Have you ever felt suddenly overwhelmed, shut down, or emotional without knowing why? Being triggered without knowing why can be confusing and distressing. Not knowing what causes a trauma response can leave you feeling vulnerable and a little out of control. You never know when your trauma responses might activate. This page will explain why you can be triggered for seemingly no reason and how trauma responses are formed.
Triggers aren’t always conscious or obvious
Being triggered without knowing why is not an uncommon experience. There is a reason, but it might be very hard to identify or not make sense to you once you know what it is. This is because these trauma responses are controlled by your nervous system.
Your nervous system pays close attention to all the details of a threatening situation so that it can look for those details (also called cues) in the future. If your nervous system detects some of those cues, it assumes you are being threatened and then activates the defense it has determined is mostly likely to be effective.
The problem is, some of the details your nervous system classifies as cues are completely unrelated to the situation. For example, it might notice that it’s a windy day at the time of a traumatic event and then after that you are triggered on windy days without understanding why. The nervous system determines what cues for danger are at a level below conscious thought, so they are not always obvious to you. You may learn about some triggers through careful observation.
How associations form
There are two ways these associations between trigger and response can form. One is through repeated experiences. If you have ever heard of Pavlov’s dogs, this is an example. He rang a bell each time before feeding them. Before long, merely ringing the bell triggered the dogs to start salivating, anticipating food.
The second way these associations form is through intense experiences. For example, a person in a car accident might avoid driving in that area in the future because it triggers anxiety or fear, as though another accident will occur.
Many things can become cues. Triggers can be:
• sensory (a smell)
• emotional (feeling happy can become a cue to a trauma response)
• relational (a boss, as a person in authority, may be a trigger to your nervous system)
• situational (making a mistake)
You may have no conscious memory of an event which led to the formation of a trauma trigger. There is a second form of memory, body memory. Even when you may not remember, your nervous system does and it watches vigilantly for those signs of danger.
Why the body reacts before the mind
Just as there are two kinds of memory, there are also two kinds of information processing happening in the nervous system. The kind that reacts to cues of danger is faster than the kind that involves more thought. To illustrate this, a person walking across the yard sees a snake and instantly freezes or jumps away. A second later the other kind of information processing happens and the person realizes, “Oh, that was just a stick.”
This snake/stick example is why you can be triggered even when you don’t want to be or are trying not to be. The defensive response is set in motion by the faster information processing system in your brain before your conscious thinking brain gets the information and determines you weren’t in danger. Now, when you are triggered for seemingly no reason, you can understand that your quick threat-detection system thought it noticed something and acted before your thinking brain could intervene. You’re not too sensitive, seeking attention, or out of control; you are triggered.
Why calm or safety can trigger reactions
Surprisingly, calm and safety can trigger trauma responses. On the surface this might make little sense. For some people, calm preceded danger and the nervous system learned that calm is a cue to danger. For others, calm means all of the internal “noise” (emotions, self-critical thoughts, and so on) is no longer hidden by busyness.
Trauma responses aren’t always right
It’s important to remember that a triggered reaction now was learned at a time where you truly were unsafe. When you experience a trauma response now, that does not mean you are actually in danger. It means your nervous system detected a cue which it once linked to danger. It can be frustrating to have an old trauma response triggered when it’s no longer keeping you safer. Understanding that there is a reason may help reduce that frustration.
Common examples of invisible triggers
Many people find it helpful to see how invisible triggers show up in specific situations. These pages explore some common examples.
• Why weather can be an invisible trauma trigger
• Trauma anniversaries: Why You Feel Triggered
• When Calm Feels Dangerous
• Why feeling good can be a trigger