Dealing with Triggers

I'm a 33 year old male. I left my wife of eleven years to escape the emotional abuse. I moved in with some good friends, a married couple. Shortly after I moved in, the wife got pregnant. She is dealing with intense morning sickness and her hormones are what one expects from someone who is pregnant.

My issue is that the hormones are making my friend behave in ways similar to the way that my wife behaved when she was being abusive. Lily, as I shall call my friend, is trying to not be mean and snap at people. She is dealing with this by being silent and avoiding anyone that is not her husband. And while my rational side knows that this is because of her hormones, it is still triggering me.

One of the things my wife did to abuse me was the silent treatment. She would get angry, go silent, and only after I was to the point of begging and pleading to get her to talk with me about what was going on, would she speak. Lily is not my wife. She isn't mad at me. In fact, Lily is the kind of person that if she's mad at you, she lets you know immediately. Lily is actually being protective.

But, her silence is really setting me off. I keep feeling like I'm unwanted here with my friends and that all of the nasty things my wife would say about me are true. I have been trying, desperately, to not go out and buy things or send Lily texts asking her why she is so mad at me. Her husband has been super supportive and we've talked about this. He has assured me that she isn't mad at me during the particular bad spells I fall into. But, the fact remains that I'm struggling to deal with this. And, because Lily is behaving in a way that my wife used to behave, I'm worried that I'm starting to project my anger of my wife's abuse at Lily.

These two people saved me when I was at my worse. But, the situation right now is such a struggle. I've been journaling and trying to spend time out of the house, but because of my situation, I don't have a lot of money for gas and the journaling only helps so much. Also, in order to escape from the situation, I moved to a new area in another state. I'm starting to make friends, but I don't really have any friends I can just go to.

Can anyone give me some advice for dealing with triggers on a daily basis that I can't avoid?

You've gone through a trauma, and like other traumatised people, you're finding that certain triggers put you right back to the place where you were at the time of the traumatic situation, where you relive all the events, and the associated emotions are brought back to the surface. This is a normal reaction to events that weren't normal.

Of course, we don't live in an ideal world, with unicorns and rainbows. People will always be people. People will continue to be irritable and sometimes inconsiderate. People will continue to be snappy and defensive. This doesn't mean that they're being abusive, they're just being human. Learning to accept imperfections in people and the fact that they won't always remain calm or even considerate can take some time if you've been in an abusive situation. This of course doesn't mean that you should make unreasonable allowances for people or accept behaviour that is abusive. It's all about learning to live amongst others, accepting that they will not be perfect and being assertive when necessary, recognising when certain behaviours cross the line into abusiveness.

I was once in an abusive relationship, and had an abusive father,and in subsequent relationships it took me some time to recognise the differences between normal human behaviour and deliberate and cruel abuse. I was perhaps overly defensive, and in my determination never to become a victim again, did not accept certain behaviours that were simply a part of being human. Therapy helped me to put things in perspective, and to work through all the emotions and thought patterns I'd developed as a consequence of the abuse.

I'd strongly recommend that you seek therapy for these issues, especially since it can be all too easy to continue dynamics and patterns into subsequent relationships, perhaps by attracting abusive partners or by reading abusive behaviour into situations where there is none intended.

One of the effects of abuse is to cause the person to doubt their own feelings, intuition and perspectives, and of course this can have the effect of misreading innocent situations and also allowing abuse to flourish. By working on your self esteem through therapy, you can come to a point where you know yourself, and are certain of your feelings and judgement. From this perspective, you would be much less likely to misread situations or to become a victim again.

randomname324 wrote: I moved to a new area in another state. I'm starting to make friends, but I don't really have any friends I can just go to.

You've had advice already, good advice.

What I'd add, is are you keeping your mind occupied? Or do you have lots of time to ponder, dwell and worry on things?

Can you do some volunteer work, to get you out of the house and meeting new people? There's so much you can do: befriending, dogwalking, helping disabled people, driving folks to hospitals, reading in schools, green gyms, all sorts of things ... this stuff can open doors for you