5 MINUTES
with DR. LAURA SCHLESSINGER
Learn to Deal With Triggers W
ay too many people are all into “triggers.” I own a Colt Python revolver, and the use of that word refers to a potential life and
death situation. However, nowadays, it also means that something or someone has upset or off ended you. Furthermore, that something or someone must be
stopped — even if it means eliminating freedom of speech by not discussing it. One female caller recently talked about triggering
issues. She has been married for eight years (after dating for six) and she and her husband have a 4-year-old. “I have been diagnosed with mild depression and
anxiety, causing me to have a lot of triggers in my everyday life,” she told me. “My husband is having a hard time accepting and dealing with those triggers, and it’s causing a lot of arguments.” Her husband, who has known her for 14 years,
suddenly has been commanded to tiptoe around things that bother and upset her, whether or not he is actually doing something inappropriate, inconsiderate, stupid, or mean.
According to her, it’s all because he doesn’t understand
she has a mental illness. OK, please. I might sound like the least compassionate
psychotherapist in the universe, but I have to say that mild depression/anxiety is a bit of the norm these days, and in life in general. Learning to cope with boredom, disappointments,
frustrations, challenges you didn’t anticipate, the pandemic, the problems of violence and organized hate, fi nances and the economy, raising children — and on and on — has made depression/anxiety a bit of an epidemic. The problem in general with women is that we are not
aggressive nor assertive in communicating our points of view, desires, unhappiness, frustration, needs, and even anger.
Instead, we turn inward, toward mild depression/
anxiety. Lately, it has become popular to blame others for how we feel. The use of the term trigger makes others responsible and renders us intellectually and emotionally weak.
D
isaster movies always have the contrast between the individual attempting to deal with the dangerous issues
while other characters just whine, cry, blame others, or resort to stupid actions that endanger everyone even more. Why are folks not learning from these tried-and-true
plot lines? When you don’t want to accept life’s realities, you have the option to face them and adapt or change
74 NEWSMAX MAXLIFE | FEBRUARY 2024
something in the way you deal with the situation and people involved. When you instead self-label as “mentally ill” and use
that to ensure that others no longer can judge you or hold you accountable, you diminish your ability to truly function in life and make life better. Whatever was truly bothering my caller was not being
acknowledged nor managed. Instead, she blew up a diagnosis of mild depression/anxiety into mental illness with pesky triggers that her husband was supposed to respect and not expect her to be responsible. This is psychobabble nonsense that has the purpose of
making everyone walk on eggshells around you and expect nothing or little from you. You are supposed to learn how to deal with your
so-called triggers, which are usually the normal expectations of others — like her husband and sexual intimacy — based on the routines already established in the relationship and family functioning. You’re supposed to learn how to deal with what
you call triggers and not expect everyone to remove all annoyances from your life. You need to learn — perhaps through psychotherapy with a counselor who gets it — how to express your concerns, emotions, confusions, pain, fears, and so on without putting the other person on notice that the slightest thing would hurt you into virtual withdrawing. I reminded her that her husband is going to disappoint
her because he simply does not understand why he cannot express himself. I told her, “That means you have to do a better job of
handling your own triggered emotion at the moment: breathing, taking a walk, having decaf tea, singing, humming, dancing, getting into a yoga pose. “You’re going to have to do something to deal with what
just got you triggered. The rest of the world doesn’t care about your triggers. If you don’t, you’ll just be a cork in the ocean. But the cork can’t tell the waves and currents what to do. “I don’t want you to be a cork. I want you to get back
your power. You are abdicating it, and there are reasons we abdicate it that are kind of semi-obvious. We have diminished responsibility for our own lives and pass the responsibility to others to placate us by being alert about our triggers. It’s not going to work in the long run. You’re always going to be disappointed.”
Listen to Dr. Laura on SiriusXM Channel 111, Mon.–Sat. 2–6pm ET, Sun. 5–9pm ET.
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