Don't Pull My Trigger!

I don’t often blog when I’m angry. Tonight, however, I am making an exception. I’m making an exception because my anger may help someone else break free tonight.

Tonight, I’m angry because negative reinforcements are so much stronger and last so much longer than positive reinforcements.

I’m angry because sometimes you don’t realize the damage that has been done, and the bondage you’re still in until something triggers a memory.

I’m angry because damaged people damage other people, and the cycle just continues.

I’m angry because tonight I unexpectedly experienced yet another trigger from a repeated negative reinforcement in my life.

How dare they last for years and years??!! I’m a happy person. I’m content. Well-rounded. Joyful, even. How dare some long buried ugliness in my past rear its ugly head and make me an emotional mess?! That’s not fair! It’s not right!

Including tonight, I can think back on three negative triggers that caused or still cause a visceral emotional reaction in me.

Trigger #1 – The Hole

The first was when I was engaged years ago. Unbeknownst to me, I had a small hole in my blouse under one of my arms. My fiancé came up to me and stuck his finger in the hole.

“Did you know you had a hole here?” he innocently asked.

I lost my mind! I started screaming at him!

“What is the matter with you sticking your finger in a hole in my clothing?! If I have a hole you just tell me! Don’t stick your finger in it! Don’t touch it! Just tell me! What kind of person sticks their finger in a hole in someone else’s clothing?!”

He just looked at me in shock. Then he said slowly with concern, “What is wrong with you?”

I burst into tears and ran into another room. I had no idea what was wrong with me. Then, painful memories flooded back.

My fiancé lovingly came in and sat with me while I cried. He patiently waited until I could talk.

Finally, I was able to tell him.

When I was a little girl, I had an abusive grandmother, emotionally and physically. One day, I was on my way to school and she smiled at me and said, “Come here.” I was immediately nervous. I tentatively took one step toward her. She kept beckoning me forward. I didn’t know what to expect.

Finally, when I got close enough, she grabbed me harshly, took her fingernail and stuck it into a small hole in my pants that I didn’t know was there. She gouged out skin, and blood soaked through my pants immediately. I still have the scar on my thigh.

“Only a slut would wear a pair of pants with a hole in them!” she told me. I was no older than 10, and could have been as young as eight.

Years later, an innocent action by my fiancé would bring those crippling emotions back to the forefront.

Trigger #2 – The Phrase

I became a Christian when I turned 25. I attended and joined a few culturally diverse churches before ultimately finding a long-term church home in California. This church is a predominantly Black church, where “Black phrases” are routinely uttered.

One such phrase made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and caused me to nearly run out of the church screaming.

The pastor or his designee regularly announces to visitors they are invited to attend a special reception “so we can love on you.”

“Love on you.”

I hadn’t heard that phrase in years, not since the family friend who molested me when I was a little girl said it over and over again. He would come over to the house where I was babysitting for another family friend, let himself in with a key, and follow me around the house.

I’d immediately, protectively, pick up the toddler I was babysitting for, hoping that would deter his advances. But no.

He’d shadow me, saying, “Put the baby down. I need you to give me some p*$$y. Come on. I just want to ‘love on you’.” Over and over again he’d follow me repeating this horrific phrase. He would ultimately get the baby out of my arms.

Fortunately, I suppose, I’d black out and awaken at home in my own bed.

No matter how many times I tried to tell my parents and other family protectors what was happening, they couldn’t hear me. Finally, I threw a massive fit and refused to babysit for that family anymore. That particular sexual abuse stopped there.

I thought I’d healed from that, as well…until I heard the phrase again in my home church.

I still attend the church. But I still cringe every time I hear the phrase.

Sadly, cruelly, infuriatingly, I shared the experience with my ex-husband, and he would use the phrase on me anyway.

Which leads me to the next trigger.

Trigger #3 – The Blame Game

I realized tonight, that my ex-husband created yet another devastating, emotional trigger, a trigger of undue blame and unfair accusation.

My laptop computer broke today and when I shared a picture of the break with my little brother, he jokingly made an accusation: “Somebody been picking up their laptop by the screen, eh?”

His response immediately enraged me. It was reminiscent of the constant accusations I received from my ex.

When my son and I were hit head-on by a drunk driver, my ex-husband didn’t ask if we were okay. He just yelled, “What were you doing on this street anyway?!” At no point did he check on our well-being.

When I fractured my shoulder diving into a street to save a friend’s daughter from getting hit by a car, my ex angrily demanded an explanation. When I told him how it happened, he said that’s what I got for trying to save someone else’s child. Then he refused to take me to the hospital.

Nearly every conversation began with an accusation or a negative assumption. “How did this happen? Why wasn’t I told before? You were probably using it wrong. What did you do? I suppose you forgot to… I bet you didn’t remember to…”

Being asked, “What were you doing to cause this?” has become a trigger for me, especially when I’ve done nothing wrong. People making assumptions, instead of giving the benefit of the doubt, infuriates me.

During the scene in the movie “The Proposal” where Sandra Bullock’s character falls into the water, needing to be saved by Ryan Reynolds, I burst into tears in the theater (and I was alone). Even though he was angry at her, he lovingly wrapped a blanket around her and cradled her after her terrifying experience.

I never received that from my ex. Not after going into pre-term labor with our son, causing me to be hospitalized multiple times. Not after blacking out and having to be hospitalized for a week. Not after fractures, and losses, and devastating events. All I received was accusations.

I know people like my grandmother, my ex-husband, and the now-dead, pedophile Herman Weems, were broken people. I realize they damaged others out of their own brokenness. I know I’m supposed to forgive them. Most days I think I have.

But then there’ll be another trigger, and the anger will consume me all over again.

I guess I will just have to deal with each trigger as it comes.

As difficult as today was, it helped me understand the people who hold on to and respond to the painful experiences in their life…their personal triggers.

I’m still angry because I want all the love, the positive experiences, and the encouraging words to outweigh all of the damaging encounters – for all of us.

Perhaps that’s why I’m so in love with being in love. It’s like a balm that heals and covers the wounds.

Okay, I’ll focus on that. The beauty of being in love… The beauty of love, period.

Love is the only thing that has helped heal me from those painful experiences. My loving fiancé helped me through the “Granny Trigger.” The true love that comes from my church family helps me deal with the oft-repeated painful “Pedophile Trigger” phrase. The former love of my life, who I fell in love with after my marriage ended, helped counter the “Ex-Husband Unsafe Trigger” by always making me feel safe and protected. My loving brother was so concerned about my heart-ache, anger and sadness tonight that he showered me with love and apologies to counter-act the “Ex-Husband Accusation Trigger.”

Love covers a multitude of sins. Now I understand that scripture.

Constantly Thinking…and healing…and loving…