Very easy to get bogged down in this trigger stuff.

Ofcourse reading a newspaper about a rape or assault or XXX can do the same....or reading about someone else's XXX when it comes up in a novel, in a TV series or movie. Or if in the worst case it happens 'live' and I am the witness.

Short of people locking themselves away in a cocoon (preferably with a beach, cocktails, live music of your choice and your ideal other half) there is little that can be done.

Even then there is little to stop the odd nightmare or remembering what has happened again and again.

I find my main problem is actually before and after seeing my doctor(s), not because of what we discuss, as this is cordial enough, but the fact that I am there in the first place. It reminds me that X, Y and Z (people or events) have beaten me. I wouldn't like to call my doctor a 'trigger'. I'd be less than impressed on the recieving end of that comment.

Sometimes I avoid a trigger for a while, sometimes I feel like facing it head on and it works for me. Other times I need to avoid crowds, other times I don't...it makes little sense to me, I think it makes less sense to my doctor, so I am not sure I go into it in great detail about it.

Ultimately you will know; the main point is perhaps to look at what you are reading/watching etc. I cannot find a trigger in military PTSD posts as I am not in the military and never was. I can get a better understanding of what is happening to me and not feel like 'Freak of the Week' though, which has been invaluable to me.

eg Big deal; two nightmares yesterday; it's getting an understanding for them. I am beginning to find too that being killed in my dreams is having a lesser effect, it's perhaps getting to overkill, a bit like watching 'Return of the Zombies III', as they offer up little that is new. Wake up, curse the dream/myself, go back to sleep. Neither of yesterday's even woke me, they were just violent, no arms or weapons used. And this time I managed to break the grip of the attacker and pin the B*#$*d down. I have been thinking about that conciously, and think that might be the key to the subconcious getting these things out. It is the undealt with issues that lead to the triggers being there.

If I walk out the door in the dark it is unlikely I will be assaulted, if I stay in it is unlikely I will be broken into while here. Yet sometimes I still freeze, thinking my boogey man is coming to get me.

It's easy to end up using the forum in an 'OCD' kind of way, but it's easy to do that with anything else too. So today, I will try 'OCD' cleaning! There are labels for everything, only we can really judge for ourselves. Overanalysis is , not working through it leaves us , right now I am probably at :crazy-eye but at least I have a smile on my face.