In the last few years, I have come to realize that how something is defined in my mind isn’t always how it is defined in reality, or how it is defined in other people’s minds. I have learned that my perception is sometimes different, not necessarily wrong, just different, which can occasionally lead to confusion. This has happened to me in two very specific instances in the last five years. One-time few years ago, and another time a few weeks ago. The irony of that is I am a Psychology major, and these are topics I talk about all the time, so how could I still have misunderstood? But alas, we are forever learning about others, and more importantly about ourselves. That is how growth happens, by continuing to challenge ourselves and to challenge our views of the world.
A few years ago, I realized that I have panic attacks, and that I had been having panic attacks my whole life, only I never knew what they were. In the movies when someone has a panic attack, they always have to leave the location they are in to go outside to sit down on a curb and breathe into a brown paper sack. That’s what I thought a panic attack was, literally. Literally breathing into a brown paper sack. Even if I had known I was having a panic attack, I can tell you I for damned sure wouldn’t have been caught dead breathing into a brown paper sack doing that, I would have been too embarrassed. More importantly, though because I never felt the need to sit down, leave the room or breathe into a sack, I assumed that I never had them. Boy was I wrong.
I was sitting in a meeting, discussing how to keep kids safe, when the topic, which was not about abuse, triggered a memory for me that all of a sudden started a panic attack. For me, it was a feeling I knew all too well. At that point in time, I hadn’t had one in probably 5-10 years, so it had been a while, and it took me by surprise, but I used to have them all the time, especially in my teens and early twenties. My heart would start racing (even though I was sitting down), I would feel antsy and mostly I would want to crawl out of my skin and get the hell out of there. Simultaneously however, I would feel a need to not let anyone know that anything was wrong, that the only way to protect myself was by acting normally and, by staying calm. The fact of the matter is, only someone that knows me really really well would be able to tell I’m not ok in those moments.
So, about a year after that meeting, I was listening to someone describe what a panic attack felt like for them and it was the first time that I had that “eureka”? moment, and I was like, seriously? That’s it? That’s a panic attack? Oh, I have those too! Then my second thought was how did I not know that? How did I not figure this out sooner? Sheesh.
Well about two weeks ago I had the same thing happen to me, only this time it wasn’t about panic attacks, it was about triggers. I’ve known what triggers were for a long time, I’ve even written about them, but by and large, I honestly didn’t really think that I had any, not really. When people talk about triggers, they typically talk about tangible things,: a place, a location, a sight, smell, sound, word that reminds them of the triggering event that took place. And those are all triggers, it’s just that I don’t have any triggers like that. What I came to realize two weeks ago is that triggers can be emotional, too. I had always understood that triggers, literally triggered an emotional response, but what I didn’t realize is that the trigger itself can in fact be an emotion.
When I go down the deep dark hole, to that place of despair, the place I go when things get bad, it's because I feel something. I feel some emotion that scares me, some emotion I don’t want to feel, and ultimately it makes me feel other things. Sometimes it triggers a panic attack, feelings I don’t like feeling. Sometimes it makes me go to the pit of despair, and sometimes it’s the fight or flight mechanism. Whatever the emotional response is, it is triggered by an initial emotion, and that emotion is my trigger. It’s fascinating that as much as I know about the subject of abuse, and as much as I have analyzed myself (believe me I have spent hours and hours and hours), I hadn’t connected the dots and figured this out until now. It just goes to show you that there is always more to learn, no matter how much we know, and there is always growth that can occur.
