The Trigger

There are words that act as triggers in our subconsciousness. We may not even realize it at the moment, being caught in the conversation, but they dig and screw into our brain, kick that sound asleep amygdala and drive it insane. That small mass of gray matter, in charge with our primary emotions – fear, pleasure, and all the impulses that help us survive as animals, but not as superior beings – recovers from shock and takes control.

Those words… well, I’ve heard them before, not too far in the past to be forgotten. The voice was different, the looks were different, the touch was different; but the phrase was strikingly similar. It’s the kind of sentence that make the amygdala choose within the triple-F group: fight-flight-freeze.

Back then, I fought. It was a dreadful mistake that at least has proven a well-learnt lesson. This time I chose the flight. Prove me wrong, as I’m not frozen. I’ll save that as a last resort, my vision of regressing to animals. Stop my lucid drifting into thin air; confront me, make me fight, keep me alive and present.

People don’t even know the triggers of others’ phobias or drive. Ironically, that’s the beauty of their interaction; far from being robots, they still get to be spontaneous in spite of past experiences. And, sadly, that’s the drama of the same interaction, when they can’t even tell where they poked the arrow. What they’ve triggered and how. Some don’t even care and move along, shrugging with indifference.

But I care. Retrigger me.

(01 iul 2020)