Strange Little Triggers
Trace them back. Pull the thread.
It’s not the first time it’s happened, but it was the first time I got curious about it.
The other day, I came home from being away overnight and my beloved husband was lit up with excitement and energy, eager to tell me about a creative project he’d started and spent hours on that day– an epic tale he’d been conjuring up while I was gone, a hero’s journey he mapped out in full detail, with plans to turn it into a story, a graphic novel, a screenplay, who knows, but he was on fire. His energy was off the charts. Yet, as he shared it all with me, I felt myself pulling away, closing myself off in some strange way. Listening intently, his ideas were really good, like seriously, juicy with potential, and while I tried to stay present and supportive, inside I was almost recoiling to the dramatic change in his energy, his voice, his enthusiasm.
There was a part of me that wanted to hide out, in some safe spot within, or to disassociate completely. This is ridiculous, I scorned myself internally. Why am I like this?
One of the best parts of taking care of myself these days has been the noticing, the curiosity that has taken the place of my old practices of shaming myself, or burying my emotions, or scurrying to change uncomfortable feelings with escapism from the nearest numbing resource. While I’m not perfect at this practice, I’m instead becoming adept at staying open with myself, getting curious.
I started with a question. I asked myself… What does this moment remind me of?
What quickly came to mind was a time, maybe ten years ago, when I had visited my mom at a psychiatric hospital. 72 hours before that, we had spent hours and hours in waiting rooms, exam and assessment rooms. I was trying to keep her alive. She had been in the middle of a mental breakdown, and she had been planning to end her life.
Three days later, when she shuffled into the day room, where I waited for her, she was lit from within, beaming with a sparkle in her eyes, and a smile I hadn’t seen on her face in a very long time. It felt good to see her so happy, yet as she rapidly chattered, I found myself pulling away, being resistant. She felt too unfamiliar, it felt like too much, as she manically spilled out her new life plan.
“They want me to have a plan for after discharge, they won’t let me out without a plan,” she said. So she had decided to restart a business she had in the 80s, making baby crib sets, matching quilts, bumpers, pillows. She had been quite talented and creative, before the mental illness and addiction had taken over her existence. A lady she had met in there would help her, she knew lots of people and promised to hook her up with potential customers. Those same feelings of wanting to close myself, wanting to shield myself from this intense light arose in me. This wasn’t real, I thought. She was clearly on some strong mood stabilizers, as she had been nothing but shadows and despair and wanting to die just three days before. It was all too much for me to handle, to believe. To trust.
As I remembered this, it felt comforting somehow, finding a connection, but I knew there was more to explore.
So what did that experience remind me of? Trace it back; pull the thread.
I’m ten, in the kitchen with my mom and she is drinking. Her drinking nights always started out with a super infusion of energy and joy, full of music and laughter and good smells. She’d sing while she cooked, playing “name that tune” with me and my dad, to the oldies on the radio. Dinner seemed to take hours to prepare, as she became more and more intoxicated. It would shift from happy, joyful family time to something darker. I didn’t know exactly how the night would end, but I knew it would not end well. She’d soon get ugly, and I’d get a major attitude, I hated her like this.
When she wasn’t looking, I’d dump her little plastic cup of vodka she kept hidden on the top shelf of the kitchen cabinet, thinking in my little ten year old mind that I could stop a moving train.
“Did you mess with my cup?” She’d hiss at me, keeping her voice down so my dad couldn’t hear in the next room.
“No!” I lied.
“Why are you like this? Why are you always trying to ruin my fun?”
Later, there’d be crying, yelling, trouble, fights between her and my dad, sometimes even violence. Sometimes, they’d continue well into the night, as I listened for loud sounds of things breaking from my bed, scared and worried. I hated it when she drank. I hated who she became and what it led to.
Tying this back to the present, I came to the realization that I get very uncomfortable around extreme emotions, even when they’re “good” emotions like excitement and enthusiasm, because the little ten year old girl inside me doesn’t trust sudden emotional intensity. Doesn’t feel safe around extreme mood elevation. The little girl inside me feels a need to retreat within, to put up walls of protection, because once upon a time, it was a matter of survival— of staying “in control”, guarded and mistrusting. Because my experiences had taught me, when people are too excited all of a sudden, something bad ends up happening.
As an adult, back in 2026, I realize this is unreasonable thinking, my husband being excited about a story outline is not unsafe. But the little girl in me finds it too uncertain when people’s moods are out of the ordinary, extreme or suddenly not predictable.
Predictability = safety, and in my childhood, unpredictability meant danger, fear, or that something bad was going to happen. Excitement and energy cannot be trusted. Whoa…
Insight is the booby prize, they say. Realizing the connection means nothing if I don’t address it somehow with action, with different responses. I had to take it further.
The tool that has had the most impact on my healing path has been my ability to mother myself.
What does Little Me need in those moments, when I am being triggered?
Triggers are arrows, pointing to places within us that need healing. They are necessary and helpful, if we are willing to do the work.
When I’m triggered in this way, Little Me needs to feel safe. She needs to know that I am there to protect her, that I won’t let anything bad happen to her, that she can stay, and doesn’t have to hide when there are unexpected mood shifts. She is not in danger.
So I turned within, and talked to her, hugged myself tightly and told her exactly those things. “No wonder you get scared. And when you get scared, you sometimes shut down. That was a wise and helpful strategy, once upon a time. You don’t have to do that anymore, baby. I’m here.”
I share this story with you so that the next time you are having a reaction to something, and it seems “unreasonable”, realize you are being triggered, and that there’s information available to you.
Ask yourself…
“What does this remind me of?” and maybe take it further…
“And what does that remind me of?” Keep going. Take the trigger back to its origin story, and it will make sense. You will make sense.
I hope then, you might ask yourself what that wounded, and likely, very young part of you, a part of you that still exists, needs from you. Re-parenting our inner children takes practice, patience and time. But first it takes curiosity.
Trace it back. Pull that thread.
When you’ve gotten to the source, to the root, then identify the unmet need. And then you, yourself can give that child what she needs. And by doing so, you heal.
After working through this trigger, I don’t expect the same reaction to someone else’s unexpected extreme emotions next time. Taking the time to investigate the trigger and then meet the unmet need may have just dissolved the trigger.
And if the next time someone is coming at me with unbridled excitement I find myself pulling away? I know what to do.
I’ll turn within, to the little girl part of me that wants to retreat, and remind her that she is safe with me.