I think that the term “I’m triggered” has gained a lot of popularity the past couple of years. It’s become a replacement for things like “I’m ticked off” or any sort of uncomfortable reaction a person is having. Trigger warnings are placed before social media posts. I wonder if people actually know what it means to be triggered, that is, an implicit memory is being actively relived.

Our long-term memory (LTM) system stores memory in two keys ways: explicit, and implicit. Explicit includes semantic and episodic memory (Wede, 2020). These two memories are conscious in the sense of they are what we think of when we think of a memory. An image or narrative comes to our mind of the first time we rode a bike or facts about what a bike is. Implicit memory, on the other hand, is unconscious memory. We aren’t aware of a specific picture memory when we are experiencing it, our bodies just remember. Procedural memory is our way of remembering how to ride a bike, basically muscle memory.

We procedurally learn what certain actions mean early on in life. The first few years of life are primarily implicit memory, that is unconscious (Van der Kolk, 2014). We develop our attachment systems and learn what mom’s facial expression means to us and how to respond to it. We learn after a series of trial and error whether we are going to be screamed at for spilling juice or whether we will be gently guided towards helping clean up. Even our parent’s tone of voice is encoded in long term memory – and if their voice was paired alongside a scary consequence then we will implicitly remember it all the more. Our amygdala, our brains alarm system, recorded this instance so that we would know in the future every time we heard this tone of voice it meant something scary was about to happen (Van der Kolk, 2014). This is our body’s way of trying to protect itself, our long-term memory recognizes this tone of voice very well. When we are an adult and hear a stranger yelling at their kid in Walmart we start to feel “triggered”. A powerful implicit memory was triggered.

So yes, many people are having physiological responses to everyday stimuli, because it implicitly reminds them of painful experiences from their own narrative. This is what is occurring when someone says they are triggered. However, not every uncomfortable situation is triggering. This is important because sometimes people might use the reference that they are triggered because a subject or experience is merely uncomfortable or vulnerable.

It’s important to know that implicit memory is just that – memory. The threatening instances that our mind has remembered are often times passed yet we feel as though they are happening currently. The reality is that we are often not in danger, but our brains would very much have us believe otherwise. So being triggered doesn’t mean that we are actually in a state of threat, it more means we are in a state of discomfort. This is important because often being triggered means we are attempting to escape or avoid an experience. When we understand the difference, then we are finally able to acknowledge we have been triggered, but we can notice these feelings without responding in a way that is beyond our control

References

van der Kolk, B. A. (2014). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. Viking.

Wede, Josh. (2020) Cognitive Psychology: Modules: Long Term Memory. Retrieved from https://psu.instructure.com/courses/2130474/modules