Understanding Triggers

This is not, despite the title, about guns or a family of a certain ex (or horse, for that matter). Triggers are things that make your system go haywire. They are commonly talked about in relation to depression, anxiety, PTSD, and related conditions. They, in a word, suck.

There are certain things that you expect to be a trigger. If your symptoms are a result of being jumped in an alleyway by a group of people, you can expect dark alleyways and small groups to cause you some problems. Associated triggers might also be dark streets. It grows from there, often logically. One of the first things you learn in dealing with trauma is what your triggers are and how to either avoid them (if they are easily avoidable) or cope with them (if they are not).

Then there are the triggers you never expect. People or situations that seem in no way related to your trauma, but still cause the same reactions. These are the triggers that you have to learn to prepare for if you're going to have any sort of long term recovery. And these are a bitch. They sneak up from nowhere, often disguised innocently enough. Often, they are not what they seem and can take some working to find out what is actually the problem. It's not fun, in fact it can be incredibly painful, but it's necessary in order to move past it.

It's different for every person. For some people, the triggers are closely related to the trauma, but may be extreme. For example, a rape victim might not be able to read about fictional rape without it causing flashbacks. For others, situations that remind the person of the feel of the trauma can be triggers, even if the situation is not similar. If the sufferer struggles with the loss of control from their trauma, any situation in which they feel they have no control can be a trigger, though they might be able to read about their trauma with no effect.

One of the first things that must be understood about PTSD is that it can't be cured. The goal for anyone who has it is to learn how they respond, learn what are appropriate responses, and then be able to move through life with that information. To learn how to recognize when a situation is a trigger, even if it's entirely new, and how to get through or get out of that situation so that it doesn't cause the flashbacks, panic attacks, or violent reactions that can result. The goal is to manage the PTSD so that it doesn't control your life. That means learning to manage your triggers, and hoping the people in your life are understanding.

A Sum of Our Bad Days

We are all familiar with the thin line between explaining something (Sorry I'm late, there was an accident on the 10) and trying to justify bad behavior (Seriously, traffic was awful, omg!). It can be hard to manage as both the receiver and the giver of such information and often comes down to trust in motivations.

I think this can be harder for behavior that is legitimately motivated by something beyond the person's control, but about which they feel guilty. I've seen this among friends and others I know who have various mental health issues, like depression, anxiety, and PTSD, especially if they are considered "high functioning". The person who suffers feel awful for letting it take control of their behavior, for acting in a way that they know is unacceptable, but in the moment they didn't have a lot of control over. This is the side I'm familiar with and can attest to the fact that it's awful. When you try to explain what it was like, you still feel guilty and you feel like you're justifying bad behavior. You end up making a lot of statements like "I know that this action is unacceptable, but let me try to explain what was going on in my head".

A friend said to me today that no one with any empathy can hold that kind of behavior against you if they know what's going on. I like the idea, but I don't know if that's true. All you can do, I guess, is to hope that the offended party is open to listening, and that they will see it for what it truly is. That they will recognize that these kinds of problems are fights that exist in you every day, and that some days are better than others, and some days you lose. For some, losing is hiding under the covers all day and letting the depression take over, hoping that tomorrow will be better, and trying not to feel the crushing guilt of not being productive. For others, losing can have much bigger consequences and effect the people in their lives, even running them out of it. In the end, we have to hope that our next bad day won't be as bad as the last one, and that the people we love learn to forgive, accept, and not see us as a sum of our bad days. Because if other people are anything like me, it can be hard not to see ourselves as that, especially when we don't have someone there to tell us otherwise.

Relationship Role Models

So I mentioned in yesterday's post the relationships that I admire. I think relationship role models are important. They give you an idea of what you're looking for, of what it takes to make that happen. They create a realistic expectation. An example:

My primary relationship role model is my parents' marriage of 35 years. Before I knew what it entailed, it set some unrealistic expectations. They got married as kids (they were 17 and 20) and have stuck together this long and raised two kids. It's part of why I got married the first time - I thought that, at 20, I was losing time. Double that when I think that my mother's oldest child (me) was 9 when she was my age. I have felt behind.

But what they taught me, my parents, is the value of fighting for it. That sometimes, one person does the majority of the lifting while the other person coasts, and that it will even out in the end. They had a rough go of it, in part because they were children when they got married and hurt each other a lot without knowing it. But at some point they decided that they were going to fix it, and they did. They let my sister and I see how hard it was, but that it was worth it. Because if it's not worth fighting for, it's not worth the time.

I try to imagine how hard it would be to not have that example growing up. I saw it everyday of my life, so I know it's hard, but that it's worth it. But if you grew up not going that, not seeing that...how do you know what you're supposed to do, how good it can be? Who do you look to for advice? If you're lucky, there are others in your life who can demonstrate that for you. How can someone create a somewhat realistic expectation of a relationship if they don't know what one is supposed to look like? They might look elsewhere, develop the mentality that it's not possible, or create unrealistic expectations. If your only example is what you read in books or see in movies...how do you know?

I have often said that I'm lucky to have been raised the way I was. Lately, that's been more apparent than usual. And I'm thankful for it, despite the problems it can cause.

Independence vs Relationships

So as I've been watching my way through Scrubs, I came across Season 8, episode 9, "My Absence". A patient whose husband of 50 years had recently died passes away and Kelso comments that it was probably because she lost her soul mate. Elliot says she hopes she would have more going on in her life if it was her, though she later bemoans that she's no longer a strong or independent woman because she's miserable with JD out of town (hence of the title of the episode).

Why do we do that? Why we do associate being strong and independent women with being unwilling to put life on hold for someone else, or to wait for what someone else needs?

I've spent most of my adult life in relationships, including one marriage and one engagement (they are not related). I have also spent a lot of it working through the ins and outs - what I want in a relationship, where my stick points are, etc. And I've come to the understanding that I am a strong and independent woman. One thing everyone in my life knows about me is that, no matter what happens in a given situation, I will be fine. I am incredibly resilient. But I am also willing to put aside what I want in the name of what someone else who I care about needs.

I wasn't always able to do that. I'm good at short term care taking, especially physical things. But putting aside my own long term wants and desires for someone else is not my specialty. I think I saw it as weak, a special blend of feminist and military mindsets, and a fear of losing myself in someone else. But as I've gotten past the age where I care so much about those kinds of things, I've realized that the relationships that I admire all have a sense of sacrifice to them. They are the people who are willing to put aside the 'me' for the 'us'...and who do that by recognizing that sometimes, making the 'us' better means fostering the other side. There has to be faith that it will be reciprocated if the time comes, that when my career or my goals are at stake, the partner will sacrifice in return.

That faith is the hard part. It's much harder than love. But if achieved, it bolsters a love that is so much better than the quick and easy (and inherently selfish) love without sacrifice. At least, that's what I'm told.

Review: China's Lost Girls (2004)

This has been sitting in my Netflix queue for awhile, but I actually watched it the other day. It follows American families on their way to China to adopt little girls while examining the effect the one child policy along with the preference for males has had on China's population. This was one of those that caught my attention for no particular reason, but I'm really glad I watched it.

The emotional story is there, of course. Little baby girls abandoned in parks and on streets because their mothers need a boy, then adopted by American families. A mother discusses how her husband said he would send her back to her family if she produced a daughter and how she paid a fine to keep her second child, a girl, after giving her husband a son. The families include a couple that has one adopted Chinese girl already, and they show where she was left and we meet her foster mother. The entire thing is really touching.

More striking to me was the effects that the one child policy has had on China. I've read a lot of articles about how the divorce rate among young Chinese is very high, which is believed to stem from a culture of single children. But this looks at young children, a population of whom is overwhelmingly male. One of the most visible effects of this is that many of the children (male and female) are overweight. An interviewed teenager comments that their parents' generation suffered so much that they want to indulge their children. The word used repeatedly is "spoiled". There are concerns about how violence against women, prostitution, and forced marriages are already rising, and that it will happen more as the disparity continues to rise.

It's a really interesting examination of the policy through the eyes of the adoptive families who benefit from the one of the greatest efforts to curb population in civilized history.Worth watching, absolutely.

Review: The Buccaneers (1995)

This showed up as a recommendation in Netflix because of my love for costume dramas. It's a 5 part miniseries (though Netflix compresses two of the episodes so that it airs as 4) with each part being around an hour. I admit, it was a little slow of a start, in part because it's hard to tell the four girls apart at first. But the characters develop nicely and the story is rather engaging.

The Buccaneers is Edith Wharton's last novel and was unfinished until the 90's when it was finished in multiple versions, one of which is for this miniseries. It's about 4 young American women (compressed from 5 in the book) who go to England to seek husbands. It has Mira Sorvino (as a brunette!) and Carla Gugino as two of the young women and the overall cast is rather fantastic.

This has all the period drama I love. The pressure to marry well (whether you need money or title), disapproving family, baby-drama, lovers...all the awesome. Plus pretty costumes and houses. What more could a girl want?

The series is excellent and worth watching - just get past the first 20 minutes or so. It's on Netflix Streaming.