Why do I get triggered so easily?

What a trigger actually is

In everyday speech a trigger is anything that sets off a reaction bigger than the situation seems to call for. Something in the present touches something older, and you react to both at once. The person in front of you gets the full force of a feeling that was mostly made long before they arrived.

That is why triggers feel so unfair from the inside. You know, even as it happens, that a colleague forgetting to reply should not ruin your afternoon. Knowing does not stop it, because the reaction is not really about the reply.

Why some things get to you and not others

Most triggers fall into a few families. Being ignored or dismissed. Being controlled or told what to do. Being criticised, especially in front of others. Being left, or feeling you might be. Things changing without warning. Someone else getting away with something you would never allow yourself.

That last family is the most revealing, and it is where shadow work comes in. Carl Jung noticed that the traits we react to most strongly in other people are very often traits we pushed away in ourselves. If you were taught early that being loud, needy or lazy was unacceptable, the loud, needy or lazy person in the room will get under your skin in a way they do not for anyone else. Psychologists call the mechanism projection.

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections

Not every trigger is a projection. Some people really are being inconsiderate, and a body that has been through something frightening will react to reminders of it. If a trigger brings back a traumatic memory, flashbacks or panic, that deserves a trained professional, not a self-help exercise.

Why it can feel like it is getting worse

Tiredness, hunger, stress and poor sleep all lower the threshold. So does a long stretch of holding things in. If you have been swallowing small irritations for weeks, the hundredth one does not feel small. Being triggered easily is often a sign that you are running on empty, not that you have become a worse person.

What to do in the moment

• Name it, silently: “I am triggered.” The word alone puts a little distance between you and the feeling.
• Slow your breathing, especially the out-breath. Your body needs a few minutes to come down, whatever your mind decides.
• Delay the reply. Almost nothing said in the first ten minutes of a trigger is what you would say an hour later.
• Let it out somewhere safe first. Say it out loud to yourself, write it down, or vent to something that only listens.

What to do afterwards

The useful work happens once you have calmed down. Take one recent trigger and ask three questions, in writing or out loud.

• What exactly did they do? Describe the behaviour, not your verdict on it.
• What would it mean about me if I did that? Notice the first word that comes up: selfish, weak, needy, lazy.
• Where did I learn that this was not allowed? Often there is a specific memory, a parent’s face, a school corridor.

You are not trying to excuse the other person. You are finding the part of the reaction that belongs to you, because that is the only part you can change. Over time the same situations tend to lose some of their charge, simply because you can see what they are pressing on.