Understand What Pushes Your Buttons

Do you remember a time when you weren’t who you are today? Do you miss that person? If I could remake myself, I’d be as savvy about life as I am now but as sweet of a person as I was before “life” happened to me.

Why? Because me and my mouth now, oooo chile! First off, let me just say this mouth of mine has come a long way from being a girl who didn’t realize the power in her tongue, ok! And I mean that emotionally, mentally and biblically!

I know a lot of women don’t subscribe to the angry black woman vibe and feel that it is a false description of black women who speak up for themselves. I have to agree in some situations it very much is, like in the US Open final of 2018 when Serena Williams was labeled one. But I must say it is a very real title and a lot of women who hate being called one are just like I was, an angry black women who had triggers from her past that had not been dealt with but trying to live like I was all good.

So, what do I mean? Because I know some of you got that eyebrow raised like, “Candace, I thought we were cool, but I don’t know now!” Before you attack me in the comments hear me out. Now, it took some time but one day I got tired of being frustrated, getting into arguments in my relationship, having anxiety about how something was going to turn out after I “went off” and I had to really take a look in the mirror at the person I was presenting to the world versus the person I was behind closed doors and realize that I had an AT-TI-TUDE (and at times still do #workinprogress).

If you rubbed me the wrong way I could get hella loud, unyieldingly defensive and make my BEST attempt to take your entire soul with the words coming out of my mouth! THAT is not the definition of a woman who speaks up for herself. That is not a woman who is healed. That is not a woman who is signed, sealed and delivered from her pain and ready for any type of relationship with anyone.

Whether it be a friendship, significant other, how you engage with family, coworkers, etc., this woman will eventually bump heads with anyone who doesn’t see things her way rather than understanding that sometimes you have to agree to disagree or even open your eyes to the fact that you may very well be, WRONG! And admit it!! This is a woman who is hurt and has only brushed it under the rug rather than accepting the destruction it is causing and will continue to cause with the next person she tries to get close to.

As the saying goes, “hurting people hurt people.” If you can’t have a hard conversation without attacking someone (verbally, physically, mentally, etc.), regardless of what they say or do, you need to self-reflect on who you truly are deep down inside. Whether you can handle doing this on your own with books, podcasts and YouTube videos, or need a professional to get it done for you, you have to accept that you need help.

Now, speaking of seeing a professional, I’m seeing a rise in people say, “there aren’t enough black therapists to deal with black problems.” Well, according to an article in The Baltimore Sun, less than 10 percent of mental health professionals are black, and that’s more than double the amount we had from a study done in 2015 at just four percent.

So, do we just not address ourselves because this isn’t a thriving profession for black people? No! My therapist is a heavy set, blind, white woman. I LOVE HER! Because she tells it like it is and isn’t afraid to slap me in the face with the truth. I had to comb through a few to find her, but someone can help you regardless of skin color if you allow them to. In fact, it’s not necessarily as much about them being black as it is about them being culturally competent which my therapist very much is.

If you don’t know what to do but know you need to do something, you can start by just talking to yourself. Think about things like, how well do you control yourself in situations that make you cringe, give you anxiety and/or piss you off. Why are you like that in those moments? What are some things that “trigger” you?

Now this is where it gets deep, you have to figure out why “it” triggers you. You have to trace it waaaaayy back before the present moment you were triggered then ask yourself, how does THIS MOMENT relate to a time in my life when I was attacked or hurt by someone I valued and I couldn’t defend or speak up for myself?

What do I mean by this? Being fully transparent, I can’t stand for people to come at me in a rude, disrespectful, condescending or aggressive way. It triggers me to attack anyone who does. Stick and stones went out the window with me at a young age, lol!

When I traced how I became this way, I remembered that I was yelled at a lot by my parents, not because I was bad, I call it “adventurous” haha, I was yelled at for reasons I didn’t understand. I was talked down to by both parents, treated like (and told) I would never amount to anything and made to feel less than by them my whole childhood.

No matter how hard I tried it wasn’t enough. I loved them both, but I always felt like they didn’t love me. My mother made me feel like my dark skin wasn’t good enough (among many other things) so she bought me soap that was supposed to lighten it. My dad always drilled into us that we (my brother and I) would never be smart enough to live up to his standard of what a productive black person was when we grew up. It was literally a life full of discouragement with both of them. As an adult, I now know they had their own problems they never addressed and they used their children as an outlet.

Because of them, I became fearful when it came to yelling, not measuring up and the feeling of what would happen when I tried to show/receive love. I then attached that fear to anyone that did those things to me and it became a trigger so I would defend myself the only way I knew how.

If you talked down to me, you would get the business! If you yelled at me, I would yell better! If you cheated on me, I would call you every name for a sorry man I could think of! Thank God I made it through the many other things I did to them as angry me because I could’ve gotten seriously hurt! That’s how I operated for years. When I got triggered and became fearful, it was the child that was still fearful, so my adult self protected my child self if that makes sense. Rather than realizing I needed to address the trigger created by my parents, I just started doing what I saw them do when I was triggered.

Our triggers can vary and be seemingly petty things. In a song off her latest album about just that, Jhené Aiko’s “triggered” lyrics lets us know that she’s “triggered when I see your face, triggered when I hear your name.” It can literally be that simple and you are pissed! Dirty dishes, the toilet paper turned “the wrong way” leaving a mess on the floor, the last person driving the car not filling up the gas tank, etc. We all have a thing that can make us “big mad” and that’s ok. But if it is a cycle that creates constant tension then you have a problem that needs attention.

When you start to address the things that make you trigger happy, you have to understand that your needs are not all that matter in your relationships with other people. But you also have to make sure that said needs are valid and that you aren’t putting unrealistic expectations on people. Otherwise, the things that go on in your head can trigger you to hurt people who have no clue how to help you. If you can’t get over your personal fear, doubts, worries, etc., you will not be available to be who you need to be for you or the person/people you love.

You also have to accept the fact that you have the power to make people slowly close themselves off to you and make your relationship fall apart. People will take a step away from you to protect themselves if you won’t. It’s hard to accept that you pushed someone away, but you very well can. You both may have wrongs, but you and only you are responsible for yours. It’s never their fault you did what you did.

Another reality of this process is the people causing you to be triggered, don’t necessarily know that they are doing it. You may think they should but if you’ve never had a conversation about it, they very well may not. Most of our triggers were created when we were children and we have brought them into our adult lives. We associate them with things that aren’t always true as children because we don’t know how to process our fears as a child.

Here are some steps to begin “fixing yourself.” They may require a counselor so don’t @me if you haul off and break somebody’s nose because you can’t handle you! Fair warning. I mean, imagine what others are feeling dealing with you if you can’t even deal with yourself!

This is in no particular order:

Recognize when you are being triggered. You may not be able to do it in the moment yet, but think about times when you acted outside of yourself and figure out what caused it. What emotion do you feel, anger, sadness, fear? Identify it and you can move forward with fixing it.
What was the earliest memory you have of this feeling? This is more than likely when your trigger was formed. Your subconscious mind will remember something about this trigger if you allow it to.
From there, you have to think of the “you” that you were before you became triggered and figure out how to be that person again. For me, there was a time before the triggers when I was always happy, and I remember it. I was actually very shy but still happy and innocent. I didn’t know how to be mean to people and sometimes I miss it. I always smiled and nothing ever got to me. It took the people I valued the most in life, my parents, boyfriends, family and friends to keep crushing my spirit until I finally gave in and that’s when I started to change. My triggers became real.
Realize that you can’t communicate with someone while you are in trigger mode, so don’t! Get ya mind right first. Your “person” will develop a responsive behavior to you that I promise you won’t like if you keep being triggered you towards them. They evolve with you for the good or the bad.
You can’t be selfish and decide that someone else has to change first. You have to do it whether they do or not. This is for you first, and hopefully the both of you in the end.
- Once one of you starts to release your triggers, the other person will fall in line. It’s a natural reaction when someone treats you better to do the same thing for them.
Understand that this is not a one-time process. You have to consciously do this over and over until you really have control over it. I’ve slipped up many times before I could begin to control it. I’m not perfect at it, but I’m so much better than I was.
BONUS TIP: You can ask the person you hurt the most, what you do to hurt them if you swear you just CANNOT figure out what you do wrong. Trust me, THEY WILL TELL YOU! You just need to prepare your mouth to shut up and listen.

These steps took me quite a while to understand because I consider myself to be the self-help queen so I initially dealt with my triggers myself. I didn’t have a therapist and I didn’t understand the process of figuring out what a trigger was. I didn’t even know there was a process. Which is why I wanted to write this blog post because I know a lot of women that it could benefit so they don’t stay stuck as long as I was.

You can read more about what types of childhood situations create triggers in this article by Dr. Margaret Paul on what emotional triggers are and why you need to understand them. Sign up for my email list so you can read the mini-series I wrote around triggers, resources I’ve found to help you start your mental health journey and what I think people who operate in their emotional triggers do openly to let you know they need help.

My disclaimer about this article: I am not a licensed therapist so my opinions above are based on my personal experiences in addition to what I’ve been counseled on and read on my own. It is just a blueprint to get you started, not the end-all-be-all to your personal problems so please seek help if you need it.

Thank you so much for reading!

~xoxo

Candace