triggers
The other night, my friend put in his favorite movie "Full Metal Jacket" to watch with me. I hadn't been able to remember if I'd ever seen it, and I'd told him that it wasn't something I'd want to watch on my own, but I'd like to watch it with him. He'd meant to just play a little bit, but he got into it, and talked to me about his experiences as a Marine, which was cool. Then came the part where Pyle is in the bathroom with the gun, and I had a feeling what was going to happen next, but I just braced myself and didn't say anything, thought I could deal with it. I was hoping it wouldn't show anything. Of course, it showed it, and I seriously lost it, and started sobbing.
He knew instantly why I reacted like that, and shut the movie off, hugged me and kept saying how sorry he was, that he shouldn't have shown that to me, that he should have known it'd be a major trigger (my niece killed herself with a shotgun in the bathroom, and my sister found her, and told me what she saw because she needed to talk to someone).
My ex used to look for pictures/video of people who'd blown their heads off just to show me. I tried not to let him get to me. I tried to be strong.
But I trust my friend, and I don't need to be strong around him, so even though I'd braced myself, I ended up crying for a few minutes and he just hugged me and apologized over and over.
The next day I mailed him and said he must think I'm a wuss, and he replied "Instead of a total wuss, i think the reason you can cry in front of me is that you trust me not to hurt you, at least on purpose."
Do you go out of your way to avoid triggers, just brace yourself, or seek out triggers when you need to let it out? Does your reaction depend on who is around? Can you control it? What happens when something triggers you? Is it just embarrassing, or worse?