\"Writing.Com
*Magnify*
SPONSORED LINKS
Printed from https://writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/2177285-What-triggering-means
Item Icon
\"Reading Printer Friendly Page Tell A Friend
No ratings.
Rated: XGC · Monologue · Adult · #2177285
If you know a veteran or a civilian that has TBI - then you know triggering can be scary
If, like me, you are the person who triggers it is scary, frustrating, highly embarrassing.
Triggering makes other people nervous - as it rightfully should. Violence is not unheard of. Just a few short weeks ago a disabled combat vet called his loving wife - said "I am sorry - I love you" .... then he killed everyone he could around him (in a bar if I remember correctly - 'false memories' are also a part of severe brain injury).

I belong to a group for veterans on Facebook, and the men and women there have accepted me despite the closest I have ever come to serving is when I told the Navy 'No - I have 3 small children to raise'. ; they know I volunteered as an Art Therapist at my local VA. They accept me as is.

Life is difficult when you can't trust your own brain to be honest with you.

My 78 year old mom who is quite ill still thinks that some of my memory issues are just like her misplacing the car keys. For me memory issues is, in part, checking my cell phone dozens of times each day - to see what DAY IT IS.

My terminal now ex-boyfriend and the love of my life had to kick me out of our home because I put his health at risk.

My children flat out refuse to accept that their will be dead by the year 2022. I will never see my 6 grandkids graduate even junior high, never mind high school. I will never know what they become and they are already such loving and caring kids.

And in THIS MOMENT - triggering means realizing that I have no way to start a book I NEED to write because I can't get WdC staff to reply to tech forum request.

In this MOMENT triggering means I am not allowed to drive to the Writers Group at my local library where I wrote 'After The End' my original fiction piece I posted to this account in 2005-2006.

Triggering means I would rather be dead than trapped in a broken mind I can't escape and FEW others understand or care to try to understand. It means as I write this my sweatshirt could be wrung out from the tears rolling down my face.Crying is not a thing I like or do often. It is a weakness. It is not how I was raised to act.



© Copyright 2018 Skye Potter (skyepotter71 at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
Writing.Com, its affiliates and syndicates have been granted non-exclusive rights to display this work.
Printed from https://writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/2177285-What-triggering-means