truth barometer

Not Everything is a Trigger

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / Leave a comment

The other day I was accused of having been “triggered” by a comment that was shared on Facebook. According to definition, a trigger is:

a stimulus that elicits a reaction. In the context of mental illness, “trigger” is often used to mean something that brings on or worsens symptoms. This often happens to people with a history of trauma or who are recovering from mental illness, self-harm, addiction, and/or eating disorders.  (https://campushealth.unc.edu/)

What I experienced was not a trigger. Instead, it was something else entirely.

Here’s what happened. Someone on Facebook initiated a post that said, “if you have to refill your prescription, this is proof it’s not working.”  The post then went on to suggest that there was some alternative path that would cure the condition for which one is taking a pharmaceutical medication.

First of all, this statement is medically incorrect. Secondly, I find it dangerous and irresponsible for someone who calls themselves a medical practitioner to make these kinds of claims. As one who relies on certain pharmaceuticals for my survival, I felt compelled to share my personal experience. That is all I did.  I didn’t tell them they were wrong. I didn’t slander or insult them.  I simply stated that in my personal experience, and for me personally, prescription medication is often helpful and sometimes necessary. I then explained my condition (polycystic kidney disease), along with all the alternative and wholistic treatments that I have and continue to utilize, thereby providing an integrated approach to my care. I am a sound advocate of authentic wholistic treatments and practitioners of these modalities. I also recognize that allopathic medicine has its place and is necessary in some (many) cases.

The person who initiated the post replied by dismissing what I said and then accusing me of being triggered. “I see you’ve been triggered.”

NO, I was not triggered!  I simply shared my own personal experience.

Not everything is a trigger!

Trigger has become a hot topic in social media and elsewhere. The benefit is that as a society we have become increasingly aware of and sensitive to the fact that people have suffered trauma and that there are events, experiences, etc. that can illicit a trauma response that can prove harmful to the individual trying to recover from past traumas. The drawback is that there seems to be a growing trend of people throwing around the word “trigger” like rice at a wedding. Some use it to escape responsibility. Others use it to dismiss another’s experience. Some use it to feed their inner victim. Trigger as a clinical term is most appropriately used in the context of trauma and really should not be used in any other way.

Beyond the clinical definition, trigger may simply be understood as something that elicits an emotional response. As much as a trigger can arise out of trauma, it can also arise simply to get our awareness (though I wouldn’t really call it a trigger, instead, simply the body signaling for us to pay attention).  Case in point, I had no trauma reaction to the pharmaceutical post, but what I did have was a clear and definite spark from my truth barometer.

Our truth barometer is the deep inner sense within us that alerts us when something we encounter is not in alignment with our truth, or even with absolute truth.

Unfortunately, we live in a culture that beats this truth barometer out of us, rather, it conditions us in such a way that we a) have forgotten how to hear that inner sense and/or b) we have learned not to trust it. For my whole entire life, I have had a strong truth barometer, but like most, was told along the way that it was invalid, or incorrect, or that I simply couldn’t know certain things that I know. Well…I have worked long and hard to reclaim that voice and I adhere to it and trust it every single time.  Am I sometimes guilty, even now, of ignoring that voice? Absolutely!  But when it really wants my attention, it tells me.

What my truth barometer told me in the case shared above is that the information shared was incorrect, arrogant, and dangerous. I said none of this to the poster. I’m not here to change other people’s beliefs. I did, however, feel like I had a responsibility to share (for others who may have seen the post and who are equally enjoying the life-saving benefits of pharmaceuticals) my own experience. My sharing was civil and respectful. Apparently, the poster didn’t think so. Instead, she accused me of being triggered, dismissed my personal experience, and then claimed to have a cure for what ails me. In doing all of this, she effectively avoided any personal responsibility for what she shared.

So… yeah….. Not everything is a trigger. Sometimes what some might interpret as a trigger is simply our inner truth calling out bullshit!

Toxic Over Responsibility

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / Leave a comment

Somewhere during the time of Eckart Tolle, a movement began of toxic over-responsibility. Due to the Western tendency to twist the sayings of wisdom teachers to conform to our achievement-oriented, overworking paradigm, we have come away with self-help practices that leave us responsible not only for our own actions, but for the actions of others. Platitudes that say things like:

  • The wound you see in another is simply a reflection of your own wound.
  • The bad behavior of another is simply a reflection of your own bad behavior.
  • If you see a fault in your brother, that fault is actually yours.
  • If you are triggered by another’s behavior or actions, it is reflecting back to you a wound in yourself in need of healing.

Where there may be some truth in these or similar statements, they are not wholly true and have cast us into the role of over-responsibility to ourselves and under-responsibility as it relates to the behavior of others. While we are busy exploring and taking responsibility for our own wounds, we are letting far too many people off the hook. 

Being accountable to our own wounds and the things that trigger them is never a bad thing. Entering fully into the practice of forgiveness (healing ourselves of the wounds caused by another’s bad behavior) is a worthwhile and liberating endeavor. But, if our journey of self-care and personal responsibility is letting the other off the hook then that is leaving us vulnerable to further harm.  Further, by focusing only on ourselves, we are allowing the other to remain in their state of arrested development.

I agree, it is not our responsibility to heal or fix others. Neither do we have control over the actions of others. We only have control over how we react to our own triggers and setting appropriate boundaries around our personal safety needs. We ARE NOT, however, responsible for the actions of others.  In other words, it is not only our unhealed wounds that cause us to be triggered by other people’s bad or irresponsible or disrespectful behavior.

What we are calling triggers, might not be triggers at all.  They might simply be our own inner compass reacting to the asshole in the room. As human beings, we are hard-wired to detect bad behavior in another. We know what is right and what is wrong. (Ok, some of us do). There is a visceral sensation that arises in our bodies when another is acting in an irresponsible, dangerous, threatening, or morally questionable way. We have the ability to detect deception, betrayal, a lack of integrity, shady or questionable behaviors. Yet, between our cultural conditioning that says to “give people the benefit of the doubt,” or “be nice,” we either disregard those feelings, or turn them inward, somehow making them our own responsibility.

The questionable, unprofessional, deceptive, behaviors of another ARE NOT OUR FAULT, neither are they our responsibility. Contrary to the toxic over-responsibility movement, the bad behaviors of another HAVE NOTHING to do with our unhealed wounds. Instead, the feelings that arise in us when faced with another’s unsavory behavior is simply our TRUTH BAROMETER calling BULLSHIT. Isn’t it long past time we start listening to that voice and stop taking responsibility for other people’s shitty behavior?