Triggers

According to my old text books, emotional triggers are things that remind you of something in the past and you feel the same way you did then. For example, a positive emotional trigger for me…Oreos. My great-grandmother always had them at her house when I was little. She didn’t speak English, we couldn’t have a conversation, but I spent hours in her kitchen eating Oreos and milk. When I see Oreos I think of her and feel loved and happy.

I could easily list a host of positive triggers that remind me of the people I love and who love me. I also have plenty of negative triggers. I avoid a certain Massachusetts town, and major highway for that matter. A lot of my triggers are songs. Every significant person in my life has a song. Sometimes their song changes, depending on how my relationship with them changes. Most songs remind me of someone.

Today, I discovered a new negative trigger that I wasn’t aware of. The Red Sox. Yes, my favorite baseball team, also has potential to make me feel like I got kicked in the stomach, well…maybe it isn’t the Red Sox. The guy that I’ve praising the last few blogs knows someone who has tickets to a Sox game. He asked if I was free, but I have a work thing that I can’t/don’t want to miss. All of a sudden, I got really emotional, felt really insecure and got scared. What? Because I can’t go to a game?! It’s never about the game…

Summer of 2003. My ex and I had been dating for few months. He asked me to go to a Sox game. I couldn’t go. My roommate was free and she ended up going with him. We had all known each other for a while, this was a common occurrence for one or all of us to go to events together. Because they were headed into the city early, I had told him I would stop by his place after my work event to let his dog out.

I got to his house, I walked up the stairs, the dog came running…and so did the ex. Naked. He starts screaming at me What the f*** are you doing here? You are crazy! I could not even find the words to explain that I was there to let the dog out, like we had talked about. I couldn’t talk or move for what seemed like forever (I’m sure it was only five seconds). In those moments I retraced my steps walking in and realized that both his car and my roommate’s car were parked outside. Still without saying a word, I pushed past him and walked into his bedroom. Someone was hiding under the covers. He walked in behind me and said don’t bother hiding, she knows you’re here. She never had the balls to uncover her face. She also never said a single word.

I turned around to leave and he followed after me giving me a “it’s not what you think” speech. In that moment, I finally opened my mouth and everything came rushing out. I don’t remember the words spoken or who said what but I remember what I was feeling. The room was spinning. My head was spinning. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. I was panicked and couldn’t think. I thought I was dying. I was hot, literally. I remember him begging me to be quiet and I only got louder. I’m sure what was coming out of my mouth didn’t even make sense. It was like The scene from The Exorcist.

I couldn’t trust what I thought was the purest of relationships (I’m talking about her, not him here). My roommate, my best friend was having sex with my boyfriend, my other best friend and I WALKED IN ON THEM. To this day, I do not know if they even went to the game and/or why they weren’t in Boston. Life as I knew it, changed that day. That is when I started mistrusting not just men, but friends. That’s when I started to question everything. I packed up everything the next day and moved in with my parents. There’s a long story that follows, and I wish I could say I ended it then and there, but I didn’t. Suffice it to say; that was only the beginning.

I have come a long way since then: Older, wiser and stronger. I have also gone to plenty of games since then. I’m choosing to not let all of the emotions triggered control me, it’s not as hard as you would think. It’s funny how the past comes back to remind you where you’ve been.