Down the rabbit hole of Triggers

Most of you have probably heard about Pavlov and his dogs. It was one of the first experiments in making any living thing react in a certain way. 

For those unfamiliar with this instance, here is the short version – Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov noticed his dogs began to salivate at the sight of the technician who brought their food to them every day. This sparked a thought, and he conducted an experiment where he began to ring a bell before serving food to the dogs. The dogs very soon began to associate the bell with food. They would salivate just at the sound of the bell, regardless of food being served. 

Humans have instinctively known about this. Triggers have been used with both positive and negative associations. The positive association would be giving candies to children when their behaviour follows the expected or desired pattern. And a negative association would be following undesirable or unacceptable behaviour with a painful consequence, like punishments. 

Both authors of this piece are not unfamiliar with [ahem…] being spanked or other physical punishments. We consider today’s children who are either verbally pulled up or put into time out or lose privileges have an easier time of it than our generation did. These can be considered the earliest examples of triggers. And there begins this story…

For the longest time, a trigger meant a part of a gun. Preferably one that was not under someone’s finger with the gun aimed at you. Today, the word is used in a completely different context. And is misused more often than not. People often talk about things that they are merely irritated or frustrated by as triggers. It is not that simple, however. 

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, one of the meanings of the word Trigger is to cause an intense and usually negative emotional reaction in (someone). This is the context in which we use the word trigger here – an emotional trigger which may or may not result in physical trauma. Triggers span the entire spectrum – some triggers are so obvious that you cannot mistake them for anything but triggers. For example, watching an accident or a traumatic incident or the loss of a loved one.

However, for the most part, triggers are like the thorns on a rose flower. You get pricked; you register the pain, but you assume it must be the thorns on the rose bush. You do not even check to see if it is possibly an insect hiding between the petals that took a swipe at your finger. And later when you face a reaction to the sting, you wonder why your body is suddenly overreacting to a thorn prick. This is how you react to triggers. 

A common friend was diagnosed with a health condition. Her doctor recommended she track her meals to find out which foods her body reacted badly to. She had been suffering from acid reflux (or so she thought) and indigestion for a long time. When she started the meal tracking, she realised that there were blips on the tracker. There were days when she had eaten exactly what the doctor told her to and yet suffered a bad attack of indigestion. Here was a quandry, indeed!

But then, she checked the dates with her journal (so many trackers!) and realised something. These were days when she had been upset about something at work or had made a mistake or had to face a conflict/confrontation. And then the bulb lit up – her “acid reflux” that she had been unsuccessfully trying to treat with antacids was actually an anxiety attack. 

Then she started exploring what set her off – what her triggers were. And soon was so deep into her research that everywhere she looked, she saw a trigger. She withdrew from many activities, retreated into a shell, and had to be rescued from her zealousness by well-meaning friends. Then, she decided to seek professional help to avoid falling into a hole of her own creation.

Imagine if Spiderman were to be entangled in his own web. Apparently, he could. The lesson here being that when you use triggers, make sure you do not get too caught in them like a fly in the spider’s web. You could just follow a skein of the web thinking you are getting somewhere only to land at the spider’s bull’s eye. The spider here being your fears or the loss of your emotional/mental well-being.

So, do not be like Elsa in Frozen 2 and be so intent on following the Duke that you end up freezing beyond redemption. It is not everyone who has an Anna and Olaf to come to the rescue. Now, having run the gamut of multiple generations with Pavlov, Spiderman, and Frozen, we are going to sign off. Watch this space to know more about how to anticipate and deal with your triggers!