The Triggering Event and the Loop of Negativity

Given trauma survivors’ levels of hypervigilance, hair-trigger startle responses, the perpetual state of flight or fight, and their vulnerability toward affect dysregulation (Hollander, 2008), it is not surprising when they experience extreme overarousal to seemingly benign stressors. Often the stimulus is, objectively speaking, fairly innocuous. What matters most is the subjective sense of being threatened and triggered.