Triggers Quotes

“This process within our brains is a three-step loop. First, there is a cue, a trigger that tells your brain to go into automatic mode and which habit to use. Then there is the routine, which can be physical or mental or emotional. Finally, there is a reward, which helps your brain figure out if this particular loop is worth remembering for the future: THE HABIT LOOP”
― Charles Duhigg, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business

“Along with the trust issues, one of the hardest parts to deal with is the feeling of not being believed or supported, especially by your own grandparents and extended family. When I have been through so much pain and hurt and have to live with the scars every day, I get angry knowing that others think it is all made up or they brush it off because my cousin was a teenager. I was ten when I was first sexually abused by my cousin, and a majority of my relatives have taken the perpetrator's side. I have cried many times about everything and how my relatives gave no support or love to me as a kid when this all came out. Not one relative ever came up to that innocent little girl I was and said "I am sorry for what you went through" or "I am here for you." Instead they said hurtful things: "Oh he was young." "That is what kids do." "It is not like he was some older man you didn't know." Why does age make a difference? It is a sick way of thinking. Sexual abuse is sexual abuse. What is wrong with this picture? It brings tears to my eyes the way my relatives have reacted to this and cannot accept the truth. Denial is where they would rather stay.”
― Erin Merryn, Living for Today: From Incest and Molestation to Fearlessness and Forgiveness

“Triggers are like little psychic explosions that crash through avoidance and bring the dissociated, avoided trauma suddenly, unexpectedly, back into consciousness.”
― Carolyn Spring

“Avoiding triggers is a symptom of PTSD, not a treatment for it.”
― Jonathan Haidt, The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting up a Generation for Failure

“I wanted, for so long, for someone to understand me better than I understood myself, to take control of me, to save me, to make it all better. I thought that the hardest part of a loving, mutually healing relationship would be showing my vulnerable, raw spots to a person, even though I'd been hurt so many times before. This has not been the hardest part.

The actual hardest part has been realizing that no one, no matter how compassionate and kind they are, will say the perfect things always. Myself included. The hardest part has been learning to communicate what I need, to hear what others need, to tell others how to tell me what they need. Intimacy takes communication. A lot of it.

We all have triggers. I don't know your triggers, and you don't know mine. No matter how much I love or trust you, you cannot possibly know exactly the words I need to hear, the words I don't want to hear, and the way I like to be touched.

And how strange that we expect these things of each other. How strange (and self-sabotaging) that we refuse to get into relationships and friendships with people unless they treat us in just that perfect way.

We've been raised to want fairy tales. We've been raised to wait for flawless saviors to rescue us. But the savior isn't flawless and the savior is not coming. The savior is you. The savior is still learning. The savior is never done learning. The savior is a human being.

Forget perfect. Forget flawless. And start speaking your truth. Start speaking what you want and how you want it. And start asking and listening, really listening, to what the people around you say.

Maybe, then, we will stop abandoning and hurting each other. Maybe, then, there's hope for us.”
― Vironika Tugaleva

“Hyperarousal causes traumatized people to become easily distressed by unexpected stimuli. Their tendency to be triggered into reliving traumatic memories illustrates how their perceptions have become excessively focused on the involuntary search for the similarities between the present and their traumatic past. As a consequence, many neutral experiences become reinterpreted as being associated with the traumatic past.”
― Marion F. Solomon, Healing Trauma: Attachment, Mind, Body and Brain

“Most organised abuser groups call each particular training a “programme”, as if you were a computer. Many specific trained behaviours have “on” and “off” triggers or switches. Some personality systems are set up with an inner world full of wires or strings that connect switches to their effects. These can facilitate a series of actions by a series of insiders. For example, one part watches the person function in the outside world, and presses a button if he or she sees the person disobeying instructions. The button is connected to an internal wire, which rings a bell in the ear of another part. This part then engages in his or her trained behaviour, opening a door to release the pain of a rape, or cutting the person's arm in a certain pattern, or pushing out a child part. So the watcher has no idea of who the other part is or what she or he does. These events can be quite complicated.”
― Alison Miller, Becoming Yourself: Overcoming Mind Control and Ritual Abuse

“All pain triggers a reminder, deeper than thought, buzzing through blood and bone, that we are fragile and finite.”
― K.J. Ramsey, This Too Shall Last: Finding Grace When Suffering Lingers

“A perpetrator may have hurt someone for a few minutes of his/her life and may even regret it, but the survivor lives with the pain, triggers, shame and fear for a lifetime.”
― Mary E. DeMuth, We Too: How the Church Can Respond Redemptively to the Sexual Abuse Crisis

“Many psychologists use the term existential to describe the fact that all human beings are subject to painful events. These are the normal recurring afflictions that everyone suffers from time to time. Horrible world events, difficult choices, illnesses and periodic feelings go abject loneliness are common examples of existential pain. Existential calamities can be especially triggering for survivors, because we typically have so much family-of-origin calamity for them to trigger us into reliving.”
― Pete Walker , Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving

“If we ignore our abuse and trauma, it will continue to reveal itself to us. It may be subtle or it may be intense. Trauma can show up in our sleep. We may battle insomnia and nightmares. We can experience physical pain and emotional distress. We may struggle with anxiety and depression. Or we may suffer hypervigilance, dissociation, and Complex PTSD/PTSD. We may have flashbacks. We may battle triggers. Or we can suddenly be slammed with fight, flight, freeze, or fawn mode. Each of these signs are a normal trauma response. Even if we are unaware that it’s linked to our emotional trauma.”
― Dana Arcuri, Certified Trauma Recovery Coach, Soul Rescue: How to Break Free From Narcissistic Abuse & Heal Trauma

“In my personal recovery, mindfulness has helped me to become aware of my trauma responses and given me an anchor to stay present when I have been triggered. Being able to feel my triggers without reacting must be largely credited to learning to anchor myself in my body through mindful body scan meditation.”
― Christopher Dines, Drug Addiction Recovery: The Mindful Way

“Assault survivors respond differently. There's no right or wrong way to react after being physically, emotionally, and/or sexually abused. Some people don't discuss it. They prefer to not rehash it. Others may need to communicate their shock, pain, anger, and trauma. Either way, the assault can be so overwhelming that we may respond in three ways - fight, flight, or freeze.”
― Dana Arcuri, Soul Cry: Releasing & Healing the Wounds of Trauma

“It is the state of the heart within us that determines the nature of the triggers we will pull outside of us.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“It is untenable to go through life as an exposed wound.”
― Roxane Gay, Bad Feminist

“We all have buttons that, when pressed, send us into survival mode.
”
― J.S. Wolfe, The Unfolding: A Journey of Involution

“Listen, everything that triggers you in life robs you of your Sensuality.”
― Lebo Grand

“If we can approach these implicit arisings as a gift rather than an attack, as an opening towards healing, we may be able to help our people get into relationship with their implicit world in a more compassionate and collaborative way.

Perhaps we can begin with considering these memories, no matter how challenging, to be messengers of life-giving truth.”
― Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships

“Regardless of who’s holding the gun, only you can pull the trigger.
”
― J.S. Wolfe, The Unfolding: A Journey of Involution

“If we practice moving toward our body’s distress, however—meaning noticing our body’s reactions, taking them seriously, and working with our body, not against it—we give ourselves a better chance of mitigating or reducing distress or harm to ourselves or those who love us.”
― Jamila Dawson, With Pleasure: Managing Trauma Triggers for More Vibrant Sex and Relationships

“When you learn to ride a bike, ice skate, or downhill ski, the first thing you’re taught is how to stop. It’s an essential skill because if things start heading the wrong direction, you can stop and limit the damage. This same skill is necessary with conversations that have the potential to go off the rails and create lasting damage. When someone blindsides you and says something that triggers you, find the brakes, so you can hit that Pause button.
This can be tricky because, by nature, we often aren’t patient communicators. We expect responses right away and feel compelled to offer the same. I’m inviting you to challenge that and request a little time to gather your thoughts. It can happen faster than you think, so I advise my clients to make simple requests that allow them to Pause. Some examples include:
• Let me catch my breath here.
• Can we find a place to sit down to talk about this?
• Give me a moment to close my door.
• Let me go to the bathroom/let the dog out/fill my coffee, and then I will give you my undivided attention.
The truth is, your brain needs time to overcome some of your initial reactions and access other choices.”
― Darcy Luoma, Thoughtfully Fit: Your Training Plan for Life and Business Success

“Most people don’t really understand why live makes us vulnerable, or open. It’s because love, to be fully expressed and through your being, begins to eliminate all the fears, all the insecurities and all the anxieties that are inconsistent with itself.”
― Betty Bethards, Sex and Psychic Energy

“Most people don’t really understand why love makes us vulnerable, or open. It’s because love, to be fully expressed and through your being, begins to eliminate all the fears, all the insecurities and all the anxieties that are inconsistent with itself.”
― Betty Bethards, Sex and Psychic Energy

“Don't allow triggers
To rob you of sound judgement.
Question your feelings.”
― Sanjo Jendayi

“Triggers take us back
To pain, trauma, or anger.
Use them to heal self.”
― Sanjo Jendayi

“Learn your triggers so
You can shift your reaction
And stop the bullet.”
― Sanjo Jendayi

“When self-preservation is not applied with discernment, it becomes the Devil’s tool or we can choose to take a chance on people after applying the lessons taught by Adversity’s storms. Let our triggers teach us.”
― Reena Doss

“What triggers your reaction holds the power over you. Reclaim your peace by choosing
your response. All triggers lose their power when we confront them with self-love and
understanding.”
― Natalie O'Rourke

“We all suffer differently, and sometimes silently.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, Stamerenophobia

“Toxic relationships aren’t just challenges—they’re urgent signals to redefine boundaries, reclaim your emotional health and unlock the possibility of respect.”
― Soufiane El Alaoui