Triggers X Mental Health Monday

 

Depending where you are in your mental health journey you may or may not know what triggers are, I know I didn't learn what they are till I had my first round of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. Triggers in short are things that cause your mental health to decline. Knowing this is life changing information, knowing what your triggers are fills in the gaps of understanding why the decline happens. It's important you recognise what triggers you so you can begin to tackle the problem and hopefully over come it.  

We all have basic triggers such as significant life changes such as betrayal and death but there are other types of triggers infact there's two category types; external and internal. External for example, rain would be a trigger and over-stimulation from noise. An internal trigger would be something private to that person i.e thoughts and feelings. Starting a new job can be a trigger it's not always bad events that trigger us and for those of us who already have problems you'll know triggers really are our biggest challenge other than the symptoms that come after. Some signs you're triggered are feeling irritable or tearful, being withdrawn, increased consumption of ciggies, alcohol and/or drugs, difficulty remembering things, difficulty sleeping and general inability to function correctly/concentrate etc. You may have all or some of these signs, mental health doesn't exactly follow set specifics its unique combinations are unique to you and change over time. We all struggle with different parts of mental health symptoms just like we all have different triggers, some may be the same as other peoples but not everyone has the exact same combinations if that makes sense. Triggers in essence are what cause your brain to malfunction and the malfunctioning is the symptoms that occur after. 

You can have more than one trigger and struggle with it for a long time or temporarily, it depends mental health is weird but the more information you consume whether from a professional (which I highly recommend) or do your own research, the easier it is to come up with a solution. Sometimes solutions are as simple as not watching the news everyday because it triggers you. Mental health is a trial and error thing, not all advice works for everyone. and sometimes that solution is no longer successful in tackling that trigger so alternatives need to be tried.  for example if rain was a trigger you'd keep the curtains closed till you're in a good mood then open them; you could put yourself in a good mood by listening to upbeat music but if this suddenly stopped working you'd need to think of another plan to put you in a good mood for example watch animal fails on Youtube. 

So how do you recognise your triggers? Well by keeping a journal; do an activity log (write down everything you've done in the day as you do it) with a mood rating of 1-10 for each activity, this way you can see what activities trigger you for a lower mood. Pay attention to when your mental health is declining, what happened before that? write it down, Is there a cycle? A professional can help you figure out your triggers fairly easily in comparison to trying to do it yourself.  "recognising a mental health issue is the first step in getting the support needed to recover" whether you recognise that yourself or professionally, it doesn't really matter as long as you put in the work to over come it because if not triggers really can destroy your life. 

What are some things that trigger you? And how will you change it? 

Till next time,

Stevie x