Many trauma survivors, every day, are vulnerable to interactions with people who will, purposefully or not, hijack our focus.
We’ve all experienced this— entering into a conversation or other interaction with someone, and suddenly feeling yanked away from who we are and what we’re all about.
This can happen when somebody’s vibe or behavior triggers us; or it can happen when the content of the conversation or interaction is distressing or distracting to us; or it can happen for reasons we may not be able to identify in the moment.
All we know is: we don’t feel like ourselves when we’re interacting with this person— and, often, we don’t like how we feel.
Sometimes this “hijacking” happens unpredictably— that is, we find ourselves quite unexpectedly off our game when we engage with a person.
Other times, however, we know from past experience with a person that they’re highly likely going to trigger us, or that interacting with them is likely to evoke feelings and responses in us that we do not love (or 100% choose, for that matter).
There’s no shame to any of this, by the way. It happens to everyone.
I DEFINITELY have interactions with people that yank me quite away from who I am and what I’m all about.
I DEFINITELY find myself responding in ways I don’t love to dynamics I didn’t anticipate in certain conversations or interactions.
Very often what’s happening to us in these moments is a form of flashback and/or dissociation. Somebody’s vibe or behavior has triggered us, because it’s punched a “replay” button installed in us from the past.
We may not fully realize that’s what’s happening, because we think of flashbacks as fully immersive sensory experiences, or dissociation as “switching” between “parts”— but the truth is, both flashbacks and dissociation occur along a spectrum, and many survivors hang out in the mild-to-moderate range of that spectrum every day without being aware of it.
It’s real important, when we can, that we prepare ourselves for conversations or interactions that are highly likely to trigger us.
Remember that managing trauma responses always involves a combination of three basic tools: self-talk, mental focus, and physiology.
When we know we’re headed into a potentially triggering conversation or interaction, we can leverage all three of those tools in order to minimize the chances we’ll get “hijacked.”
We can remind ourselves, via our self-talk, of who we are, what we’re all about, what our goal is in the interaction, and what to pay attention to.
We can use our mental focus to reinforce our identity, our own vibe, and our interactional goal with this person, so we don’t get caught up in their personalty or their goals.
We can utilize our breathing and physiology to stay grounded and somatically present in thee conversation, instead of letting the anxiety or other emotions of the moment jack up our sympathetic nervous system and make it harder for us to be ourselves.
The reason I feel it’s important that you know about these kinds of vulnerabilities and these kinds of tools is, these are exactly the kinds of things I wish someone had told me as a teenager.
I remember, vividly, feeling at the complete mercy of every situation I was in— especially social situations.
I felt like my identity as basically malleable, depending on who I was interacting with and what they wanted from me— and it was hell on my self-esteem.
Taking a few minutes to utilize our recovery tools to affirm our identity, our values, and our goals for the interaction can help us stay grounded in and focused on who we are and what we need.
That is: it can help us manage our vulnerability to the “fawn” response— and give us valuable experience in wrangling flashbacks and dissociation that aren’t obvious or overwhelming.
It’s never the wrong call to leverage self-talk, mental focus, and physiology to remind ourselves who we are and what we’re all about.
And it’s never the wrong time to do whatever we need to do to not accidentally lose ourselves in someone else’s vibe.
Use Your Damn Skills 