Its funny I was blogging on this last night and tonight but keep losing the entry probably because the entry is too long and I need to break it down and now you are posting a question about this. LOL and so cool when this kind of thing happens.

Yes it is possible to find some of your triggers but Im not sure if trying to desensitize yourself without knowing why you get triggered by it and that is what knowing the memory does. But hey would love to know if it works for you. it didn't with me.

The way my therapist and I went about locating my triggers is by journalling and charting. I'm cheep I buy normal .99 cent 70 page notebooks instead of the 9-12 dollar journaling books that have 200 pages. I write alot and by getting the notebooks which for 210 pages (3 notebooks) I pay $2.97 and have more writing room since the pages are 8x11 instead of 5x7. Then on a page I write collumns for date, time and what (panic attack, time loss, and so on) and situation which is the activity I was doing when I had the panic attack or whatever. It looked like this:

friday 12/2/05 11:45 am

First thing remembered - sitting at the library
last thing remembered riding the bus
approximate amount of time loss - 1hr

Over time and paying close attention I was able to add more details, using the same situation so that the process is easy to understand:

Friday 12/2/05 11:45 Lost time Riding the bus

First thing noticed -sitting at the library
Last thing remembered - (adding as many details as possible) Riding the bus, I got on the bus at the local store anr rode it to the downtown station. The bus route was this street and that street. The bus was crowded. The driver had a problem with a drunk guy.
approximate time loss - 1 hr

So now we know the time loss happened between getting on the bus and being at the library so the trigger is somwhere between the two, this person doesn't remember getting off the bus so the trigger is something that happened on the bus or on the streets the bus traveled on. Riding the bus again at a different time frame when there isn't so many people and the problem doesnt happen so the crowdedness isn't the trigger or the street routes so the trigger must be the drunk guy. now riding the bus again during the peak hours when a drunk is most likely going to get on the bus will prove that is infact the trigger.

now to desensitize the person from being triggered every time they encounter the trigger (drunk guy) they need to know why encountering the trigger sends them into being scared, panicy and so on. normally to do this the person would work in therapy around the idea of drinking, and drunks in their lives in the past. the memory of that drunk or drinking situation is why the person is now triggered by drunk men. Since the scenerio angle you are asking about includes NOT finding the memory means we can't take care of the original situation which will take care of the trigger. so the only option is exposure to the trigger in small doses until you are no longer triggered. The problem with this is exposure leads the person to lose time. which is why this process is hard to do. I attempted recently to take care of my being triggered around spiders. I had a friends children with me and we went to the local petting zoo and wouldn't you know it they had a spider in the petting area for the kids to hold. Im a role model type person. When my son was afraid of worms I took him out and we played with worms. Not my favorite activity but we live in an area that rains rarely snows in winter so we get ALOT of worms coming up out of the ground onto the sidewalks and roads. my son kept going into panics because in order to walk to the store (I don't drive) we have no choice but step on worms sometimes. so I sat down in the soaking rain and started playing with worms and soon my son was following suit. so anyway here we are at the petting zoo and they asked one of my friends children if he wanted to hold the spider the child went behind my back and I could feel him shaking.. he has never seen a spider let alone close up. the handler said "mom will hold it won't you mom" I didn't bother correcting the guy I took a deep breath and thought ok here goes nothing and held out my hand and whispered to him to make it fast. I felt the child calm right down as I faded out of sight of that thing. I still have no memory of holding the thing but the children were so excited about the fact that I did it and the next time they go to the zoo they want to see the spider again. I told then to tell their mother to quit killing spiders and then they will have all the spiders they want right at home. I have no idea why I am so afraid of spiders. but for me the only way I can desensitize myself is knowing what it behind why I have those fears and am getting triggered into other memory pieces.

I wish you lots of luck in trying this. personally there is no way I am going to hold a spider again. I tried it once and it didn't work. YUCK! lol.

And yes my then teacher now friend is a fantastic person. Thanks.