Triggered
My Beloved Friend,
As I sit down to write this letter, I feel my heart tearing in two. With cloudy drops of desperation rolling down my cheeks, I can’t help but doubt. It feels like I’m fighting alone more often than it doesn’t. Like I’m fighting the wind, or the air, or something else nonexistent.
This path we’re journeying together has little light along the way. There are few who try to make it through, and even less who actually do. Sometimes knowing how far you’ve yet to go is more discouraging that the idea of giving up. Sometimes it doesn’t seem worth it—especially when the little light that does exist in your life seems to be fading too.
The explanation for my apathy is quite simple really:
I’ve been triggered by a loved one.
One I trust more than myself.
The person who’s my everything.
The one I give all that I have.
Be that as it may, they’ve just reminded me of how much I’ve had to fight. To ward off the darkness. To keep the tears away. It was only a simple sentence they spoke to me. It wasn’t intentionally triggering, but when you’ve been through so much it doesn’t take a whole lot to feel the weight of the traumatic remembrances you’ve just begun to emerge from.
Nevertheless, I’ll carry on because I know one thing is sure: so long as this fire lives on in me, I’ll do everything in my power to teach you about the One who can champion yours.
Well, enough about me, I’ll tell you more when the time is right, but it’s a nice segue because I’ll bet you know what this feeling is like.
When were you last triggered?
I don’t mean the buzzword that’s overused and laid to waste.
I mean truly, fully, gut-wrenchingly reminded of everything you’ve spent your life trying to forget.
I try to shy away from this term as much as possible. Our victim-minded society has a tendency to make it meaningless. But I can’t just pretend it doesn’t exist. There’s nothing quite as poetic as your memories being compared to the trigger of a gun, especially after you’ve felt the puncture of a bullet. The blood. The aftershock.
This isn’t a time for memory lane. It’s not a stroll, a walk, or a dance. I don’t want you to think about the reasons you’re triggered, I just want you to recognize that you are. It’s no fault of your own, nor of the generations who came before. Rather, it’s a result of the broken, perpetual predicament into which every last one of us is born.
Over this next week, I want you to pay attention to what makes you mad. The things that enrage you. The things that make you sad. Even those that make you smile are worth giving a thought.
When you note your emotions rising and falling, get a pen and write it down. Write down your emotion—not the cause—and then try not to think about it for awhile.
Strange as this exercise may seem, I trust you’ll trust me on this: this journey is a marathon not a sprint, and the first mile-marker is recognition.
So, take the week to evaluate yourself. Refrain from pondering the past if you can, just feel where you’re at, or be numb when you can’t. Whatever you feel, and whatever you lack, it’s okay. I, as always, accept you fully for where you’re at.
Until next time, my dear, cherished friend, I trust we’ll both have tears, even if we don’t have ears to listen.
Sincerely,
