When the trigger knocks on your door
And enters without warning…
It was supposed to be a good day today. I was planning on doing a few chores and starting work early, and then I made the mistake of opening my discord and realizing that a friend and fellow volunteer from a foundation I was part of, shared a document with me. This document is his try in creating a code of conduct for the community.
I went through it and I was shocked to see that the document only detailed discrimination, harassment, and allergies among the “unintentional violations” one could do. Or the part where the person who was discriminated against, assaulted, and/or harassed is invited to go first and talk to their abuser, assaulter, etc I mean wtf!
And the more triggering of all, suggesting that both parties do a restoration process and vocalize things. Are you fucking kidding me?? If the verbal assault and discrimination I experienced at the event in November 2022, would happen in an event of this foundation, I would be asked to sit down with the person that assaulted me and talk. Why the fuck would someone put themselves in this situation…??
And at that moment I was reading that document, I realized that the friend who shared the doc with me, initially, wanted me to be in a 45 min meeting where he would go through the doc and explain it to me while I was stuck. Frozen? Unable to fathom what’s happening? What I am seeing and hearing? Being triggered again and sent back there in that frozen moment in time when the person who singled me out and verbally assaulted me, does it again over and over and over again.
Yes, I feel triggered. The trigger knocked on my door and entered without any warning. But this time instead of wallowing in the PTSD I am going through or feeling enraged and wanting to break something, I am using the trigger and writing, venting on paper.
Because I have passed through the tunnel that I named darkness begins, because I now know and believe that “I matter. People see me. I exist.”
PTSD can kiss my proverbial butt.
I am supported, I will make it and a day will come when a trigger will knock on my door, I will open it, smile and close it back.
This day isn’t here yet. But it’s coming. I can feel it!
