“Mom, if you picked your friends by those that don’t trigger you, you realize that you wouldn’t have any friends?” (said in dripping sarcasm)

“My friends said to me today, ‘Is Ms. Williams’ triggering you?’” (insert very cute teenage boy laugh followed by deep growl here).

These two sentences were said in my house today. Apparently kids are growing up with a completely different language than I knew or could imagine. I had to go to graduate school to hear the word trigger, understand what it meant. I then had to pay for a shit ton of therapy to really identify my own personal triggers, and well, ultimately, try to not let them trigger me so much. I think kids that are already using this kind of language are likely going to be better off in relationships. And I’ll tell you why. If you know your triggers, your energy can go to you and those you love, not to recovering from internal and external bombs constantly being set off by unknown triggers. I really value this trait in my friends, and, in fact, I’m triggered by people that don’t and can’t speak freely of their triggers. They don’t feel safe.

But let me back up. First, in case you actually don’t know, then you need to be told that a trigger is something (and it can be anything!) that releases or stimulates an automatic strong emotional response. Like you smell Ralph Lauren Polo cologne walking through the mall and are suddenly sad because that smell triggers the memory of your 8th grade boyfriend who wore Polo and broke your heart. Often, the response isn’t fitting to the situation because triggers are usually connected to a story from long ago. The biggest triggers often a direct line to our biggest traumas. The trigger turns reality into something it actually isn’t, clouding your vision of what is.

Take the picture above for example. Posted today. (this is my distorted version) In real life, it’s a beautiful wedding day photo at Duke Chapel. But I don’t only see that. I see something unsettling, stark and painful in the midst of good, somewhere between ghostly and nostalgic. It’s my younger brother’s wedding day where my two boys served as ring bearers. These facts make me happy for him and his wife.

And then there are the triggers. Let’s start with Duke Chapel, the location is a trigger. I don’t have the energy to spend any time on that one because I can barely right the word with the correct spelling. If you know anything about Carolina and Dook, you might have an idea. Okay. I’m half joking, half avoiding the real trigger.

What comes to mind is the sad memory that this day, less than an hour after this picture was taken, was the last day I would talk to my oldest brother in person, while we walked together halfway back up the aisle after pictures were taken. His funny and contagious laugh stands out in my mind as he described his weight gain thanks to another attempt at quitting smoking. That memory, triggered by seeing the picture, creates a series of internal responses so strong that now I’m completely feeling shutdown and won’t be able to think for a few minutes, maybe the next day will be hard. I’m not sure because it’s a bad trigger.

The second half of the walk down the aisle was with my younger sister, where my husband and I encouraged her to check out Planned Parenthood, another triggering story but one with a good ending at least.

And finally, there is the general concept of church and family that this picture triggers. I’m reminded with the speed of a camera’s flash to many years of religious/spiritual dogma, confusion, silencing. The only picture I have of my entire family is from that day, inside that Chapel. And that picture sits beside the poem I wrote for my brother’s funeral.

Here’s the deal. If I didn’t know any of those pieces about what triggered me, or wouldn’t let myself know in the way that we are able to block knowing at times, then when I saw this picture on Facebook, things could have come unglued later for me relationally. What if my husband and I had gotten into a big fight over me not putting the laundry away (this is completely hypothetical of course!)? Maybe I would have had no clue what story was happening underneath the moment. I would have thought he’s just being nagging and mean. We would actually think our fight was about laundry when, in fact, my emotionally unregulated reaction to his disappointment about not helping out was really about the multiple unprocessed triggers that went off the moment the picture came across my screen. Our night could have ended poorly.

Instead, I could say to my husband when he got home that night, “Did you see the anniversary picture? It’s hard to believe it was that long ago. Geez, that whole day was triggering in so many ways (maybe I talk about how, maybe not), but it was a great reception and our boys were so cute weren’t they?” That moment ends. We both recognize the layers in the picture. I have energy to get my laundry put away, and we go to bed happy. Why? Because I know my triggers. So if you don’t know yours, be open to learning. It’s well worth the investment.