Ways to Manage Your Triggers Without Avoiding Them

When you’re battling a mental health issue or addiction, your therapist will tell you to stay away from your triggers. But sometimes, there are circumstances out of your control. They’ll force you to face your triggers. In those scenarios, you can only be strong, or risk experiencing worse symptoms.

It’s not bad to face your triggers. Risky, for sure, but the only way to recover is to be stronger than them. You need to strike a balance between wading through the storm and retreating. If you only retreat, you’ll never train your mind to be resilient. If you keep braving the storm, you may develop a new bad habit by way of self-preservation.

Remember this: your environment isn’t going to change for you. If you work in a toxic workplace, it’s not going to stop being toxic because you got depressed. As such, there will always be times when you’d face your triggers. You may even be surrounded by them.

Hence, manage your expectations when you’re receiving help or medical treatment. You may have better control of your emotions now, but it doesn’t mean you won’t relapse when faced with your worst trigger. So, here are the ways to stay sane when you’re surrounded by your triggers:

1. Avoid Knee-jerk Reactions

Triggers aren’t all tangible. They’re different for everyone. Everyone also has them, even if they’re not mentally ill. That’s because triggers are anything that provokes an intense emotional response.

So for example, if you’re an overachiever who feels validated by praise, lack of feedback can be your trigger. It can make you feel incompetent and disappointed with yourself. If you don’t recognize that as an unhealthy emotional response, you can spiral into anxiety or depression.

To avoid such, refrain from making knee-jerk reactions. If a situation doesn’t go as planned, or you didn’t get what you want after working so hard for it, step back. Don’t blame someone for making you upset if they didn’t intend to. Likewise, don’t blame a situation for being out of your control.

Basically, don’t make it about you. Use a wider perspective when assessing situations. If your emotional response resulted from something no one has any control over, move on. You’re allowed to feel any emotion, but you shouldn’t act on those emotions if it would hurt yourself or other people.

2. Find the Roots of Your Emotional Responses

When experiencing an intense emotional breakdown, approach it with curiosity. See if your response has a pattern. This can also help you avoid knee-jerk reactions. I’ll let you train your mind to immediately look for explanations instead of resorting to self-blame or self-pity.

Again, your emotions are valid, but it doesn’t mean you can act on them impulsively.

For example, if you get triggered by a lack of praise or acknowledgment, maybe it resulted from your childhood. Were you ignored by your parents or teachers when you didn’t meet expectations? Were you only given attention when you achieved something? Those are possible root causes of your trigger. Raise this to your therapist if you’re receiving counseling.

3. Don’t Resort to Bad Habits

Many people escape from stressful situations by smoking, drinking, or doing drugs. Try to avoid those habits at all costs. Social drinking is okay, but drowning your sorrows isn’t. Any bad habit that alters your brain function isn’t worth trying.

Although excellent drug recovery programs can help you, getting high as a coping mechanism still isn’t worth your time, money, and mental health. Addiction will also create new triggers, such as parties, certain people, situations, and events. And in severe cases, the damage it inflicts to your brain is irreversible, so stay away from anything that can tempt you to do drugs.

Likewise, manage your intake of alcohol and nicotine. Stay in control of your impulses to overcome an addiction or an impending addiction.

4. Communicate and Keep an Open Mind

Often, the people who trigger you don’t mean to upset you. Remember this if someone doesn’t respond to you or your accomplishment the way you expect them to. Realize that sometimes, their hurtful or indifferent response could also result from a trigger or stressful event. Simply put, they might be struggling, too.

If your triggers are affecting your work or relationships, communicate with the people who might be affected. Tell them how you feel when they unknowingly do something that upsets you. However, don’t make them walk on eggshells when interacting with you. Initiate to manage your triggers, because no one is responsible for your feelings at the end of the day.

Dealing with triggers isn’t an excuse to treat yourself or others badly. Rather, it’s a signal to be self-aware and empathetic. You can’t control everything in your life, so don’t dwell on the negative and remember that you’re bigger than your triggers.

Meta title: Ways to Stay Sane If You’re Surrounded by Your Triggers
meta desc: People with mental health issues or addictions are often advised to stay away from their triggers. But what if the triggers part of their daily lives? Read on.