Could someone explain me triggering better, please?

[Family Court Strategies: When Your Partner Has BPD OR NPD Traits.]

What do we exactly do to trigger them? I guess I triggered mine a lot. Could you give me some examples, please?

[UnforgivenII]

What do we exactly do to trigger them? I guess I triggered mine a lot. Could you give me some examples, please?

[gotbushels]

Hi UnforgivenII 

Great question.

"triggered" -- having non-constructive reactions to specific words or actions based on prior experiences.  We've all been there - resentment, pessimism, defensiveness, impatience, closed mindedness, distrusting, intolerance, confrontational, defeated... .

There's a concise description for you. I encourage you to see the rest of that post as it has some helpful tips.

Example: When you tell a pwBPD that they are wrong in some way (action). That can be a simple trigger for hurt (reaction), which may not be non-constructive as it helps one to know that an apology / adjusting action may be in order. But, the pwBPD can also react from the same action by a series of non-constructive ways, such as excessive pain (reaction) or excessive defensiveness (reaction).

Not all triggers are "bad".

[heartandwhole]

Hi UnforgivenII,

In addition to gotbushels's very informative reply, in my experience with pwBPD, sometimes my behavior (even mannerisms, looks, tone of voice) caused pwBPD to emotionally flash back to a time in his past when he felt traumatized. That usually led to emotional dysregulation, projection, and other coping strategies in order to avoid the pain, but it could take days for him to recover if the trigger was strong enough.

There are as many examples of triggering as there are human experiences, in my view. As I said, it could be the way I looked at pwBPD as I made a comment that made him think I was criticizing him, or suddenly reminded him of someone in his past who hurt him. It can be very simple and subtle, to very obvious (e.g., if we are yelling in our partner's face it could probably trigger a non-constructive response in anyone, not just someone with BPD).

What made the relationship really challenging for me is the fact that almost anything I said or did (making a comment about exercise, for example) could potentially cause ripples in pwBPD's emotional state AND one day something specific would trigger, and the next day, not at all. So, I never knew if and when my mentioning something or looking a certain way would cause a backlash. That made it impossible to try to *not* trigger him without completely changing who I was (which wouldn't be a good thing to try, obviously).

heartandwhole

[UnforgivenII]

Thanks a lot for your replies . I guess I must have been a walking trigger