Feeling Triggered? Maybe It’s Not All Yours

Are You Carrying the Collective Trauma as Well As Your Own?

I’ve talked with a lot of very upset people this week. People, on either side of the fence, who all feel like something big, and awful is taking place. Most of them have been women who are running a kind of gauntlet of hard emotions, both old and new. Some of them are my friends, some are my clients and some are just people I’ve come across on the internet. I know people (women people) who’ve essentially taken to their beds or dissolved in tears because it all feels so overwhelming and terrible. You might even be one of those people.

Many, many women are kind of a seething mass of outrage and gut-wrenching pain right now but interestingly, I actually had two separate instances this week of talking to men who went on wild rants in response to something fairly innocuous that I’d said, who then later apologized. When did people start apologizing on the internet? These men were upset as well, albeit for different reasons which I won’t attempt to analyze here, and they lashed out and lashed out disproportionately. And then they realized that and came back to actually take responsibility for it. That’s how bad it’s gotten.

Neither of the conversations with these men were about the Kavanaugh hearing per se, but the energy of the zeitgeist is so intense in this moment in time, and that undercurrent and energy was really there. It came through in their passion-filled rants and in the subsequent apologies. “Something big is happening and it feels really, really uncomfortable. I’m afraid!” was the very loud subtext. It’s debatable about whether men actually have anything to be fearful about right now, but the fact is, many of them are.

This is a very insightful clip from Trevor Noah about turning the tables on who is actually being hurt or victimized as relates to accusations of sexual violence. Noah explains that dynamic clearly and succinctly so I’m posting it for those who want to hear more, rather than going into it in writing.

Meanwhile, a large percentage of the women I know are reliving their own experiences of sexual trauma and perhaps even more importantly, they are reliving the terrible dynamic that so often goes along with that, of not being believed and not being treated with respect, of having their pain dismissed and minimized. Since 1 in 6 women have been raped or had rape attempted and 1 in 3 women have been the victims of some kind of sexual violence, that’s a lot of angry, hurting women. Those women are experiencing being traumatized all over again and they are also mad as hell! No wonder the energy of that is so palpable to so many.

When I was in college, I was on a date in a crowded bar. A man who I didn’t really see well grabbed my crotch as we passed each other in the crowd. It was unpleasant, unsettling, and I was momentarily shaken. But the part that was actually traumatizing was that my date could have cared less. It was no big deal to him and he let me know that when I told him what had happened. He had no concept of what it’s like to have someone else feel entitled to your body and your personhood and he didn’t care to educate himself. It ruined the evening and that feeling of being treated like my assault was no big deal is seared into my memory.

The undercurrent, as it is in so many of the dismissive comments that we’ve been hearing in the past week, is essentially, “So what, that’s what girls are for.” This is, I believe, the largest part of what has so many women experiencing PTSD symptoms, crushing depression, and an unquenchable rage. It was captured perfectly in the clip of the women who confronted Senator Flake in the elevator. They were devastated by their feeling that what they had endured was being trivialized and seen as just a part of business as usual in America. They had been pushed so far that they felt like they had nothing left to lose.

As someone who has experienced plenty of inappropriate sexual conduct, both before and after the incident in the bar, I definitely understand the feeling of being really overwhelmed by emotion right now. At times, mine have been overwhelming for me. I’ve cried a lot this week and I’ve written a lot, and I’ve laughed myself silly at Saturday Night Live and the Twitter mash-up of Kavanaugh and Pulp Fiction, playing that about 20 times, all in an attempt to process all of those very intense feelings.

But what if what you are feeling isn’t all yours?

What if at least some of it is what you are picking up from the magnified, intensified feelings of the other people around you; people in your community or people you’ve seen speaking on television or the internet? If you are a sensitive kind of person, and particularly if you’ve had some personal experience that is getting poked at right now, you may very well be feeling your own pain, fear, and anger, as well as that of those around you. After watching the Flake clip, I was shaken. I was proud of those women and I was also experiencing their distress in my own body and in my own emotional system. Some of what I was feeling was mine, reflected in what they were saying, and a lot of it was just the heart-wrench of watching them demand to have their traumatic experiences be cared about.

I had a client tell me yesterday that she was feeling the most depressed and despondent she had felt in years. She wondered if it made sense to even try to put one foot in front of the other. When I told her it was likely, given how sensitive she is, and her history of sexual abuse, that she was experiencing her own triggering as well as that in the collective, she let out a big sigh of relief. “Oh,” she said, “just understanding that, I feel 60% better already.”

Understanding it’s probably not all yours may be helpful, but what else can you do to be good to yourself amidst all the emotions that are currently swirling? It takes a bit of time and quiet space, a place away from the headlines, and the debating; a place where you can be a bit reflective but also feel some measure of safety. Intention is a powerful tool and if you simply ask yourself in that environment while allowing the feelings to begin washing over you, “Is this all mine?” you will probably get some sense of it. Also, consider what else you’ve been letting into your head recently. If you’ve been watching a lot of news or talking with other triggered women, chances are you are experiencing at least some of their emotions as yours.

Using intention once again, you can focus in on the parts that are about you and your personal experiences and feelings. Those are the ones you have the greatest power to affect. As my smart, sensitive client said, “I’ve given myself permission to not be OK today. I am not going to paste on a smile and pretend that I’m fine when I’m really not. The world will just have to deal with that.” This is a powerful step. Historically, women’s anger and upset has been considered unseemly and unladylike. Most of us have been socialized to smile through our pain, and so to refuse to do that today is a step towards dismantling that paradigm.

Then you can begin to ask yourself what it is that you need to give yourself in this moment. Is it time to cry or scream, time to walk outside and reconnect with the natural world or do some yoga, time to do something creative or generative, like baking bread or writing a poem? Anything that allows the emotions that are present to be experienced and not swallowed is good; anything that allows you to ground or center (or to move even slightly in that direction) is beneficial; anything that allows you to connect with people who honor and care for you, in spite of your current emotional state is nourishing.

Talking with other survivors may exacerbate your triggered feelings or it may feel bonding and beneficial. Only you know what is the right way for you to process and work with all that is channeling through you. If you are one of the many people feeling awash in difficult emotions, I encourage you to make space for yourself to discern what is yours, and to determine what you need to do to care for yourself in the face of that.

• I have primarily spoken to and of female survivors in this piece, but I do recognize that men and non-binary people are also victims of sexual assault and abuse and that they too may be feeling triggered and overwhelmed as well.

© Copyright Elle Beau 2020 Elle Beau writes on Medium about sex, life, relationships, society, anthropology, spirituality, and love. If this story is appearing anywhere other than Medium.com, it appears without my consent and has been stolen.