Correction. It’s been decided that the word “trigger” is now triggering for people with alleged trauma histories. That’s right. Some people get triggered by a trigger warning. Henceforth, the Twitteratti have decreed content publishers use the term “content warning.” Apparently, just the thought of a potential trigger is triggering, so now it’s content warning. That is, until “content” becomes triggering. How about a HAVE YOU TAKEN YOUR MOOD STABILIZER WARNING? I, too, am triggered by the use of trigger warnings. Because trigger warnings demand that everyone walk on eggshells.
Do you know who becomes unhinged when faced with uncomfortable emotions, criticism, conflicting ideas and opinions, cognitive dissonance and difficult truths about themselves and life?
Emotionally unstable people that’s who.
It’s not that emotionally stable people (including emotionally stable people who have an actual PTSD diagnosis) don’t have emotional responses to reading or viewing material about abuse, racism, rape, genocide or feeling marginalized or unheard. It’s just that we don’t make our feelings the responsibility of the world and every single one of its inhabitants.
My feelings, my responsibility. Her feelings, her responsibility. His feelings, his responsibility. Your feelings, your responsibility.
Emotionally unstable people often expect others to accommodate their issues. When their emotional issues aren’t enthusiastically coddled without complaint they can get real nasty. In other words, they blame, shame, name-call, cancel and/or destroy careers. Recently, I referenced Gandhi in an Internet meme. The social media holier than thou’s were quick to point out that Gandhi was a fallible human being. No kidding! For reals?!?! I’ve decided next time this happens, my reply is going to be, “So’s your mother.”
Expecting the world to accommodate one individual’s emotional hypersensitivities is bonkers and usually completely one-sided. So is wanting to erase someone from existence and/or negate the good they’ve done because you feel disappointed by them for not being perfect. Anyone who’s been in a relationship with a narcissist, borderline, histrionic, psychopath, paranoiac or other abusive personality will recognize these attitudes, beliefs and behaviors on the interpersonal level.
Stop Walking on Eggshells!
Trigger warnings, which have become obligatory in media and college campuses, really, really bother me — in case you couldn’t tell. Just reading or hearing the term trigger warning induces an extreme eye roll with an an ocular wind up. Aside from the sheer ridiculousness of adults needing trigger warnings to discuss sensitive topics, why is it so bothersome?
Domestic violence literature holds that abusers feel triggered by some internal or external stimuli, and then the build up to an abuse episode ensues. The trigger can be anything. You only replied to 73 of the 89 text messages your abuser sent in a 2-hour window during the workday. Or, your abuser is feeling bored and manufactures a conflict for the drama.
In turn, victims learn the narcissist or borderline’s known triggers in order to avoid more abuse. This practice is commonly referred to as walking on eggshells. Once upon a time, NOT walking on eggshells was the recommended goal for the spouses and family members of personality disordered individuals.
There’s even a very popular book called Stop Walking on Eggshells that was written about it. In fact, walking on eggshells was considered a symptom of being in an abusive relationship by most domestic violence groups and mental health practitioners.
This doesn’t appear to be the case anymore.
Start Walking on Eggshells!
Nowadays, many mental health professionals advise abuse victims of the personality disordered to practice radical acceptance, or accommodate the emotionally unstable person. Basically, you accept that the disordered person is disordered and you, therefore, stop taking their abuse personally.
This is backwards thinking.
You can radically accept that abuse will be a recurring part of the relationship, or you can end the relationship, figure out why you were willing to tolerate abuse and make healthier relationship choices moving forward. The onus needs to be on the unstable person to learn how to manage or regulate their emotions as well as their “triggers,” not the other way round. You can’t do the work for someone else.
People who take responsibility for their issues, like PTSD for example, don’t expect others to take responsibility for their issues. It’s an integral part of healing and recovery. People who don’t take responsibility for their issues, usually have the unreasonable expectation that other people do so for them. That’s called enabling.
Anything can be a trigger.
Emotionally unstable people can be triggered by differing political ideologies, carnivores, restroom signs, objective reality, quoting Winston Churchill or Gandhi — or a loaf of bread. I have Celiac’s Disease. Seeing you eat pizza triggers me!!!!!
And, here’s one that’s especially problematic. Many emotionally unstable adults are triggered by the reasonable expectation that they conduct themselves as mature, responsible adults.
There’s probably someone with borderline personality disorder reading this right now who may be feeling bad. They may feel bad enough and mad enough about feeling bad and mad to post a nasty comment to let everyone know they feel triggered. They may even email me directly to let me know they feel triggered. For some reason, diagnosed narcissists and psychopaths never contact me about their feelings.
Does reading this trigger you?
If you have a personality disorder and don’t behave in the ways described here, that’s wonderful. Your family and friends are most fortunate. However, there’s an incredibly high percentage of personality disordered individuals who do abuse their partners and families. That’s the target audience. It’s not about you. Feel better?
If not, your feelings and how you manage them (or don’t manage them) aren’t my responsibility. They’re your responsibility.
That’s what’s most vexing about trigger warnings. Trigger warnings demand that everyone walk on eggshells. It’s the social mandate that we all walk on eggshells, so the emotionally unstable don’t have to deal with their uncomfortable emotions and anything else that sets them off. And there’s the fly in the ointment.
To be clear, anything can set them off.
What was okay on Monday might set them off on Thursday. You practice radical acquiescence (i.e., yessing them to death) to avoid conflict, and eventually they rage at you for being so damned agreeable. Walking on eggshells is no-win for you and win-win for Crazy. Tiptoeing around their triggers is a win, and so is raging at you when you trip one of their triggers.
In my experience, professional victims enjoy being aggrieved and playing the victim. They also derive power from the victim identity. Specifically, perpetual victims or professional victims often hold others hostage via their alleged victimhood.
By virtue of their alleged victimization, they appoint themselves judge, jury and thought enforcement (i.e., the thought police) of what others “are allowed” to say, think, feel and how we express ourselves. In extreme cases, this has resulted in doxing, destroying lives and careers and the risk of offline physical violence. These people aren’t victims. They’re bullies.
Health and reason mandate that we stop walking on eggshells.
Walking on eggshells is backwards logic and backwards behavior whether it occurs in intimate relationships or on a larger social scale. Trigger warnings afford lunatics the run of the asylum. It also puts the burden on the emotionally stable, which I can’t emphasize strongly enough, is backwards thinking.
If you’re working hard not to trigger your narcissistic or borderline spouse, the wrong person is doing the work. It’s their responsibility to manage their feelings and behavior. Again, trigger warnings demand that everyone walk on eggshells. Characterological pathology isn’t the only culprit here. Over a decade of social media, anyone can become a self-appointed expert (even without real world academic and professional training and practice). Anyone, including people who believe the earth is flat, become enraged by differing opinions or facts that disprove them. It’s a shitshow.
Trigger warnings demand that everyone walk on eggshells. Enough of that!
Feeling bad about ourselves doesn’t feel good. Pretty profound, huh? Nevertheless, feeling bad about ourselves is often a necessary catalyst to making healthy changes. Walking on eggshells and trigger warnings cocoon emotionally unstable abusers from reaching a level of discomfort for change to be possible, if it’s even possible. It isn’t in many cases due to the nature of personality disorders.
People who need trigger warnings to get through each day without having a successive series of emotional meltdowns don’t want to dwell in reality and make it difficult for those of us who do. It’s unrealistic and self-absorbed to expect others to tiptoe around their feelings and emotional reasoning lest they experience the tiniest scintilla of personal offense or emotional discomfort.
Someone who goes into emotional tailspin or full-on crisis from reading a blog post doesn’t need a trigger warning. They need professional offline help, so they don’t go into emotional tailspins in reaction to articles, comments, Tweets and videos they dislike or disagree with.
Indulging in trigger warnings and walking on eggshells only serves to enable more of that insanity and lack of personal responsibility. Refusing to no longer play along may likely end the relationship or enrage some Internet citizens, but that’s a healthy outcome if the emotionally unstable person can’t or won’t grow up.
Counseling, Consulting and Coaching with Dr. Tara J. Palmatier, PsyD
Dr. Tara J. Palmatier, PsyD helps individuals work through their relationship and codependency issues via telephone or Skype. She specializes in helping men and women trying to break free of an abusive relationship, cope with the stress of an abusive relationship or heal from an abusive relationship. She combines practical advice, emotional support and goal-oriented outcomes. Please visit the Schedule a Session page for professional inquiries.
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Right on, Dr. T.
Like the saying goes, “To learn who controls you, find out whom you’re not allowed to criticize. Or clear dishes in front of. Or say good morning to.
Or look at.”
Okay, so I threw a few more things in there. But we all know the scenario. A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G can trigger an emotionally unstable person. I found out the hard way. The most innocent animated gif of a scampering squirrel resulted in my being screamed at and called every vile name in the book. I was a target of convenience. The squirrel escaped unharmed. 🙂
But seriously. Life is short. Why spend even a minute of it being controlled by someone else’s erratic, hair-trigger temper?
Not my temper. Not my problem. Not my circus. Not my monkeys.
I had to go no contact. But no longer having to plot minefield navigation maps actually frees up a lot of time in my week.
I should have added that despite being divorced for several years, the above video scared me due to how many sociopathic traits my ex had. I’m still amazed, and extremely thankful, that I was able to get divorced with minimal drama. In large part because my ex had created an obsession (and entire inner fantasy world) about a minor celebrity from her current and my former religion. While that obsession turned my marriage bad to hell*, it resulted in her eventual religious retrenchment, which I believe was a way to appeal, in her mind, to the celebrity and made discarding me, her unbelieving husband, desirable.
Makes me wonder if Cluster B’s are primarily sociopaths with Narcissism, Borderline or Histrionic being a secondary trait.
*Not joking. During a discussion with my best friend and his observations of my psychological well being, he remarked a specific year and season when I took a very sharp, dark turn. He didn’t know why. At first it puzzled me since I’d thought of my decent into hell as more gradual. I then realized that the time he mentioned was exactly when the celebrity first burst onto the scene.
Dear Dr T. Palmatier.
For my first post in your site I –above all- would like to thank you for your genuine and responsible work, aiming at the real victims of abuse –contrary to political correct approaches filling the internet.
A year ago I had no idea of what BPD/NPD is; no “antibodies” at all. So, after the “fall from grace” of my waif BPD ex-girlfriend I didn’t even know what kind of answers I was looking for. Quite tormenting I might say. With persistence –and some luck- I eventually found your site along with other friendly ones (eg. Dr Schreiber’s) that provided me with all the answers I needed. This was a truly liberating experience as I comprehended (with some terror I must confess) what I was dealing with. Besides that, the extra gift was that I managed to identify a lot of my own “glitches” (otherwise I would not have taken the bait of a BPD) and further work on them.
What I’m concerned with now is the eggshells/landmines triggering the revenge of a BPD/NPD person. The facts are as following: She discarded me at one of my weakest moments; while mourning for the loss of a family member and never even bothered to ask how I was doing after that (no surprises here). Complete frost. However, after three months and only after she saw me with a new girlfriend, dared to text me to tell me that I was impolite to ignore her (can you believe that?). I responded in decisive and sharp manner exposing her for what she really was, demanding that she should not contact me again. She responded with uncontrolled rage and filthy language (although never expressed any direct threat). Now, after two months of mutual complete radio silence, should I consider myself safe from her (as a waif type) or should I always keep an eye on my back for her unexpected revenge after that day?
Your opinion is always appreciated. Keep up with the exceptional work dear Dr. T!
I’m not Dr. T, but I’ll chime in with a few thoughts.
Your vulnerability to/immunity from your ex is not primarily driven by time. It’s driven by you — what you call your own “glitches.” Until your own internal issues are resolved & healed, you will always be vulnerable to Cluster B types.
Since you framed your question as a matter of time (after two months, should I consider myself safe from her), that suggests to me that you still have work to do.
Moreover, the very phrasing of your question gives HER the power over you — will SHE disrupt your life once again, will SHE come back after a certain period of time, do you need to watch over your shoulder for HER and what SHE might pull next?
People have as much power over you as you give them. Mentally & emotionally, you are still giving her control over you.
When you are able to live your daily life without that framing … when you are able to treat texts from her no different than you would treat Nigerian scam emails and spam about Unbelievable Rx Discounts Today!!!! … then, I would say, you are well and truly out of the BPD Zone.
Hello dear hexaphone!
Thank you very much for your time to post your thoughts on my case. Indeed, you describe accurately my state before having serious realizations on the matter; even though I was always alarmed that “there’s something wrong here but I can’t tell what exactly”. However, after I studied what BPD/NPD is my view changed radically. In general, I’d say that I paid a quite low toll for this catalytic experience and the precious protective knowledge that came along.
Perhaps I didn’t give the correct view on my current situation as I didn’t get into much detail, but I was talking about something more straightforward and external. After the last contact (2M ago), I found out that she started secretly defaming me and calumniating me to others (common friends, co-workers etc.) although she attempted no further contact with me ever since. Of course I can deal with that any time and quite easily. But contacting her -even to to tell her to f**k off- is exactly what I want to avoid (and I guess that she is trying to lure me into that)!
So, what I’m actually asking is: My guess is that the thing will cool off by itself as she will -sooner or later- find another source of supply and focus on it. However, is the intensification of her revenge possible in the mean time? And if yes, what would be your advice?
All best!
Smear campaigns are a way to 1) get attention, and 2) wage a PR war that discredits you and put them in a positive light. If you respond **to her** she wins. She gets the attention she’s so desperately seeking and can use your email/text as proof that you’re a horrible jerk.
If mutual friends or colleagues ask you directly, it’s usually best not to divulge all the details. Keep it brief and factual. If friends have more questions then answer if you’re okay with doing so. Most people just want to be left out of other people’s dramas. Unless they’re incredibly immature or disordered (often the two go hand in hand) themselves.
If her vindictiveness crosses into criminal behavior like physical threats, blackmail, suicide threats, theft or stalking/harassment, then take appropriate legal action and protect yourself. You don’t take matters into your own hands and respond directly. Call 911, an attorney or law enforcement.
Unless she’s a severe case, she’ll probably lose interest if you don’t reinforce her behavior by giving her attention and when the Eye of Sauron focuses on a new target.
However, sometimes narcissists, borderlines and psychopaths can be like a volcano or herpes blister. They can lie dormant for an extended period and then erupt for no apparent reason. Usually, they’re in between victims and scroll through their contact list looking for a substitute/transitional attention source or they hear a Taylor Swift song on the radio that reminds them of you.
It’s the same advice. Ignore, unless it’s criminal behavior.
I am not a mental health professional, but i have developed a different terminology about mental disorders.
Why call people narcisissts, sociopaths, or psychopaths, when society already gave those people a name millenia ago? EVIL
Why call people BPD, when you can just call them immature, spoiled brats?
Oftentimes i keep thinking that all this talk about personality disorders is just a way to excuse bad behaviour.
“Oh, i am not cheating on you because i am a bad selfish person, i just have a personality disorder….”
In my opinion there is a clear distinction between truly sick people, for example paranoid schizophrenics, and PD people. Scizophreneia is a brain disease, people hallucinate and have serious issues, not their character fault, or choice. But PD people to me are just bad characters. By trying to label them as PD we are perhaps enabling them to think they are just sick and can’t change who they really are.
In the end, being evil (or spoiled) is a decision you make. Every person has a free will and can always make a choice. By claiming someone has a PD, it is like treating him like his choices were set in stone without his will. At least that is how i perceive things when i watch articles and discussions on the internet regarding PDs.
I am not saying there is anything wrong with Personality Disorders classification. Obviously mental health professionals need these classicifactions to do their job when people visit expecting help. But i get the feeling that during the last 5-10 years PD discussion has become too mainstream among casual non professional people online, and people de-humanize PD people and treat them like automatons with no free will and just a sickness predetermined on their genes or something…
The fact that there are “trigger notices” already is telling of this. If someone is treating PD people like normal people who can make a choice, he has no reason to include any warning. If anyone has an issue with “sensitive” subjects, he can take a hike… But when your perception of PD is that of a sickness someone can’t really control (and thus is a victim of, narcissists as victims, lol), you end up with ridicoulous things like posting trigger notices, apologizing for “offending” PD people, and walking on eggshells…
Hi Christos,
No one here makes excuses for people who are personality disordered or who exhibit the traits of a personality disorder. These individuals are responsible for their choices and behaviors. And, except in extreme cases, they can control themselves if they choose to do so. They may not like doing so as it requires they deny themselves the gratification of lashing and acting out, but that’s part of being an adult.
Diagnostic labels are meant as a clinical shorthand for mental health professionals and to inform treatment, just like medical diagnoses. Unfortunately, over the last 20 years, the mental health profession (not all, but a significant part) has become enablist and apologist, especially with borderline personality disordered individuals, arguing that the very diagnosis is “stigmatizing.” That’s ridiculous. The diagnostic label describes a cluster of behaviors that are a pervasive and chronic. The behaviors (lying, abusing, suicide threats and pseudo attempts to emotionally blackmail, emotional immaturity and instability, interpersonal sabotage and destruction, etc.) are what qualify someone for that diagnosis. Those behaviors rightfully carry a stigma, no matter what diagnostic label is applied to them.