Triggers from Betrayal

One of the hardest things about betrayal trauma is triggers. I only thought my husband would be the one who would have to deal with triggers. Every time a trigger happened to me, I just thought I was a crazy bitter woman who could not forgive until my therapist helped me pinpoint my triggers, also known as a trauma response.

After the betrayal, my whole life ended up being a trigger. When something triggered me, my mind would go back to D-day, and I would relive everything and feel all the emotions of the pain and hurt. It was like I had backtracked any progress that I thought I had made.

Family pictures in our house would trigger me. Every time I saw a photo with Riley in it, my mind always went to who he was talking to that day or trying to hook up with. My whole life with him felt like a lie. I ended up taking down every picture he was in and put it into storage. The house we were living in still held the memories that were now tainted in my brain. And where I am a stay at home mom, I felt it extremely hard to escape the negative in the house from hell.

Girls I saw who are dressed immodestly even if Riley wasn't with me, would cause me to panic. Songs and movies that have sex scenes or cheating I cannot watch, or I am triggered. It sucks that some of my favorite songs, movies, and tv shows are now completely ruined for me.

I could be having a great day even holding Riley's hand, and a thought pops in my head, or a song comes on, and I'm immediately disgusted or sad, and I don't want him to be touching me anymore.

Triggers are everywhere, and you cannot stop a trigger from happening. But there are things you can do about it to get your mind in the right place. I'll save that for another post, so stay tuned and keep positive!