How to tell someone their behavior triggers my ptsd

Hm well I'm thinking about this more and I feel like this issue is really complex for sure.

I've had cPTSD myself, so.... if I see it from the outsider's/3rd party's pov, I can see how suddenly mentioning that x thing causes a trauma reaction can look "weird sensitive", and sure that can make people feel uncomfortable as trauma is a private and sensitive thing IMO, some people could even feel like it's a "weakness" to share about it, but I think it's really, really not cool and not okay to use it as ammunition even if someone feels uncomfortable seeing such sensitiveness (see poster's experience above my first post).

So to me, your concern about not making others feel blamed, that to me totally falls into the category of using it as ammunition. I.e. not okay, if the other person feels blamed by it. Yes it's possible that that's what caused some people to try and attack me in turn, when I shared with them how whatever they said/did make me feel, when I still tried to share back then. But if someone feels blamed so easily - feeling blamed by your *trauma feeling* of all things - and then wants to go on the attack to avoid it, then that says a LOT about that person's character. I'm sorry, I would not trust such people. That is what I learned really from trauma, it made me more picky like that, and yeah well I do have trust issues too from it of course but I've found that people with a better character will not try to attack you for it so fast. They will have at least cognitive empathy even if not emotional empathy.


So my advice is, don't concern yourself with how to express yourself so as to avoid making them feel blamed. If someone feels blamed about this topic, they are not a very good person anyway. Keep only a superficial friendship with them, don't trust them deeply. This is all my personal opinion of course, you don't have to follow any of my advice. I am just saying I've got a lot of experience with this...

Also I don't really understand how you know the person didn't intend to hurt you. Maybe they did intend to hurt you in some of these cases. Of course I don't know what your triggers are. Maybe they really are always illogical. I don't know. I just know that I've found that sometimes they DID signal bad, crappy behaviours and attitudes to me. It's like the trauma made me grow some really sensitive antennae for all that stuff. Those antennaes are too sensitive yeah, of course, too finely tuned, and they have to be re-tuned or whatever the word is for it. But you shouldn't try to totally ignore all your triggers with logic. My personal opinion from my own experience.


And then your question at the end. Even before trauma, even before I knew what trauma was, if I had been told a simple explanation that you've suffered trauma and what I said makes you feel the trauma again, I would have understood that you are not trying to blame me. I'd have to be really paranoid to assume that it's some weird tricky attempt to blame me. I'd have tried to understand more about it maybe, because maybe I'd have felt it's vague to me, but I think if you additionally said what you'd like me to do, e.g. "please don't mention x topic to me anymore", I'd pay attention and try to remember that.

Also...I mean, if you are already in some relationship full of conflicts or it's just a really superficial friendship, best not to mention it at all as it could create issues either way. It would just be inappropriate to share in those cases, in my opinion. It could put a burden on them even, considering how superficial the relationship otherwise is. If I were you, in that case I'd just excuse myself and leave and deal with the flashback on my own. If you don't want to be like, cut them off. (I still do that instead sometimes, if I feel like I cannot trust them anymore)

Last note. Speaking of superficial friendships. Trauma made me learn that the overwhelming majority of friendships is superficial. Naturally. With those friends, you can only have good times with them, but forget about them in times of hardship and you shouldn't be there for them either in times of hardship for them. Only be there for the true good friends. Not many of those.




(Added the rest now)


I've skimmed the thread only now. I usually always read through the thread first but I think here I got emotional and wanted to say what was on my mind....Anyway I don't know what your daughter says, but if it's an emotionally loaded phrase that no one would really like by default (but on top of that it just affects you extra strong because of the trauma), then I wouldn't just ground myself and ignore my emotions like that, I would try to figure out inside myself how to deal with those phrases, recalibrate my emotions, and everything over time. Because people are not always going to act nice and sensitive, this is not a peaceful world, that's true.

If it is not "emotionally loaded" and it's a totally neutral statement that anyone could literally say anytime, then of course it's an illogical trigger based on very tangential similarities only, and I just hope you can figure out how to get past it. I find even those very tangential similarities can teach me things sometimes about processing trauma. So if I were you, I'd want to know more about it.


PS: And you mentioning waiting a week feels like worse than not asking your daughter....it depends. The ensuing conflict can make that week even worse tbh. But maybe you sorted this one already. I mean I had to deal with that for a whole long week once when a therapist of mine did the trigger stuff/nearly retraumatised me (sorta did I think). I waited a week then I had another appointment with her and then I just told her I'm done with therapy and then I was able to process the rest of it faster. So yeah it's bad waiting a whole week and I know that very well from experience but it can frankly still be better than risking possible retraumatising conflict. That's just my opinion again. Trauma/ptsd/cptsd is hard, really wish you good luck with it.




Hm. I don't think you can expect your daughter to meet your needs like that except if it's simple things like not talking about certain sensitive topics, basic good attitudes, etc etc. But this idea of having needs met through open communication. I bought into that idea for a while after my trauma and it just hurt me more. I eventually regained enough of my emotional memory back and realised that I can't really do that with everyone. It would require a really close adult relationship in the first place. Even those relationships can't meet all of our needs. We gotta be selective.

And so I really disagree with the idea that you are always responsible for making sure other people are aware of both your good and bad feelings. That has to be way way more selective than that statement. I mean that's what I had to relearn by regaining my emotional memory. Until then I just bought into this idea unselectively just like stated in your post. Not a good idea in my experience. I hope this helps.

And where you talk of how hiding it and not addressing it and pretending it didn't matter didn't work. Of course it didn't work because that involved ignoring your triggers rather than processing them and it also involved your invalidating your own emotions (triggers really are emotions anyway). What works is, you hide the "illogical triggers" from as many people as possible because it's not their business, BUT you don't hide them from YOURSELF. You pretend in front of other people, but you don't pretend in front of yourself. If that made sense. It will help with emotional processing and trauma processing without further risks trying to engage all the other people in it.

But when the triggers are actually logical enough (well, there's the logic of emotions), then you do want communication for important enough issues but still don't expect or hope for too much with most people. That's just how the world works. IMO.

I think that's really all I had in mind. I really just had to warn you that that idea just can't be applied like that and how I know that from a lot of personal experience.

I have often wondered, too, about how to stop someone from bringing up a subject that triggers me. Recently I read something that said, essentially, the idea of dealing with triggers is not to stop you from being triggered, but for you to be able to cope when you are triggered.

I know my EX triggered me into fights every time he opened his mouth before I left him & before I had good therapy. I was so concerned I would react that way after 11 years when I was back for a court case against him. I had never actually practiced what I had learned in therapy because no one in my life 2100 miles away was like him. I was actually proud that I did not respond my old way but said basically "I am not discussing that with you" & walked away. Not only did I not get triggered but it put ME in control of the conversation

In re-reading my post, I noticed there were a couple "auto correct" errors that my phone decided to do, lol. So, I think you assumed (bc of how the errors are worded in the type) that I always simply stop being around people. What I really (tried) to say was "if not then I have limited to no contact with them". So some people I simply limit contact with, others I totally get rid of (depending on the situation and the status of the relationship apart from that).

In reading your responses to both myself and rollercoaster, I think you and I agree on how to best handle it.

I totally agree with you that not everyone cares to hear what makes you feel certain ways (be it good or bad feelings). As far as the 15 year old daughter, I think that depends on the emotional maturity level of the daughter as well as her ability to process information and understand it vs processing information and just accepting it or rejecting it. If she is either not highly emotionally mature or is not good with processing information and understanding it, than I agree with you - better left unsaid. If, however, she is both highly emotionally mature and good with processing information and understanding it .. then a heart to heart discussion could be beneficial.

Just my thoughts though. ❤

This has been the focus for me the last year. Really regaining emotional control and maintaing control in the specific moment after being triggered so I can get through it. I have 2 teenagers and I can't just walk away from them or worse, completely lose my emotional control. Both of my kids know I talk to a therapist and get to do "cool things" to feel better. They also know what ptsd is and thats what I'm dealing with.

When this issue came up with my daughter, I got through the moment, but I knew my daughter noticed I was shaken up. She didn't do anything wrong and I wanted her to know that. I actually talked to her the day after I called my T.

Thanks to everyone for sharing your personal experiences and perspectives. I'm not sure if i read everything as it was intended, but its all ok. Like everyone else who suffers with ptsd, everything about it is unique to the sufferer. I may be unique in how I confront ptsd. I truly believe I am stronger than ptsd and I refuse to let it control me. My T thinks my determination is big part of my progress.

Thanks. And oh, no worries, I think that's a small misunderstanding, I didn't think you literally cut of every single person. I did mention I did cut off a lot of people though. I agree with you about being selective like that. It was just a lot of chaos initially for me because I didn't even know what was going on anymore, so it felt like I was truly gonna have to cut off everyone, and I had no idea anymore if I could rely on relationship status etc etc. I did figure out over time that I can rely on that after all, just had to recalibrate things based on my experiences.

Makes sense, what you said about the daughter and hope it helps OP too.