Triggers
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"You triggered me" is a common phrase.
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It's a lie.
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A more correct statement would be, “I was triggered by you.”
The first is blame with no responsibility.
The second is responsibility and no blame.
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In the Merriam-Webster On-Line Dictionary, "trigger" is defined as a "movable part by which a mechanism is actuated,” and “the part of the action moved by the finger to fire a gun.” The trigger mechanism is not the deadly bullet. The trigger is the harmless part that sets the bullet off.
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In the social context, a trigger indicates that there is a hidden pain “covered” by sensitive associations (the trigger) that can be set off by an action or a thing that resembles those associations. The problem therefore lies with the person carrying the pain—both the bullet and the trigger mechanism.
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A person with a war trauma, for instance, has tremendous emotional pain that can be set off by events associated with the war, such as loud noises. If a truck makes a loud bang, a war vet may be triggered into a jolt of fear, but others may not react at all. This example makes it clear that the jolt of fear is not caused by the present-day noise but by the trauma itself.
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Powerful events in the present can cause genuine upset, but the “triggered” phrase is rarely used for that. It is more often used to assert blame for something relatively innocuous.
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For this reason, when someone has a very upset reaction to something insignificant, it is that person who carries the problem. For example, Person A sees Person B with a book Person A finds offensive (and many others don't). Person A gets upset and verbally reprimands Person B, saying “You triggered me! How dare you— put that book away!” Person A has the triggerable upset. By not owning that and turning the blame on Person B, Person A is, in fact, abusing Person B.
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Another way of describing this behaviour is that Person A, when triggered, is acting out their pain and dumping it on an innocent person—a person who had nothing to do with causing the original pain.
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Acting out can be defined as: "Avoiding our feelings and attacking someone else by blaming, dumping, criticizing, judging, shaming, insulting, advising, patronizing, projecting, or using indirect contempt such as sarcasm and ridicule."
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More importantly, if we do not recognize that we are blaming and dumping our unresolved feelings on others, we do not heal. We find fault outside ourselves and embark on a futile search for an outside solution when the solution is within our grasp—inside ourselves.
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The infamous sentence, "you triggered me" is a false statement because it implies that the other person did something to you. It reminds me of a real-life insurance excuse someone actually submitted: "A lamp-post bumped into my car, damaging it in two places."
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When we are triggered, the feeling is often one of being neglected or violated, which, in its original traumatic context, was true. This feeling can be so overwhelming that it seems impossible to differentiate between the person who set off the trigger, the trigger itself, and the original trauma. We simply feel the old wound—and react. Acting out the past onto the present, however, makes everyone's life painful and does not resolve it.
If, instead of acting out, we "own it," explore the pain, and express the feeling in a safe therapeutic setting, we can move towards resolving it. When we experience it this way we know we carry the bullet and the trigger, and have no need to blame others for it. We discover the origin—and the solution—in ourselves.
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This is not to say that conflicts are all our fault and responsibility. Real, present-day issues, however, can be solved more easily when the old, unresolved issues are owned and worked through by all involved.
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It may seem like an easy concept, but it takes time to put into practice. It's common to hear, "I know it's my stuff, but you really triggered me, and I'm angry at you!" Or "You're an insensitive bastard. I know this is old." These types of half-owning-half- blaming statements can be as confusing as famous parental one-liners such as, "I'm really sorry—but I have to punish you," "This hurts me more than it does you," and "I'm spanking you because I love you."
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Covert act-outs like this can sometimes be more damaging to the “target” person as a direct attack, because they are less obvious and harder to defend against. When someone shields their act-outs behind a screen of caring/responsibility, the target's healthy defenses and self-confidence are weakened by doubt. The aggressor manages what they unconsciously wanted in the first place—to dump their pain into someone else.
If we act out on others, even if it originates in old pain, we are being abusive. If we accept act-outs, even in the name of compassion, we allow ourselves to be abused, which may enable further abuse. The truly compassionate position, both to ourselves and others, is to own our triggers—in practice, not just words—and respectfully ask others to do the same.