Childhood trauma can create intense and painful feelings. Because they are set off by reminders of the trauma and can appear suddenly, they are called ‘triggers.’
Trauma memories, triggers, & PTS
A trauma memory forms when the original trauma happens. A trauma memory creates an automatic defence system. These defences are triggered when our senses are reminded of the original threat.
Triggers can come from the outside world or from internal experiences, like feelings, thoughts or memories. Everyone has their own different triggers and they can change over time. Because trauma memories are not always conscious, when we are triggered, we don’t always understand what is happening. It can feel like we are in danger or the trauma is ‘happening again.’ This experience is part of what is called ‘Post-Traumatic Stress’ or PTS.[1]
Recovering from PTS is mostly a process of ‘deactivating’ trauma memories so that they don’t trigger symptoms. By practicing staying calm when you are triggered, the automatic defences slowly de-activate as your nervous system gets used to feeling safer.
Triggers and defence mechanisms
Our nervous system constantly scans the environment for danger. This process is automatic and not under our conscious control. When danger is detected, the body activates physiological defence mechanisms. When we have suffered trauma, these defences can become overactivated, like a too-sensitive alarm.
There are two types of these automatic defences: action-based defences and immobilization-based defences.
Action-based defence
When our nervous systems assess that we are in danger, the body prepares to take protective action, through what are called fight or flight behaviours. ‘Fight’ can show up as angry or aggressive feelings and behaviour; and ‘flight’ as panic, worry or avoidance. Breathing and heartbeat speed up, blood flows into the muscles, and we might feel a cold sweat. In this state we feel tense and ‘uptight’ and can’t settle.
Immobilization (‘freeze’) defence
The body might also initiate self-preservation action through ‘freezing’ or shutdown. The nervous system withdraws energy from the muscles so movement becomes slower, and shuts down senses so that we feel less pain or distress. In this state we lose energy, become less alert, and our heartbeat and breathing slow down. We might feel ‘spaced out,’ dissociated, shameful, or an urge to give up or submit. Freezing is probably the most common response to trauma, especially if the trauma was (or felt) inescapable.
The ‘Window of Tolerance’
Our ‘Window of Tolerance’ is how much triggering we can cope with while still feeling reasonably calm and alert:
| 😖 Outside the Window: Action defence: fight/flight Feelings: angry, anxious, tense, watchful |
| 😎 Inside the ‘Window of Tolerance’ Emotions/feelings: (relatively) calm, in adult mind, able to cope |
| 😣 Outside the Window: Immobilization defence: freeze/shutdown Feelings: zoning out, dissociation, shame, submission |
There are a lot of situations where we are right on the edge of the Window. We might feel a panic attack or angry outburst coming, or a desire to drink or gamble getting stronger, but we are still able to stay in control.
Recovering from PTS is a matter of trying to make the Window of Tolerance wider – to be able to tolerate more triggers without losing access to our power to make sensible choices in the face of stress, and not losing our heads.
How being outside the Window affects thinking
It’s worth quickly mentioning that when we slip outside the Window of Tolerance, it’s not just our bodies and emotions that are affected. Our thoughts are also affected. We tend to assume our thoughts are accurate reflections of the outside world, but in fact they are very influenced by our physiological state. It’s worth remembering this when we get very caught up in our thoughts. When we are in the ‘fight/flight’ zone, our thoughts tend to be very anxious, pessimistic or catastrophizing, or angry and blame-focused. In the ‘immobilization’ zone, thoughts can be despairing and hopeless.
[1] At SAMSN, we don’t use the term ‘PTSD’ – ‘D’ standing for “Disorder” – because we don’t believe a survivor’s response to his trauma is a “disorder.” Rather, it is an adaptation to a place and time of danger. But this adaptation becomes less useful the more our lives move on from the danger.