I am glad this topic has come up where I can address it differently then I have before.

Getting triggered can take a lot of time to figure out and understand in "self". And there certainly has been a lot taking place that can create a lot of people to get triggered without having PTSD.

There was one area on this site that triggered me the most and I remember thinking and feeling "why does this bother me, why should I care about this so much?". I remember thinking to myself that it was important that I figure that out because IRL I was being triggered and having strange flashbacks and I was SO WORRIED that I would fail when I needed to be strong and the last thing I needed was to experience a flashback in front of people that were not people I wanted to experience that in front of. So, I engaged and at least when I failed, I would have a chance to at least have some kind of presence that was supportive. A kind of presence that would be understanding because I do suffer badly when it comes to having PTSD and all the deep confusion that comes with suffering from PTSD. With myself, while I began by experiencing a post traumatic breakdown, and went through the stages where I developed PTSD because I failed to get the help I had needed, I went further than that into experiencing what is called "complex" PTSD.

I ALWAYS hated the X vrs Y ALWAYS!The past ten years have been just HORRIBLE for me. Horrible on so many levels too. When you talk about "the little one in me is coming out and it's gotten SO challenging", I have that problem myself. I guess there was A LOT I never processed either. No, might as well be honest, I don't guess anymore I NOW KNOW. I never imagined that I would re-experience my past the way I have that has most definitely been very intrusive and confusing and exhausting.

The past two years has triggered me a lot too. At one point I kept repeating "they are both bad choices, BOTH him and her, there is TOXIC in both". One would think it would ALL come forward in a way where I could see it so much clearer. Lately, I have been thinking and feeling it in overtime and every once in a while my husband YELLS at me because I don't answer him fast enough and god forbid I don't do anything FAST ENOUGH when it comes to him. When he does that it makes me worse, worse in that I have been in a GREAT DEAL OF PHYSICAL PAIN. This isn't about what I read and see and hear that is taking place on our world stage, it's what has happened to me in my own life that seeing and hearing so much gets triggered.

What I have finally been seeing that most definitely is part of this little girl that is buried as you have described Liz, is how her entire childhood from the very beginning had been so hard on her because of how TOXIC this X and Y hate/dysfunction was that made her feel so frightened and unsafe and it was constant. The flashbacks I experience don't give me the bigger picture. Because of how I experience these flashbacks be it in clips where I can see things happening to me, or when I end up experiencing emotional flashbacks that I don't always KNOW what triggered them and I can be struggling for an entire day or several days I have felt lost and confused A LOT. So, I end up "repeating" and I most certainly have faced a lot of criticism for that. Yet, what has been extremely hard to explain about that is how something would surface that NEEDED to be included in whatever I had managed to articulate already. So, it has been like having this huge puzzle with all these pieces where each time a piece would appear, I would have to put it into the much bigger puzzle, not just for others to look at, but also for me to see myself. The therapist I finally found that helped me the most told me that I needed to talk about my past because whatever is there in my past is what made me more vulnerable to developing PTSD if a big enough trauma took place. At first I did not want to talk about my past but just wanted to focus on the problems I was facing in the now. Unfortunately, things got so toxic that like it or not things began coming forward from my past in flashbacks. I am sorry for anyone that experiences this because it's often crippling and so hard to explain to others and it's scary and very confusing.

Just this past year THAT really came out when after YEARS of my older brother distancing and making his own life, I was in my parent's kitchen and once again saw my older sister and older brother together again and the HATE they had for each other FILLED that kitchen and they stood in front of each other and this HATE and ANGER was all over their body language in every part of them. This was something that "little one" in me witnessed a lot and from the time when I was just a baby too. And the other thing that was in that kitchen was my parents who are elderly and yet clueless to the REALITY of what filled their kitchen that day that was ALWAYS there, and that little one had to figure out how to live her life around that constant hate and conflict HER ENTIRE childhood. That little one NEVER FELT SAFE because of that. "If you are nice to him, if you play with him, I WILL HATE YOU AND BE MEAN TO YOU". What came out of that in me that I had not realized was that because I know how hard that is, how painful and unsafe that can feel, I tend to protect anyone else that suffers from that kind of experience. So if I am involved in something where there is some kind of X vrs. Y and I see someone struggling and making an attempt to at least say what it means to them and they get attacked I get "triggered" FOR that individual. I often would get PUNISHED for that too. That is what also happened to "the little one" too. The little one saw a lot of HURT and bad things that the little one did not know what to do about. The little one was traumatized every single day by witnessing just how bad this can get and yet the little one had to learn how to understand that if she did tell, it would only make it even worse. This made it so the "little one" would get sick a lot and even almost die too. One time the little one was so sick that she was put in a bathtub full of ice and was shivering and crying and I often wonder if this is what my body is remembering when I struggle in pain and get the chills really bad.

The other thing that had been triggering me so badly is the battle I was in fighting for my right to have my boundaries, how my boundaries were so badly disrespected and invaded that resulted in years of hard work and getting to have that part of me that was so positive that I LOVED so much DESTROYED. Yet, as I was trying SO HARD to be strong and fight that battle, I ended up sitting at a table where once again I was in the middle of a male and a female once again engaging in yet another TOXIC battle. I was sitting at that table ALONE and the male lawyer who was supposed to stand up for me was failing mentally and his behaviors at that table turned into the focus being ALL ABOUT HIM and not about what I had needed. The woman at that table was being nice to me, but she was being nice to me in order to gain my trust so she could use that FOR HER OWN GAIN. I sat at that table trying SO HARD not to have a flashback, and focus, and I almost got through it, until that last question where I sunk into a flashback and saw all my babies (horses and ponies) hurt and all I could do was cry and I just could not talk or answer that question. I wanted SO BADLY to finish and get to finally answer that question, but in the nine years I waited and waited, I never did get to answer or really get heard. Ironically, that was also what I faced my entire childhood too, but also now that I think about it, "my entire life" too.

What has triggered me recently has been two things one has been that question presented of "why did you wait so long to speak up", I know exactly why in a very personal way too. But the other one is being the victim of "false accusations" too. Not only being the victim of false accusations when being brave and walking away from a toxic person, but also to face the legal battle I faced where the opposition tries to dig up anything possible that can be negative, how this opposition can decide that you are bad when YOU WERE NEVER BAD and you never did what a toxic person said you did through gossip to try to get people to dislike you. I know exactly what it's like to have people side with an accuser willing to LIE right to your face and lie WITH a toxic person to smear in hopes to get people to think badly of you when YOU NEVER DID ANYTHING BAD OR WRONG but instead it's this other person spreading gossip and smearing that did something toxic and wrong. I also know what it's like to have someone walk by you with anger and disgust in ALL their body language showing you they actually BELIEVE this toxic person and BELIEVE you are bad when in reality YOU NEVER DID ANYTHING WRONG OR BAD. It's such a HORRIBLE feeling.

People will say, "you know it's not true so don't let it bother you", well that's just not so easy to do, especially when you can see that people believe something about you when you don't deserve it.

The therapist that helped me the most said to me one day, "you have faced so much trauma in your history and yet were managed to be so strong and resilient". He said I was such a "survivor". Yet, I have to be honest in that when I struggle with these flashbacks, with the days where I am in such physical pain that it tires me out I don't feel at all like a "survivor".