The Nervous System and triggers

[Paralyzed]

Hello SANE community 😁

It's been months since I last logged in to read discussions and to share information I have found helpful in my healing journey. I am about to log out, but I wanted to share this before I do. The following is from trauma-informed specialists that I follow online, etc.

A trigger I often see in trauma survivors is the way emotional inconsistency shakes their entire sense of safety. They're fine one moment, then spiralling the next. All it takes is a change in tone. A delayed reply. An energy shift. It's not because they're dramatic.

It's because inconsistency once meant danger. It meant betrayal. Or abandonment. Or punishment without warning.

Their nervous system learned:

"If something changes suddenly, brace for impact." So now, even if the change is harmless or explainable, the body treats it like a threat. This isn't overreacting. This is a brain doing its job—trying to keep them safe based on what it remembers. But healing is possible. With practice, your nervous system can learn to tolerate inconsistency without assuming the worst. You can rebuild trust—not just with others, but also with your ability to stay grounded through uncertainty.

'You keep calling it self-sabotage. What if it's just your nervous system screaming, 'I've never felt safe enough to do that.'

Have you heard about the trauma response: Foreshortened Future?

Foreshortened Future is when trauma makes you feel like you won't live a long or meaningful life...

You probably struggle to:

• Picture yourself having a future.
• Set long-term goals.
• Believe that positive things are coming your way.

Your brain stays stuck in "survival mode," making it hard to see a future.

You can get stuck in this state for a long time, and it becomes deeply ingrained and impacts your brain:

• Your amygdala (the brain's fear centre) becomes overactive, constantly scanning for danger.
• Your prefrontal cortex, which helps you plan and think rationally, shuts down under stress, making it difficult to focus on long-term goals.
• You become hypervigilant, always focused on getting through today, which leaves little room to think about tomorrow or dream of a future.

Trauma doesn't just affect your mind—it affects your body, too.

Your nervous system gets stuck in a constant state of fight-or-flight:

• Your sympathetic nervous system is always on high alert, making you feel anxious or on edge.
• Your parasympathetic system struggles to calm you down, so it's hard to relax or feel hopeful.

This can make the idea of having a future feel distant or really unrealistic...

The good news?

It's possible to change this, and here's how:

• Rewiring Your Brain: Trauma processing helps your brain switch out of survival mode, allowing you to plan and dream again.
• Calming Your Nervous System: Practices like deep breathing, mindfulness, and body-based therapies calm your body, helping you feel more grounded and safe.
• Creating a Sense of Safety: When you feel safe in the present, your brain becomes more open to imagining the future.

When you step out of survival mode and start healing your traumas, healing your nervous system. You'll start to reconnect with your ability to dream and plan, and you eventually...

• begin to see that your life isn't just about surviving the day-to-day.
• be able to set new goals and build a vision of the future that excites you.
• reclaim your sense of purpose and direction, giving you back control over your life.

Thanks for letting me share. Stay safe and take care.

P. 🤗

[Stella44]

That is very interesting, thanks for sharing x

[Paralyzed]

Hi @Stella44 

I'm glad you found it interesting and you’re most welcome 😁 

[TeaPositive]

I gained a lot from your words today and thank you for posting this for us to come across.

[FearofUnknown]

Having a Negativity Bias can also cause you to only focus on the negatives and never the positives. 

Definitely learnt a lot from your post. Thanks for sharing. I can definitely relate to all of that, especially the Flight-Fight Response part. 

[FearofUnknown]

This is EXACTLY how I feel every single day. It has become the norm for me. I don't expect much for tomorrow - I just want to survive today.

[Paralyzed]

Hey @TeaPositive 

Thank you for taking the time to post a comment and hearing you say that, it is the reason I share my experiences and the knowledge I have gained. 

Everything that I post, comes from lived experiences and sometimes, the words I write, I can relate to every single one of them!

[Paralyzed]

Hi @FearofUnknown 

Thank you for your comment. Bang on the money about Negativity Bias. I have come across quite a few people in my life that have been in that mindset for years and it can be very difficult to get out of it.

I am so grateful to hear that you have learned something from my post! That’s why I do it. I sometimes wish that my mind, body and soul chose the flight or fight response but it went in a different direction and chose freeze, shutdowns and dissociation! I’ve definitely been fighting and fleeing as well but the purpose of this was to get me to somewhere that is a safe place, so my mind and body can go into protection mode and freeze| shutdown|dissociate.

My mum probably could have fit the criteria for Negativity Bias. Mum wasn’t negative but in the end, she lost her light and joy, and like negativity, shame and guilt are from the same family of feelings, and this is what got my mum! Shame and guilt that is stored in the body from unresolved trauma, carries so much weight, and the effect of this is so much greater and all the positive feelings get buried deeper and deeper, and are no longer able to be felt or seen! 

They say, ‘We can’t have light without darkness.’ 

I like this statement but for some people, my mum included, the shadow casted out too far and the light couldn’t catch up to shine through, and I’ve been here myself, quite a few times. I tried many times to do something about it by trying get to move onto the next life and try again. 

Thanks again for sharing and for your connection. 

P. 😁🤗