upon your own observation, you might find that their triggers can be consistent.

Best wishes, Schwing

[fromheeltoheal]

Like Schwing said a trigger is something that elicits or initiates an emotion in someone, anyone.  Here's an example: say someone close to you drowns in the ocean at a beach on Maui.  From then on, every time you see a photograph, hear a reference, or see it on TV, beaches on Maui will cause you to feel badly, you may even end up hating the whole island because of that association.  Graphic example I know, but you get the point.

And also as Schwing says, someone with the disorder feels all of their emotions very strongly, as well as only being able to see things as black or white with no gray.  So they either love us or they hate us, very strongly, so we can become a trigger for negative emotions in our entirety, just by being.  Sucky place to be, you might be able to relate, and my experience is once you're in that place there's no going back, no way to 'fix' it; you have become a negative trigger.

[lipstick]

Fromheeltoheal,

Thank you. That was an excellent description.

I ask because my exBPDbf has not stepped foot in this beloved place of his since he and I were there together last summer. Quite a few of my possessions are still there. We spent a LOT of time at this location. We were considering living there at one point.

He is there this weekend for the first time since we were together. For a family holiday get-together. I was just curious (obviously for my own selfish reasons) if re-visiting such a place could serve as a "trigger" for him. This place holds HUGE emotions / memories for him for many reasons.

[fromheeltoheal]

Fromheeltoheal,

Thank you. That was an excellent description.

I ask because my exBPDbf has not stepped foot in this beloved place of his since he and I were there together last summer. Quite a few of my possessions are still there. We spent a LOT of time at this location. We were considering living there at one point.

He is there this weekend for the first time since we were together. For a family holiday get-together. I was just curious (obviously for my own selfish reasons) if re-visiting such a place could serve as a "trigger" for him. This place holds HUGE emotions / memories for him for many reasons.

Absolutely lipstick, that's a good example too.  You may know how he dealt with negative triggers in the past, and I don't doubt he's doing that now.  Mine used ice cream and Oreo cookies to soothe, she could plow through a quart of ice cream or an entire bag of Oreos when she wasn't doing well, and you could tell how life was going in general by how big she got.  Could be worse of course, borderlines cut themselves, screw other people, drink a bunch and do drugs, all kinds of self destructive ways to soothe.  And of course when there weren't any solutions available she would just rage, and it was ugly.

You might know how he's dealing right now?

[lipstick]

Fromheeltoheal,

I truly don't know how he'll deal with it. I know he's feeling badly about how he discarded me in October of last year. He tried "friending" me on Facebook just this month. I deleted the request so he blocked me. Then a week later he blocked all of our mutual friends. Guess he's pretty pi$$ed that I wouldn't accept his friend request. :-)

I'm assuming that I'm painted black now (can't say for sure), but I know he carries a lot of shame over things he's done in the past. I do believe that he has tried to repress what he did to me for quite some time. I was given the Silent Treatment for over a year until he recently tried to reach out.

I'm only guessing here - but yes, I think this weekend will trigger him. Just not sure how it will manifest itself. Will he take it out on his wife and family? Hope not for their sake.

[Ironmanrises]

The day that idealization turns into devaluation is the trigger day. The trigger is when the pwBPD morphs into that f¥ck awful other side. The trigger itself is emotional intimacy/closeness. A switch happens. In my case, that is when the Janus-faced entity began to sprout, when we got the closest. Medusa would appear later in devaluation when anything I said/did triggered more and more vile responses and silent treatment in turns. My presence, my voice, my hands, the way I stand, the way I hold my arms, the way I breath on the phone, etc; all became triggers for my exUBPDgf.