Long story with a point ...

So ... really bad things happened when I was a kid and I started having PTSD symptoms, although back then nobody would have said that about a kid. I suffered all through my growing up and then started doing something about it in my early 20s. Got a lot better. Then something else bad happened and the symptoms came back. Worked on them and got better. Then something hugely awful and traumatic and beyond comprehension happened and the whole thing took two full years to unfold before any glimmer of recovery could take place. Awful. Everything triggered me. Everything. A look. A line at the grocery. The tone in which someone said hello. Never mind things directly related.

I was running around triggered and distressed and in bad shape constantly. Awful. A wreck. A mess. Hollow eyed, dragging and in pain. Nobody could understand, nobody. Or that's what I told myself. I wanted to huddle into a ball to avoid all those ugly triggers.

Then I figured out almost none of those things were really triggers. I was doing something that's called false attribution. If I felt a flood of distressing emotion, I would blame whatever was happening around me at the moment and call it a trigger and try to avoid it in the future. But everything was triggering me, so that meant I wanted to stay home. Getting dressed distressed me -- oh, god, don't get dressed and it'll stop.

But that was all B.S. My nervous system was on red alert, poised to react at any moment and it didn't matter what was going on, sometimes it just went off all on it's own or because a random thought passed through my mind.

About 95% of my supposed triggers were the result of me making a faulty cause and effect connection. That's a false attribution. The trigger was really just there coincidentally when my nervous system went off.

I figured I was going to react no matter what I did, even if it was staying in bed. So I tossed out my belief that all those things were triggers and decided to get on with my life and that's what I'm doing to this day.

Every single day, no matter how bad I feel, even if I have the worst case of the flu in the world (I did manage to get swine flu so I'm not exaggerating) I get up, eat breakfast, take a shower, do my face and hair, get dressed, go for a short or long walk or go to the gym, talk to friends, keep the cupboards stocked, cook meals, clean the house, do my job, come home, pay attention to my close family and extended family, do meditation, do all the things I'd do if I was perfectly well.

Amazingly, that made feel a lot better, even when I was dragging my ***, in significant pain, feeling terrible. Putting one foot in front of the other and carrying on proved to me that the problem was not external triggers, it was my own nervous system and thoughts and my false attributions which were making me fearful to do anything because I had wrongly thought that everything was setting me off. It was my nervous system and thoughts that were causing my distressing bodily sensations and emotions.

So I worked to calm down my nervous system (proper nutrition, vitamins, meditation, yoga, biofeedback, vigorous exercise.) I worked on my thoughts and beliefs (REBT, cognitive distortions, choice therapy.) I discovered that I had a recurring thought whispering to me ... I can't stand this. I can't stand this. I can't stand this. Whenever I had that thought my nervous system would fire away with stress hormones. So I started working on that false belief. It was false because I'd actually been standing things all my life. Maybe not liking them, but not letting them put me down. I'm too damn stubborn for that. Some people call it a character flaw but it's kept me going.

I can stand a lot of stuff. I can certainly stand a line at the grocery check out or red light or getting out of bed. I may not like it. I may hate it. But I can ****ing stand it.

If everything -- everything -- is triggering you, I'd be willing to wager you six empty pop cans that your nervous system is on red alert, going off at any little thing and those external things aren't really triggers. They just happen to be there when your nervous system fires. You probably have some thoughts you're not really aware of that help keep your nervous system on red alert, something like my "I can't stand it."

My strong suggestion is to start every day by cleaning up and getting dressed and eating, even if it feels like those things trigger you. Make it a habit. If you're already cleaned up, it makes it a lot easier to go buy food. If you're already cleaned up it makes it easier to go outside, to meet friends, to do what you need to do. When you first start, it may take hours to accomplish. A shower may exhaust you. Finding clean clothes may seem overwhelming. It will get better. It will. I promise. When I started, it took about 3 hours to accomplish. Now it takes about 30 minutes. It went from awful to normal, but it did take a while, a couple months of doing it, until if finally just happened without trouble.

You can stand it. And maybe you'll discover that you have far fewer triggers than you think. I have a handful, mostly related to ... oh, nevermind. Ugly stuff that probably trigger a lot of people. All that other stuff, it was just my whacked out nervous system over-reacting to everyday life in a random and confusing way. Not external triggers at all.

I feel great compassion for anyone who is suffering through the kind of thing I went though, through the trauma and then the problem of everything feeling like a trigger. It's pretty damn awful. I'm a lot better these days. There are very few things I want to avoid. It no longer feels necessary. Figuring out the whole false attribution thing was a first step to me moving forward.

I wish you the best.