You’re bumping your way through a packed Central line on your way home from work, trying your best to avoid hands touching awkward places. When you accidentally turn your face into some sweaty bloke’s pit, competing for the carriage exit!
And there it is, a whiff of your ex’s cologne and the blood drains from your face. You feel like your stomachs about to fall out your arse!
“Why do I get triggered so easily?” as you judge the progress of your healing again, thinking there’s something wrong with you.
Sound familiar?
Here’s the thing: your biology is doing exactly what it’s supposed to do.
It’s just that it’s reacting to some outdated information it learned a very long time ago. So like your iPhone, we need to update it…
What’s really happening when you get triggered
When you understand the science of what’s happening in your body, all the way up to your head, you have an explanation for your behaviour. And then your behaviour doesn’t feel so random and out of control. You realise these two things:
one, it’s just your brain and body protecting you, and two, you can actually interrupt its process.
That’s what happens when you start to get curious about your reactions. And when you’re curious, you’re also being your true self. You’re present and connected to what’s going on within you and around you. So that means the logical part of your brain is engaged too.
You see, when you’re triggered, there’s nothing logical about it – you’re stuck in a past experience and reliving it. And the only way to regulate yourself is to bring awareness to what’s happening to you in that moment. Which coincidentally helps bring your logical thinking back online – the part of your brain you need to feel present and connected to yourself again.
The science behind your brain’s predictions
When something in your environment triggers you, like a song that comes on shuffle and reminds you of your ex, your hearing picks up that song. But it’s your brain that predicts the reaction – based on past events.
Now that song has a terrible memory attached to it. It reminds you of your shitty ex and immediately turns your stomach and panic sets in. Your brain is busy making predictions about what you should be feeling based on what’s happened before [Lisa Feldman Barrett].
So when that song comes on, your brain is already getting down to business. And constructing that anxious, sick feeling because it’s learned to predict “danger” when it hears those particular sounds.
So if last time you heard that song you had the same reaction, then BINGO, it’s going to repeat what it already knows. Which means, your nervous system and brain are going to kick off your survival response. Because it’s getting signals that you don’t feel safe right now.
Why your shared song still affects you years later
This is why it can feel like you’re so easily triggered. You might think, “it’s been two years since we broke up, why does this still bother me?” But if you don’t interrupt and replace your brain’s patterns with new information, then your brain will just keep using your past experiences to make the same predictions.
So when that song starts playing, your brain immediately goes: “last time I heard this song, I was with him. And being with him was a threat to me so I had to be on high alert.
Your brain then starts constructing an emotional experience based on that prediction. It’s not that the song is dangerous – it’s that your brain has learned to associate that song with him, and him with threat.
This happens because every time you heard that song during your relationship, your brain was busy creating connections…
- Song equals him.
- Him equals walking on eggshells.
- Him equals that knot in your stomach.
- Him equals needing to scan for danger.
So now, even though he’s nowhere near you, your brain constructs the same emotional experience it learned to create back then. It’s doing its job – trying to protect you based on what it knows. The problem is, it’s working with outdated information.
Your brain and body after narcissistic abuse
Once your brain has constructed that “danger” prediction, your whole nervous system kicks into gear to protect you from what it thinks is happening.
So out comes your cortisol and your fight/flight response gears into action, ready to fend off the “threat” (the song). And when you’re under stress, all the urgent alarm signals overwhelm the parts of your brain that usually help you think things through clearly
Like trying to do a test while there’s a fire alarm blaring in the background – impossible, right?! That’s what’s happening in your brain. It’s still working together, but your survival response drowns out the logic and reasoning parts of your brain.
How it changes your amygdala’s sensitivity
Narcissistic abuse turns your amygdala into an overprotective security guard that jumps at everything. So it doesn’t only look for danger – it’s constantly scanning for anything that feels significant or unexpected. Or anything that doesn’t match what your brain thought was going to happen.
And because of the stress and trauma you’ve experienced, your amygdala has learned to treat way too many things as threats – even when you’re perfectly safe.
Think of it this way:
If burglars repeatedly broke into your house, you’d probably install extra security cameras, double-check the locks, and jump at any little sound. Your amygdala has essentially done the same thing after narcissistic abuse – it’s installed extra-sensitive alarm systems as it learned that your environment wasn’t safe. Because if a threat could come from someone who should have loved and protected you, threats could come from anywhere.
A ‘hypervigilant state’
Understanding why you get triggered so easily, becomes clearer when you realise that narcissistic abuse doesn’t just affect your brain. But your entire nervous system too. Your brain has learned that your ex trained you to maintain constant vigilance, threat assessment and preparation for emotional or psychological attack.
This creates a ‘hypervigilant state’ where your nervous system is constantly scanning for danger, even in safe situations.
How it changes your nervous system
This is why you might feel hypervigilant around people now. Because betrayal violates trust in those that your nervous system anticipated trusting, or those that programmed it to trust. So once someone breaks that trust, your body sees signals of safety as signals of vulnerability [Stephen Porges].
So if someone you deemed safe abused you, who you trusted enough to let your guard down with, your nervous system learns to treat your cues of safety as “dangerous”. Because last time you let your guard down, bad things happened to you. Therefore associating vulnerability as threatening because it retunes the nervous system to become hypervigilant to threats. So narcissistic abuse changes how you perceive people.
The good news is you can teach your brain and body to work better together when you give them some space to do so. And you can help this happen by using nervous system regulation techniques. They help to engage the parts of your brain that help you stay present and connected.
Why understanding your triggers changes everything
So now you have awareness about what’s going on inside your skull and under your skin, you need to know how to bring your logical brain back online. And then that way, you can start to interrupt your trigger patterns and feel more in control of your emotions. But here’s the thing:
Knowing what to do and actually doing it in the moment, are two very different beasts…
You also need to remember this stuff, which I know is tricky when you’re in a trigger! Because everything is going 100 miles per hour, and you’re in that feeling and memory like it’s happening there and then. And that’s exactly why we need to be kind to ourselves throughout this process.
Promotes self-compassion
I used to frustrate myself when seemingly random things kept triggering intense reactions in me. I didn’t understand how I could just ‘flip my lid’ and explode in a moment [Dan Siegel]. But when I learned what was happening in my brain and body, it made complete sense. It shifted my inner critic of “why do I get triggered so easily?”, to a more compassionate response. Because I now realised my biology was just trying to protect me in the only way it knew how, bless my little system!
Humans respond better to positive reinforcement. Think about how demotivated you’d feel if someone was criticising you all day, versus someone who’s cheering you on and encouraging you. The funny thing is, is we’d hate it if someone else yelled at us from the sidelines. Yet our inner dialogue churns out insults all day long and we don’t bat an eyelid at the way we speak to ourselves!
Since I’ve been observing my inner monologue, I’ve been able to catch myself in negative spirals. And change the script to a more gentle approach. Surprise, surprice, talking to myself kindly gets me further than bashing myself all day!
Breaking the cycle of feeling out of control
The most liberating thing about understanding your triggers is that knowledge gives you choice. When you know that your brain is making predictions based on old information, you can start to consciously give it new information. You can begin to interrupt the automatic response and teach your system that the old threat is no longer present.
This doesn’t mean your triggers will disappear overnight. Healing isn’t linear, and your nervous system changes at its own pace. But it does mean you can start to feel less hijacked by your own reactions and more curious about what they’re trying to tell you.
The grounding technique that brings you back online
Firstly, make sure you really understand this process and you ask any questions you have in the comments below. And secondly, you need to remember this one tool that will engage your logical brain:
The 5-4-3-2-1 method
Go through each of your senses – sight 👁️, sound 👂, touch ✋, smell 👃 and taste 👅. And list 5 things you can see, 4 things you can hear, 3 things you can touch, 2 things you can smell and 1 thing you can taste.
How to use your senses to calm your nervous system
So just like your triggers enter through your senses, you can also use them to calm yourself down. You just need to bring your awareness into what you can control in that time.
So start by labelling what’s happening and how you’re feeling, bring attention to it and say to yourself: “I’m experiencing a trigger right now and I feel anxious”. Notice where you feel the anxiety, like is it in your chest area or your stomach? Is it big or small? Does it move?
Notice the breath too, does it feel constricted, fast or shallow? Can you lengthen your exhale? Try and describe as much detail as possible because it’ll help you to slow down and stay present.
Then, scan your environment and look around for 5 things you can see. Describe the details, like the colours and the shapes, take your time listing through each one of your senses. You can do this either in your head or out loud to yourself, whatever makes you feel comfortable.
Why it works
This practice communicates to your brain that you’re not under threat because you have the capacity to slow down and do this exercise. If a bull were chasing you, you wouldn’t have time for this because you’d be too busy trying to survive!
By engaging all five senses, you’re switching on the part of your brain that helps you to stay focused, calm your emotions and feel present in the here and now. (Instead of worrying about what happened in the past, or what might happen in the future).
It works because the present moment isn’t compatible with a triggered state that’s re-living the past. You can’t be fully present and fully triggered at the same time – they’re mutually exclusive states. So you’re giving your brain concrete evidence that contradicts the old prediction your brain was making.
The 5-4-3-2-1 technique also helps because it gives your mind something specific to focus on. Rather than trying to resist the trigger, or tell yourself to “calm down” – which rarely works and often makes things worse.
So you’re training your brain to have a different response to a triggering situation. Practice this enough and you’ll eventually rewire the old pattern of panic to a more grounding one. And your brain will make new predictions based off the new information you keep giving it.
Building new patterns for lasting change
This is the key to healing from triggers – it’s not about never having them again (though they do become less frequent and less intense over time), it’s about changing your relationship to them. Instead of feeling completely overwhelmed and out of control, you start to notice familiar sensations and the tools you have to help yourself through it.
Your brain is incredibly adaptable – this is called neuroplasticity. The same ability your brain had to learn that certain situations were dangerous, is the same ability it has to learn that you’re safe now. But it needs evidence, and that evidence comes through new experiences and new responses to old triggers.
Every time you use the grounding technique instead of being swept away by the trigger, you’re providing that evidence. Every time you remind yourself of your protective response and teach your brain safety, you’re updating your nervous system with new sensations.
Repetition rewires your responses
Knowing your triggers isn’t enough, in order to create lasting change, you need to put that knowledge into practice and keep repeating it. When you stop asking, “why do I get triggered so easily?” from a place of shame, and start coming at it with curiosity, it’ll shift your perspective and give you choice.
It’s like learning to drive:
You can read about how to drive, understand the theory perfectly, but until you’ve practiced getting behind the wheel hundreds of times, you won’t be able to do it automatically. Your nervous system works the same way – it needs repetition to build new automatic responses.
This is why patience with yourself is so crucial during recovery. You’re literally rewiring decades of survival programming. Of course it takes time, practice and repetition. Be gentle with yourself as you adapt and acknowledge your progress; journalling about your triggers is a great way to track your patterns and wins.
The beautiful thing is that once your brain truly learns you’re safe now, it becomes your ally in healing rather than something that feels like it’s working against you. Your sensitivity becomes a superpower – you become incredibly attuned to your environment and your own needs, which helps you make choices that serve your wellbeing.
Your triggers are not a sign that there’s something wrong with you – it’s just a sign of your nervous system doing what it evolved to do and protect you from perceived threats. The key is updating that system with new information about your current reality, when you’re safe, have choices, and you’re in control of your life.
Recommended reading
How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain, by Lisa Feldman Barrett
Why Narcissistic Abuse Causes Betrayal Trauma Triggers
Complex PTSD Triggers: What You Should Know About Them
Start Healing From Complex PTSD Like This —3 Free Tools You Can Use Today