I don't get triggered here or anywhere else online-- don't do Facebook or the like.

I do get triggered in therapy and IRL and in the last year, I have noticed that the impact of those triggers is so much less strong than it used to be. I used to feel like I was being slowly carried away on the wind away from whatever situation was triggering me, losing my ability to speak from any grounded place, I felt that my body was disconnected from my throat, my heart, my mind. As if I were in little shattered pieces swirling around in a fog on the ceiling.

Now when I get triggered-- and the worst situations are those where people IRL direct negative emotions at me. My current T has never done this, although she has said negative things to me, it's never been with strong emotion. I have a good woman friend as well as my wife, both strong and independent women who are headstrong as well as straightforward, be angry at me for both legitimate and illegitimate reasons. Now rather than being split up and spirited away from the interaction by my dissociated trigger response, I feel myself more as a willow tree in the wind, where their emotions blow harmlessly around me and yet I am able to process their words and more importantly, their emotions. I can stand there and think, boy, she's really pissed at me, what I said to her really pushed her buttons, she is unwilling to hear what I have to say about that right now, I will acknowledge she has a point and then address it with her at a more calm time.

I also notice that while in the past I would "rush" to get the conflict with another person resolved because it was so uncomfortable for me, I know am willing to approach things from either an implicit or explicit agree to disagree approach. I am more willing to think that one possible positive outcome is that I allow her to have her feelings, no matter how wrong she might be while I feel comfortable owning my beliefs without needing them to be validated by her. To me this is a reflection of de-triggering my triggers.

Most of my days are pretty mindful, connected to the people in my family and friends and colleagues around me. I am calm and confident-- in the past I think I have just pretended to be so, but now I really am. Not much really bothers me much any more, and as a side benefit, it just seems like people and events are more positive than they used to be.