Reader Age Rating: 16+ Swearing, Dense Topics
Managing the explosion… Oh shit. Slow, deep breath.
Having IED (Intermittent Explosive Disorder) triggered by PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) that’s often tricked by normal things — social interactions, water running, toilets flushing, bumps behind a wall, smells, you get it — sucks. It just sucks. And another thing that often sucks more is having to manage it in the moment while conflict swirls around you, inside of you. Add a client that systematically tells you how absolute shit you, not your work, are…
Suddenly, taking a deep breath no longer seems like a viable answer. Screaming in mental agony while your body rages with burning razor-wire worms rapid firing through your veins seems better. Letting your heart push all things “stress” and “kill” through your body while your senses heighten, and you just release the pressure where your brain is saying to release it seems better. Even opening your mouth and eviscerating the current aggressive client in your wake seems better.
Those things aren’t better options.
Letting your breath out slowly, as labored or shaken as it may be, is a better option. Walking away, even if you lose the client, is a better option. Taking extra time to let the words you want to scream is a better option. And one of the best options available is setting up your game plan for the “when,” not the “if.”
I know how that sounds but preparing for something that’s likely to happen, given you can’t always control the conditions, is vastly better than hoping something doesn’t happen (the “if”). The best part of prepping for the “when” of a condition is there’s usually not a lot of physical stuff to bring around with you. Just you and your brain…. maybe some brain mates.
Alright, let’s get into it.
Breathe. But exhale first…
Yeah, it might sound weird. It might not. But exhaling while you’re in a heightened state before you take that first, fresh inhale can be more helpful than just inhaling extra air on top of … already too much air. When your body is in an elevated state, it does this wonderful thing of overinflating you like a balloon because “having too much oxygen is better than not enough when you need to run away, right?!”
The overinflation tends to happen in the top part of the lung, which means the air in the lung’s lower air sacks down at the bottom are still full of extra, stale, crap air. While you’re taking shallow breaths because your brain is telling the rest of you that you need more air, your lungs are trying to exchange the old gasious CO2 (carbon dioxide, pretend there are subscripts) for clean O (oxygen) and during the body’s amp to defuse/avoid (or destroy) the dangerous situation.
Exhaling first does a few things.
It reminds you where you are and that you’re still congnizant enough to know you need to exhale. That’s a good place to be; it means you’re able to think, which is damn near impossible for a lot of folks – and not for others. (For those that it’s easy for, the next section is definitely for you.) The other thing it does is empty the lungs and reset the breathing routine. Resetting that routine puts you even more in charge of the physical aspect that can cause more hype or amped up triggered behavior. You’ll still be triggered, but you’ll have a hand on the wheel and might even be in the driver’s seat.
Once you exhale and feel yourself deflate completely, take a slow and deep breath through your nose, if you can. Make sure the breath goes to your belly, you’ll feel your abdomen expand. Hold it for a few seconds then exhale fully again. For anyone who can’t or isn’t comfortable breathing out of their nose, breathe through your mouth.
This is a low-key way to bring yourself down, especially if the client is face-to-face and/or within arms’ length. Discretion is the first line of defense in the moment.
If you’re smiler when you’re angry… Smile.
If you’re anything like me and a few angry folks I know, you smile when you’re on fire. Get calm when you’re enraged. Become kinder the closer the trigger gets to the white-hot core (and not in the sense of showing your belly, placating kind of nice). If you wonder what the hell that’s about, well… That laughter is a defense and regulation mechanism. A fairly less common one, and one that typically belongs to those who have had to persist regardless of their temper, conditions, trauma or other monumentally shitty reasons.
Laughing and smiling, even while enraged, doesn’t cater to you faking what’s going on. It caters to the fact that you’re flippin’ triggered, enraged and managing. It caters to your body trying to regulate itself and in some way keep you in the foreground and your condition in the background. So let it out, just try not to let it turn into something we’d see on a Netflix documentary in the next few years.
A light chuckle, slow spreading smile, chuff – all are socially acceptable ways to release the anger subtly and gear yourself up to excuse yourself and rebalance your environment. And if that chuckle turns into a laugh, you might want to excuse yourself a little quicker and for a bit longer of a time. That tends to signal some hardcore regulation attempts and your body is trying to do you a solid. Take the win and listen.
Please note: There are medical conditions that cause unexplained laughter or get cross triggered. We aren’t talking about that here, but one common one is the Pseudobulbar Affect.
It’s abrupt… But you can leave.
Yeah, this one is abrupt, but in the moment, it might be a good idea to just leave. If you feel your biceps tighten, taste acid in your mouth when you’ve had not-a-damn-thing acidic, can’t catch your breath and not for a medical reason, walk away. Those are all signs that your trigger is coming if not there, and the reactions are more than likely on the way.
Remember, there’s seldom a situation you’ll be in that you cannot leave. And if you’re with a client, you should be able to leave regardless of what’s going on. If you’re at the point where you’re feeling the physical ramifications of your trigger in your body, past and conditions welling up, it’s better for you, your business and the safety of those around you to just walk away. One bad review is better than going down for assault.
If you know they’re going to trigger you… Do something physical.
No, you should not put hands on them. And this should only be done if you can’t avoid the jackass completely. If you know you’re having a meeting with this client, and they’re prone to setting you off, do something passive and physical like taking a stroll, light photography, meet in a public place (if you can handle the stimuli), play with a fidget, anything.
Your body needs another stimulus to really let you do what you need to do. Walking, being in a public setting, taking pictures, going for a ride on a small lake ferry, anything that really changes the environment and puts a light, functional and working strain on your body can help defuse the tension and trigger.
Business things to do… For your damn sanity.
Before you meet, have a good clear outline of what the hell it is you want to talk about. Having an outline gives you an itinerary to go through and lets you leave when you need to leave with all business items being checked off. This is the “light at the end of the tunnel” so many of us hope for when we get randomly triggered. Set the end of the race, and you’ll know where you had to leave off or know that you finished the conversation.
Next, set a friggin’ timeframe. Even if it’s not public knowledge (meaning your client doesn’t know), you need to set the timeframe for yourself. Set an alarm, make it sound like your ringer, set it up in the clock settings to look like a notification, whatever you have to do to keep time. It doesn’t matter how you do it, but you will want to set a way to interrupt the conversation if it’s not done and move on.
Lastly, conduct your business thoroughly. Finish the contract, end the project, do what you need to do, but block that client and accept nothing else from them. It doesn’t matter how much you enjoyed working with them, how much you may have made off of them, if you’re at the point where the client is triggering you, the relationship has run its course. If that’s an issue with many clients and you feel overwhelmed (first-hand? what? noooo) you may need to switch the direction of your business.
If you’re great at making cast-iron ponies, but also do custom work for an industrial property vertical, and have continued issues with the custom and property arena for whatever reason, leave it and go make your cast-iron ponies. Sure, it’ll be terrifying and time-consuming to swap strategies, but it doesn’t have to be as daunting as it sounds. Time-consuming could just mean a few extra hours or a couple days of deep thought and exploration. A strategy shift could mean you simply go do in-person and guerrilla marketing instead of just digital.
Your mental health and personal integrity is more important than any client. Protect them and you will keep doing what you love to do, it will provide for you, and your path will continue to take you exactly where you need to go. Sucks at first, seems to be damn near impossible at second, but the next step is forging the craft, and if you’re here, you’ve got that going already.
Thanks and Cheers, mates.
