Activated or Triggered? What is the actual response you are experiencing?

So let's talk activated versus triggered, ya? I’ll walk you through personal examples to highlight the differences. Far too often people throw around the term “triggered” and it’s not always correct. My hope is that the distinction becomes clear, which will ultimately help you begin a self discovery process that will help you reduce activating responses or resolve triggers. 

Let’s start with what is an activating response. 

Imagine you’re driving, and you’ve been on the road for a while, and your mind begins to drift. Then traffic suddenly stops in front of you. All of a sudden, you have a heightened awareness as you slam on the brakes. Your heart is racing, your chest is tight, and your body is tense. That is an activating response, it’s based on current experience. 

Triggered is a little bit different. When you are truly triggered, you become activated, but there is an association to a past event. 

When I was 19, I hydroplaned across the freeway during a rainstorm. I didn't get hurt, nobody else was involved and there was no damage to my car.  But it was scary as hell. I spun out across four lanes of traffic and came to a stop at the facing oncoming traffic on the off ramp. To this day I am amazed at how lucky I was. 

Since this event, whenever it rains harder than a drizzle, I definitely get nervous. I can feel my body tense, I am short tempered, and can’t tolerate a lot of noise or conversation in my car. That is my body being triggered. While I am completely safe, my body remembers a time when I wasn’t and proactively becomes ACTIVATED with a defense response. In my situation the sight of rain is the evocative cue associating  the present with the past. However it could be any other sensory cue.  

In the most simplistic of terms, knowing if you’re activated or triggered boils down to is it only a now thing, or is it now + historical? If you can get curious about it and figure that out, it’s a great place to start. However, it might not always be clear when you are being triggered, so work with someone - find a trauma informed practitioner.