Triggering Subject

I saw my Mom’s belongings on the conference room table. Laid out like artifacts found on an expedition. Really, it resembles more like organized evidence from a disaster like a bombing. Her purse, her drivers license, her cell phone and a few expired credit cards. All that’s left of 55 years of life.

This is what I saw when I entered the law firm handling the probate case for my Mom’s estate. I was at the law firm for a completely different reason and to be honest had completely put it out of my mind that they were handling my Mothers estate case.

I have never really experienced what some would call an ‘episode’ or maybe more a kin to a stress inducing physical response like losing vision or getting weak knees. This night, in the conference room, the world begun to spin, the music on my headphones I was listening to muted and I scrambled for a chair to sit in before I collapsed.

It was a wild experience, one I never thought I would never have. The randomness of seeing those items on a table, one I expected to be clear of, threw me for a loop or as they call it today, it triggered me.

Triggers seem to get a bad wrap now. When I think of a trigger I think of something being set off but mostly in the good sense like smelling gasoline at the pump and it reminding me of hunting and fishing trips with my Dad or hearing the song ‘Don’t Stop Believing’ and thinking about The Sopranos. Triggers can also be bad, like the one I just explained above but what use are the good ones if I don’t experience the bad ones as well?

I have a really odd trigger that gets me still to this day and it’s one that could really fuck a person up financially and socially if not for the invention of certain technologies. That trigger is the phone ringing. I had a bad experience with an old friend back in high school that all started with like seven missed calls that cumulated in a scuffle over a girl. This incident was never really resolved and so lingers unsolved in my mind forever. So now, to this very day, when the phone rings my heart rate goes up and I expect the worse.

Now do I ask people to not call me? Do I get mad at them when they do? Do I blame them for triggering me? No of course not, that would be silly or actually it would be insane. The extended warranty guy doesn’t know phone calls set me off, so why yell at him when he calls me every single day?

Life is nice when we know we are safe but like the new age holy water that is WiFi, safety can only extend so far until it is no longer guaranteed. We can buckle our seatbelts, lather on sunscreen and delete certain apps on our phone to shield ourselves from harmful and sensitive materials that can trigger anxiety in our minds. Yet thinking that we have the right to be safe whenever and wherever we shall roam is again, literally insane.

Trigger warnings are everywhere and as an emphatic person, I can understand why that is. I read a book recently that made an argument that we can be too empathetic, so much so it can be more harmful to society than good. This certainly applies to myself. For example (not real) a friend of mine comes to me and says he keeps striking out with the ladies, no one will go on a date with him and when they do they never ask for a second one. Knowing this friend of mine is in dire need of companionship and love, I can empathize with this quandry.

“Dude I’m sorry. Maybe try some different dating apps or maybe try to narrow down the type of person you want to date and shoot for that? Or maybe with the pandemic dating is super weird and everyone is experiencing what you are?” I am truly and honestly putting myself in his shoes and trying to figure out what may be the problem, assuming that he is doing everything he can do get a second date.

What I am actually doing though is blowing this friend off and not being helpful at all. I’m being overly empathetic. What I should be saying is “well what is happing on these dates? Are you making them feel comfortable? What kind of dates are you taking them on? Did you shower? Were you sober enough to be comprehensible? Did you get drunk at the date? Did you listen at all or did you ramble on about fantasy football the whole god damn time?” This later approach is probably more helpful for my friend but it is certainly a harder conversation to have and maybe one that is a lot more uncomfortable. Someone like myself, who avoids uncomfortable situation, I am not the best at being critical and this is something I see now I need to be better at.

I am trying to think more critically now about things instead of being empathic towards them, which is my go to state of mind. So with the subject of trigger warnings and the sudden need for them everywhere, I am taking a more critical look at them to get a better understanding of their necessity, usefulness and potential ramifications.

Maybe sometimes we need some things to be unsafe, to be unpredictable and to an extent traumatizing. Isn’t this how we learn? Isn’t this in a way how we progress and grow, by trial and error?

Suddenly and unexpectedly seeing my dead Mom’s belongings in a law firm sucked and made me physically ill, but it lasted a few moments and it made me realize holy fuck I am not even close to resolving things with my Mom. Maybe I need to work on this a little, maybe I need to be more attentive to the court proceedings and more importantly go through the trauma my Mom caused me with her years of alcohol abuse that lead to her untimely and terribly timed death. This isn’t me blaming my Mom for my issues or saying she’s was a bad Mom, that is not true at all. She was the best Mom I could have asked for. She just had a terrible disease that later in life preventer her from being that person any longer. I suspect we aren’t giving ourselves and each other the benefit that we are stronger then we think. We are more resilient and emotionally stable than we give each other credit for.

So I extend the question to you. Next time something triggers you, after the fact, access the trigger. Would you have been better off if you knew it was coming, if you could have avoided it all together? When you were triggered did you have the opportunity grow or learned from it? Can you now own that trigger and discard it forever?

###

Nathan Truzzolino is the author of Middle of The End: A Novel available on Amazon.com now.