Sometimes the person may not know what in the past is the origin of the trigger. They just start reacting out of proportion to the event in the present. In therapy, a person can learn to identify when they are being triggered and discover the origin of their triggers (what are the past events?). I have found that being aware of the origin of a trigger can help me manage it. If I can identify that I'm being triggered before I react, then I can run a script through my head like this: "Oh, I'm not really upset with this delivery person who just did X, I'm feeling this way because my father used to do the same thing when I was a teenager..." I have found this really helps me a lot. My T has told me he is very alert to the faintest hint of triggers with a client, as these are important clues to key past events. They are a way "in".

Fairly recently, I discovered a trigger that went back to a specific interaction between my father and me when I was a teen. Once I realized this, I suddenly felt all those feelings. Ouch! Yuck! It was like a chain of the exact same feeling that contained certain present day occurrences linked with past occasions of being triggered, stretching all the way back to this "founding" interaction between my father and me. When I realized this, I said to my teen self, "ahhhhh" and gave her a hug, figuratively, for all that hurt. I think it helped her to get that hug and have someone recognize, at last, her hurt. For me, this is what healing is.