Life As Performance Art 133

I had an interesting insight yesterday. It turns out that I enjoy being triggered. And I don't think that I'm the only one. I remember a scene from the Lucy Show, starring Lucille Ball, back in the sixties. A rather nasty society matron (built rather like an elegant brick shit-house with an Italian marble interior and gold plated fixtures) had just been gravely offended by something that Lucy said, and she was storming out of the room sputtering, "I've never been so insulted in all my life!" And as she was leaving, Lucy dryly quipped, "Oh yes you have." I think I was ten or eleven years old when I saw this, and even at that tender age, I got it, and enjoyed a very hearty laugh about it, then I saw the same episode just a couple of years ago on YouTube, during one of my repeating phases of childhood TV Nostalgia. My mother was like that too, I remember. She seemed to enjoy getting mad, or getting triggered, and seemed to almost sit up and beg for the slightest provocation. My brother? A chip off the old block. Pushing his buttons became so easy that I eventually got bored with it. His beatings (he was older, bigger, with a very vile temper) didn't seem to help much either. Even if I have a milder and gentler temperament than others in my family, I also enjoy being triggered, or so it seems. It still happens, from time to time, but I no longer worry about it. My supervisor mentioned yesterday that it's really the endorphin release that I enjoy. I suppose he's right. I am also remembering an ex-friend, a PTSD suffer, like myself, a couple of years ago. He ended the friendship because he said I triggered him. Which was really his way of saying he simply didn't like me, I suppose. I don't think he enjoyed being triggered, but being rich and influential, was bound and determined to fester in his opulent fortress in the West End instead of facing, embracing and enjoying life in all its unpredictable complexity. But I happen to enjoy drama. I enjoy life. I love being alive. I love the feeling of being alive. That's right, Gentle Reader. I am a drama queen! I thrive on outrage. In a way this has actually made my recovery from PTSD all the easier. I had to make up my mind that trauma and triggers, throughout this comedy-tragedy-melodrama we call life, are always going to be inevitable. I think the real damage has been done by the psychiatric profession, the way they rush in like vultures to a zebra carcass at the slightest hint of psychopathology. is there such a condition as post traumatic stress disorder? I would say so. However, it is not an isolated psychological impairment that afflicts a growing minority of trauma survivors. It is the general condition of our society, and it is the general condition of our humanity. Different people cope with it, or fail to cope, in different ways, and it is those who do not cope in ways that are considered socially acceptable that get labelled as sick. I used to thrive on coasting and riding on my triggers. It would take something as simple as being threatened by an off leash aggressive dog, then I would carry that trigger to work, to my building managers, to church, to my friends, providing quite the dramatic domino effect where I was suddenly alienated from everyone and ready to blow up the world. The only thing that has really changed is this: when the first trigger happens, I slow down a bit, but I don't stop. I simply decide that it is not going to go any further. I take extreme care in my interactions with others over the following day or two, to make sure this does not repeat. My success is often mixed, but at least things don't snowball the way they used to. Otherwise, nothing has really changed. But I also enjoy the experience, and now that I know this, this is going to be a lot of fun to play with, Gentle Reader! Like a child playing with matches?