*trigger warning for general talk about triggers in mental illness
Introduction
Growing up, the phrase, "garbage in, garbage out," was thrown around everywhere I went, but I never understood it until I heard the song by Tal & Acacia, Garbage In. You've probably never heard of these two women but I heard their music all the time growing up. They're one of the few artists, in my opinion, that have a unique and authentic sound who were also part of the contemporary Christian music movement. When you listen to some of their songs, you can tell that they've been to hell and back. Anyway, I hope you'll give the song a listen. If you've never heard the phrase before, it just means that whatever you let enter your mind will one day escape your thoughts and eventually, your mouth. So, it's basically impossible to keep your true feelings a secret forever. The phrase is a metaphor about garbage, if you couldn't already tell. When you buy something online, it's delivered in a box and packaging. Once it gets to your house, you open it and throw away the packaging (hopefully, recycle). In doing so, you leave things in the trash that relate to what came into your house. By looking at the trash, you can tell what it was that you bought online. Most of the time when someone says this they're referring to something like watching a movie that's inappropriate or listening to a song with one too many cuss words. It can also apply to good things, though. For example, after watching a video about the benefits of meditation, you may be inspired to start meditating in your own time. Now that you know what this phrase means, I want you to ignore that meaning as I talk about how we can use this phrase to better understand and respond to ourselves and other people.
Practicing Empathy for Others
"Garbage in, garbage out," easily explains a complicated concept but, psychologically, it may be more accurate to say, "garbage in, garbage builds, garbage out." Even in out metaphor above, there is time before the packaging will leave the house and be moved to a dumpster. There will be more garbage before it's able to leave the house. I know it sounds stupid but stick with me on this. It'll make sense.
There are many different kinds of people, but, sometimes, people are just bad. It usually takes a series of events and surroundings to lead to someone actually getting to that point, though. If you're a server or host at a restaurant, you're probably used to dealing with annoying, mean, or selfish customers. However, someone having a temper tantrum isn't an excuse to play the blame game or point weapons in return. It's an exercise to practice patience and kindness. However, practicing kindness and patience should be thrown to the side if your emotional, physical, or mental safety or health is at risk. It takes time, but being genuinely kind will get you places that nothing else can. Returning to the story of a server and a rude customer, if the server responds in anger to the angry customer, they get fired. Kindness (even if forced) must be used to continue being employed. This customer could be bearing the weight of being evicted with nowhere to go or just having lost a close friend alone. This doesn't give the customer's attitude a free pass but how would you want to be treated if you were experiencing something so negative and being a difficult customer? Again, you don't need to risk your emotional, physical, or mental safety or health to be kind.
Practicing Empathy for Yourself
For those of us with mental illness, we, unfortunately, know what it's like to be triggered. Whether it be a trigger to a flashback from a traumatic experience or a trigger for an anxiety attack, there's this horrible feeling of losing control and then whatever was triggered happens. For the most part, we also can't control our exposure to triggers as is expected in the original meaning of "garbage in, garbage out." Triggers can, also, seem really stupid to other people who have no idea what you've experienced, but they're always triggering for an important reason. I bring this up because "garbage in, garbage sits, garbage out" applies to this as well. Sometimes, a trigger doesn't affect us right away. This could be for a variety of reasons, from being in a stressful situation to it being a smaller trigger. Triggerstacking happens when smaller triggers are all stacked on top of each other in a short period of time and lead to a, seemingly, uncalled for reaction. Some of my first panic attacks happened because of this. I had no idea what was going on at the time but eventually being stressed about tests, homework, feeling confused and alone, in general, and being in a group of people exploded into debilitating hours long panic attacks. This would be an example of "garbage building." I can hear your comments, "But, Kiki, understanding triggers in a different way because of a metaphor about garbage won't actually change anything." That's where you're wrong.
Just like there's more than one way to get rid of trash, there's more than one way to remove the stress of triggers while they're building that can potentially stop the worst reaction to a specific trigger from happening.
This is where coping mechanisms come in. You can use unhealthy coping mechanisms, if you want to, to manage the stress of mental illness, but these will only lead to worsening the stress in the long run. That's why we can use healthy coping mechanisms to keep some of the triggers from stacking or leading to an explosion of symptoms. For me, that healthy coping mechanism is writing and playing ukulele. Of course, this doesn't magically cure me of all my mental illness but it helps make it more manageable. If you have a healthy coping mechanism that works for you, don't let other people or things stand in your way from using it. I used to let people tell me how I should express my feelings but, not only, was this wrong on their part, it was unhealthy for me. I had to spend extra time figuring out what to do to express myself and cope. What works for me, may not work for you. Some people play sports, some people hike and spend time in nature, some people turn to art, some people hone in on academics. If you don't already have ways to express yourself and cope with the harsh reality of triggers, start searching for something.
Conclusion
Triggers in, triggers build, triggers out. What goes up must come down. Garbage comes in and garbage goes out. However, you want to say it the facts of the matter are the same. We can't control gravity, science, or what triggers and stressful life events do to us. We can control our responses, to some extent. There are grounding exercises, coping mechanisms, and other amazing people to help you out. Empathy, patience, and kindness with ourselves and strangers can completely transform your life when practiced sincerely. Are you ready to take that leap?
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