F~ing triggerED…
As I scroll through FB, I see tons of viewpoints. Tons of thoughts and ideas. Tons and TONS of opinions. And I then see…
🛑TRIGGER WARNING🛑
The idea always got on my nerves, but then when I was emotionally on Level 10, I understood. So just a heads up…
Trigger warning: Sex addiction (but I encourage you to keep reading), suggested profanity
I was about 2 years past D-day…that’s what sex addiction survivors refer to as Discovery Day or Disclosure Day depending on how the addiction was revealed…but I was only a couple of months into actually healing from it. My husband had struggled for 20 years with a secret addiction to pornography and masturbation. He had been “clean” from “P” for over a year when I found out, but my heart didn’t care about the time table. I was wrecked. But as a masterful emotional stuffer, it took 2 years and a pregnancy to jostle me into actually healing. But I remember going to the park one day with our family and I saw a woman who had this gorgeous tattoo going down her leg. “Wow!! That’s gorgeous!” and as soon as that benign thought popped into my mind, the next thought shattered my heart all over again. “She’s probably the kind of woman he stares at online and imagines f***ing when he’s stuck with you.” I was startled and instantly nauseated. I don’t even know if I was coherent if someone was talking to me. It felt like time froze just long enough for me to really settle in how much that thought hurt. I don’t swear. For about 15 years, I didn’t even think profanity. I was attending an ultra-conservative, traditional church that focused heavily on silencing and stuffing emotions more than actually healing them. So I was constantly telling myself to calm down. “Don’t say that. Don’t think that. Why are you upset? He’s not doing anything. Just calm down.” But after d-day, my emotions were volatile and spicy words started to creep into my mind. Totally uninvited!
So I stared at that woman until the time freeze ended and she was out of sight and I kept wondering , ”Did he see her? Is he thinking about her right now? Is he saving that image for intimacy with me later? Does he actually want to touch her? Would he have an affair if given the chance?! What if the only thing keeping him with me is his belief that he’d be rejected if he tried?” I could go on for days with the onslaught of what if’s that were birthed just because I saw a beautiful woman with a tattoo, but I think you get the point.
She was a trigger.
Every beautiful woman was a trigger for a while. I wanted to ignore life and stay home forever to avoid seeing women more beautiful than how I felt…which was honestly just about everyone. But I realized that isolating from my triggers wasn’t possible. My kids needed to get out and play and see their friends. So I zipped those emotions back up and I did what needed to be done.
This would be where the story stops for most people, right?!
I tucked it away and we moved on. Now we’re happily married and we never talk about it anymore. The past is in the past. Forgiveness. Forgetting. Blah blah blah!
That. Is. A. Load. Of. Crap!
Tucking hurts away is garbage. The concept isn’t real. Emotional stuffing births TRIGGERS. Feeling triggered is your heart’s way of alerting you that something still hurts. Like when you burn your hand and then for days every time you go NEAR something hot, your body seems to overreact. Your body gets triggered. We understand that. We shy away from the heat. When I burned my hand last year, I had a lot of sandwiches and smoothies! But that wasn’t the end of it. I kept it clean. I went to the doctor. Took pain meds when needed, used special ointment to protect it. I kept it bandaged. AND I protected it from further trauma. So why don’t we tend as carefully to our mind’s hurts? Our emotional wounds need healing too.
Thankfully, when I saw that woman I had been going to a recovery group for a while so I was dealing with the wounds. I journaled either that day or the next and I shared what happened with the ladies in my “support squad” (just sounds better than recovery group). And as I worked though that season of my healing journey, the triggers began to fade. It took time and a bunch of emotional work, but I am not triggered by beautiful women anymore. I see them as women made in God’s image just like me. They are amazing. But so am I. My husband and I are doing better than ever. Totally not cliché. Like we really did survive what I thought was going to break us and we are LIT…healed and totally on fire (for God and each other!) on the other side. But that’s a story for another blog. 😉
But it all began because I learned to LISTEN to my triggers instead of avoiding and silencing them.
Join an #AMWSupportSquad
If you are ready to engage with other women who are done with being triggered, those of us who are FEELing TRIGGERED, and join us as we #LoveBetterHealTogether and redefine #SquadGoals.
Our next Support Squad with All Made Well begin in January. Enroll now for Early Bird Coaching Rates.
…because yeah…we’re done with being f***ing triggered. 🤭🤷🏾♀️
