From Reaction to Protection: Rethinking What It Means to Be Triggered
There’s a moment many of us know well.
You’re having a normal conversation. Or scrolling your phone. Or sitting at dinner with someone you love. And suddenly—your chest tightens, your stomach drops, your tone changes. You feel reactive, overwhelmed, shut down, or flooded. Later you might think, “Why did I overreact like that?” or “What’s wrong with me?”
We usually call this being triggered.
But here’s a gentler and more accurate way to understand it:
A trigger is not a flaw in your character or a failure of emotional regulation. It’s a protective response from your nervous system.
A trigger is not the problem. It’s the signal.
A trigger is simply a present-moment experience that activates an older emotional memory or survival response in your body.
Your nervous system reacts as if something dangerous, abandoning, or overwhelming is happening now—even if, logically, you know you’re safe.
That reaction might look like:
Sudden anger or defensiveness
Shutting down, going numb, or disappearing inside
Anxiety, panic, or urgency
Shame, collapse, or harsh self-criticism
The urge to flee, fix, explain, or please
These reactions are not random. They are learned survival strategies.
The nervous system remembers what the mind may not
You don’t need to remember a specific trauma for your body to carry its imprint.
Over time, your nervous system learned what was unsafe, unpredictable, or emotionally costly. It learned when to fight, flee, freeze, or appease. And it still uses those strategies today—quickly, automatically, and often outside of conscious choice.
So when you get triggered, it’s not that you’re “too sensitive.”
It’s that your body is trying to protect you.
Parts of you, not all of you
In parts-based therapy, we understand these reactions as parts—not your whole self.
There may be:
A part that learned to get angry to stay safe
A part that learned to shut down to avoid being hurt
A part that learned to stay hyper-vigilant to prevent mistakes
A part that learned to please to keep connection
When a trigger happens, one of these parts steps forward very fast, doing exactly what it learned to do.
The issue isn’t that these parts exist.
The issue is that they’re often still living in the past, responding to today as if it were yesterday.
From “What’s wrong with me?” to “What happened to me?”
This is one of the most powerful shifts you can make.
Instead of:
“Why am I like this?”
Try:
“What might this reaction be protecting me from?”
Instead of:
“I overreacted again.”
Try:
“Something in me felt threatened.”
This doesn’t mean excusing harmful behavior. It means replacing shame with curiosity—which is where real change becomes possible.
You’re not broken. You’re patterned.
Your triggers are not proof that you’re failing at healing.
They are proof that:
Your nervous system learned how to survive
Your system is still trying to protect you
There are younger places in you that deserve care, not criticism
In the next post, I’ll explore something just as important:
What do you actually do when you’re in a triggered moment—and how do you find your way through it?
