How to Recognize and Respond When You are in a Trauma Trigger

[@Trysaratop]

I literally had a terrible trigger yesterday where I felt dizzy and shaking. This was the video I needed, thank you both always.

[@MendedLight]

Sorry to hear that! Glad the video was helpful, though! 💜 What was most helpful to you?

[@FishareFriendsNotFood972]

My emotional landscape is similar to Alicia, and it's such a rare gift to have a female teacher in the psychology space who can relate to the 'avoidant' end. THANK YOU, she really helps me feel less alone

[@Tanuki.Kagemori]

Being aware of my own anxiety and when I get triggered. KNOWING I've been triggered, but still go through the motion. It's honestly the most mentally exhausting feeling. And the people who just don't know, they don't think my anxiety is real because I'm so aware of it with every passing moment. Being denied care because of this self-awareness is very disheartening. You both really change the narrative and how I view therapy. Respectfully, platonically, I love you guys.

[@trinaq]

Happy Halloween, a video that's definitely a treat, not a trick. Thanks for always delivering, Jonathan and Alicia! ❤

[@MendedLight]

Our pleasure! Thank you so much for watching! 💜💜💜

[@Snowfoxie1]

I was assaulted by my now ex earlier this year. Since then, it’s like my mind and my body have become 2 different entities entirely when it comes to romantic arousal. I’m now dating a wonderful man who I’m very attracted to, but even when we hug or kiss, it’s like my brain retreats from my body and goes to this weird thinky place while my body goes through the motions on autopilot. I’m working through it and getting better but it’s so unbelievably weird and so so frustrating. I really like this guy and he’s so patient and understanding about my trauma, but at this point I don’t think I’m truly capable of physical intimacy and I’m so scared I’ll never even be able to do something as simple as kiss like I used to.

[@emilykennedy4304]

So proud of you for getting out!

[@Snowfoxie1]

@ thanks ❤️ It was really scary but the best decision I ever made.

[@SaucyJTD]

The Choice by Dr. Edith Eger is an amazing book. The introduction alone had me in tears a few times over. I can not recommend it enough to anyone and everyone. Thank you, Alicia and Jono, for making this video!

[@MendedLight]

So good! What was your favorite part of the book? 💜

[@SaucyJTD]

@MendedLight I have huge chunks of the books highlighted, so my true answer is really, "Yes," lol. This quote from near the end is a shift that I am still working towards, though: "I used to ask, 'Why me? Why did I survive?' I have learned to ask a different question: 'Why not me?'"

[@SaucyJTD]

@@MendedLight And also, "Our painful experiences aren’t a liability- they’re a gift. They give us perspective and meaning, an opportunity to find our unique purpose and our strength."

[@rachellsn1791]

Thank you for covering this topic!! I really struggle with this subject and this video helps me!!!

[@MendedLight]

You are so welcome! Glad it was helpful! 💜

[@WarriorMom-h2y]

“Abuse is never the fault of the victim”. Thank you. My children’s father broke into my home and tried to kill us 4 years ago after I left him due to abuse. The courts gave him custody because I left when he continued to stalk us after he was convicted. It’s been a nightmare and my boys are not safe. Any resources you know of that would help with any of this?

[@АннаМитрофанова-э1ь]

I very much love your advices. Hope they can help a lot of people who can’t afford personal professional help

[@na0228]

I have triggers. It's so hard to explain. It doesn't make sense to lots of people. Like the example, "why is a red truck freaking you out? Make it make sense. " I have to explain the abuse to make sense, but I can't, and don't want to, because I am in someway disassociated and shut down some part of me so I can't tell what exactly I was feeling nor talk so much details about it. It's so frustrating. I wish someone would tell me that they know what it is and there is nothing to apologize for.

[@laurenl720]

Great video, thanks. ❤

[@olympiaelda1121]

I wish people new more about this generally. Thank you for sharing awareness.

[@BonesToSkin]

Thank you for this. I would like to share that yoga has helped me manage the physical aspect of trauma. Much love to all viewers!

[@WhatsaModderU]

I think TRIGGERED gets mixed up with panic attacks.

[@Tommo0608]

I love this. Thank you so much.

[@Etzuka0]

This video has all the information I've recently been learning about after hitting low point due to my husband leaving me because "he cant cope with my health issues". I have many of the conditions Van der kolk and Gabor Mate discuss in their works around Trauma leading to physical and mental health conditions, and I've decided to start on my own healing journey with lots of support. Im most looking forward to my art therapy. I'd love to learn about it more.

[@evelyneverdeen7971]

Thank you for this amazing and informative video! You always make these difficult topics so much easier to understand. Also, I just recently finished reading Dr. Viktor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning" and it gave me so much hope. It was such a wonderful book, thank you for the recommendation. I also recently bought The Body Keeps The Score (The Choice is on my booklist), also due to you two mentioning it often, and I'm really looking forward to reading it!

[@MendedLight]

Thank you for those kind words! Glad the videos are so helpful! What was your favorite part of the book? 💜

[@evelyneverdeen7971]

​@@MendedLight I've always been really interested in reading stories from inside the concentration camps, so getting still another perspective and reading all the anecdotes that Dr. Frankl collected from and with the other inmates was super interesting. As was to read his full take on 'meaning'. But what helped me the most in the depressive episode (not calling it depression because 1) I've never been officially diagnosed, and 2) it doesn't seem severe enough in my case and I wouldn't want to take away credibiltiy from others who actually have depression) were the very last 2-3 pages of the 2008 release, the one that featured Dr. Frankl's insights from that conference from the early 1980s. I've been struggling a lot with internalizing the "everyone has worth just by existing". Your videos help a lot, but those few pages truly hit home when I had needed them

[@alexandrugheorghe5610]

I'm avoidant/freeze/shutdown/collapse that responds to somatic therapy

[@alexandrugheorghe5610]

Oh, and, I'm also all alone, homeless and on disability, living with an unsafe person in the homeless shelter in the same room, thanks to a therapist who did exposure therapy with me and got me retraumatized

[@WhatsaModderU]

I get that way too!

[@Zeroness0]

What to do next, if we recognize our feelings and accept them, but they keep reappearing when we get exposed to the trigger? And if the thoughts of the traumatic event repeat every day? They get less intense for sure, it's way easier already, but some things just disturb our core - what to do then? Thank you so much for your videos, they have helped me a lot with understanding myself and coping with my fears and traumas, wish you all the best and happy Halloween! ❤

[@TheRindy84]

What about waking up in tears after you told off your parents in a dream after you said all the things you have never said out loud...

[@pebblebrookbooks4852]

Happy Halloween 🎃

[@MendedLight]

Same to you! 💜

[@caspiansvensson]

What do you do when you are finally reaching the reaching out part but have no one to reach out to and you can't afford therapy?

[@nicolechilders4532]

Share! Ahaha, wish i had this vid a few months ago. I had triggers and i had no idea what was happening.....and everyone thoughts i was crazy 😅😅😅😅😅

[@MystearicaClaws]

I still get those when I see a red blazer like vehicle... Or silver avalanche. As that would be the only way they could get to me now that I moved away...

[@Amantducafe]

Trauma, specially a very strong one can evolve into PTSD.

[@captainsirk1173]

What do you do when your coping mechanism for being triggered is the source of all of your trauma?

[@Lilliaace]

Just wanna give this little tidbit - the body keeps score isn't really a good book for the fact that the man makes the (bad) take that "soldiers who SA women go through trauma and are traumatized in the same manner that their victims are". Theres other problematic statements in it but that's the worst from what I remember in the book. "Complex cptsd From surviving to thriving" by Pete Walker is MUCH better

[@mathildekgm2382]

I love the content of your videos, what you're explaining, but I feel the small inserted videos are not useful. I hope you won't take this too badly, I feel the images, a little too cliché, are lessening the power of your words. Thank you so much for what you're doing. From Paris.

[@MissIngridsclass]

Are they going through a divorce? I thought he said they were in a video.

[@Memkiss]

They are, but they're going to continue working as friends.❤

[@TheRindy84]

I was trying to make a point about how emotionally disconnected I feel in my relationship thta I said "He couod go have sex with someone else and I wouldn't care on a personal level. I would at most feel irritated and inconvenienced but really only if his actions affected the lifestyle I was used to. It would be like a last straw and like I gave you every opportunity to not marry me, you shut down and withdrew every time I tried to have a conversation about us parting ways...you pick NOW to just do it?! No real sense of betrayal though because I no longer care. The person told me there was something wrong with me...thanks. Thats helpful. Frustrating because the peson will often say how I shouid feel free to talk to them, and come to them with troubles and I'm just like yeeeaaaahhhh noooo that's not happening. Sorry.