(CW: Details of triggering processes but not of traumatic experiences)
I've got the kind of brain that has always tried to figure out what the rules are. I seek patterns, I have a huge need to understand what's going on, and to make sense of things. This week it struck me that this will have had implications for how I've dealt with traumatic events.
I've been going through some triggering (as one does) and while that's horrible, it's also the time when it's most possible to expose the mechanics of the thing. So, here we go…
Triggering itself happens because something in the current situation brings the previous trauma up in such forceful and immediate ways that there are invasive thoughts, flashbacks, or the emotional impact of the past seeps into the present. I've been in a situation where I've needed to use the skills I developed to deal with a previous awful situation. No surprises that I haven't been coping so well.
However, what's struck me is the way in which my brain has created some kind of rule set to go with the previous distressing experience and how much my brain wants to apply those rules to what's going on now. My need to understand things is such that I am, in a weird way, happier having a clear idea what the rules are. Terrible things that make sense are less awful than not knowing what's going on.
I don't have to be at the mercy of this. Yes, there are parallels, but no, things going on right now are in so many ways radically different from the situation they evoke. I do not have to let the past become a rule set for understanding what's going on right now, nor are those older experiences a meaningful guide to what to expect.
Even more startling, is the realisation that sometimes there may be no rules. There may be no underlying order that I can uncover to make sense of things. There are probabilities, possibilities, theories, there are ways of using the past to map the possible future, and it is fine to think on those terms. The very idea of not knowing the rules and needing to figure them out comes out of experiences where I've been frightened, socially alienated and unable to cope - and that goes all the way back into my childhood.
I'm not the sort of person to believe you always have to find a silver lining. Sometimes things are just shit and happen for no reason at all. At the same time, I'm in a position where I've been able to take some crappy experiences and use them to reconsider how I relate to myself and my history. I can unpick this relationship between hideous experiences and the idea that those form a pattern for what to expect, because that's clearly not true. I can recognise my rule-seeking thoughts as a valid defence mechanism for dealing with threat, but I don't have to go ahead and keep applying it.
Sometimes there are no rules. What one person does, is not a reliable tool for predicting what another person will do, no matter how distressed I feel or how similar situations feel. Parallels are not proof of anything. Just because I have learned to be afraid, does not mean that I need to keep feeling afraid.
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