An under appreciated trigger for many trauma survivors can be something simple: our name.
Many people don’t understand how something as simple as our name can be a trigger— but our name, or certain nicknames, can yank us right back to very painful times in our life.
It’s a common joke that kids know they’re in trouble when their parent uses their full name, or their first and middle name. But the reason the “joke” resonates with so many people is, it’s actually true.
For many abuse survivors, hearing their name meant they were in trouble.
For some survivors, only abusers used certain forms of their names or nicknames.
For some survivors who were abused by family members, their name represents a decision that was made for them by their abusers— and sometimes their name is the same as, or a form of, the actual name of their abuser.
This is the kind of trigger many in the broader culture might mock. But for trauma survivors who are triggered by their name, it’s enormously inconvenient and painful— and a situation they often can’t easily escape.
Yes, it’s often possible to change one’s name— but it’s also the case that, for multiple reasons, changing one’s name isn’t as simple as it seems.
Often legal or financial identities are inextricably tied to one’s legal name, and educational accomplishments have been recorded under their name.
Just leaving our name behind is often not a simple matter, emotionally or logistically.
Many trauma survivors are in this position a lot: they’re triggered by something that the culture considers unimportant and/or something we can’t avoid— so they wind up low-to-medium key triggered all the goddamn time.
One of the main reasons so many trauma survivors under appreciate how dissociative they are on a daily basis is, they’ve HAD to develop dissociative defenses of varying levels of opacity— just to get through the day.
For some survivors, hearing their name is inextricably linked to hearing the voice of their abuser.
For some survivors, hearing their name is linked to being in legal or financial trouble.
For some survivors, their name is a permanent link to a family who didn’t support them, a relative who abused them, or a parent they’ve tried desperately to not be like.
You need to know there’s no shame in being triggered by your name.
Yes, it’s an enormously inconvenient trigger, given how much of our daily lives involve us interacting with our legal name.
But it’s not silly, or even all that weird.
Our name necessarily evokes our childhood. It’s one of the few unchanged things we carry directly from our childhood.
One of the boundaries we often need to set with the people around us is asking them to call us the name we prefer— but, as you probably know if you’re reading this, boundaries aren’t exactly easy for many survivors to set.
But you do, actually, get to set that boundary. ‘
Safe relationships are ones in which your preferences for things as fundamental as your name are acknowledged and respected.
There’s literally no reason anyone “needs” to call you by your legal name.
And there’s absolutely no reason why you “shouldn’t” be triggered by your name, especially if you grew up in the kind of family that makes you want to forget you share anything with those people.
You don’t have to share anything with your abuser— including your name. Especially your name.
Breathe; blink; focus.
Use Your Damn Skills 