In my past few posts, I have been discussing triggers that those navigating trauma may experience around the holidays. My previous post was about how pictures can act as a trigger: https://strengthinmystory.com/pictures-as-triggers/. Just as pictures can transport us back to a moment in time, music can do the same thing.
Music Triggers for PTSD/Grief
For individuals who have PTSD, music can act as a trigger which may lead to a panic attack. At first you may not even realize that the song that is playing is causing your panic response. You might ask how or why music could be a trauma based trigger. There are a couple reasons:
- Perhaps it was a song or similar to a song that your abuser played frequently
- Perhaps it was the song or similar to a song that was playing when your trauma experience happened
For individuals in the grieving process music can trigger an emotional response. Especially for songs that remind you of a memory or loved one/friend that you are grieving the loss of.
My Holiday Song Triggers
As I have mentioned before, my ex-husband was absolutely obsessed with Christmas. This means that we listened to Christmas carols sometimes starting in October. My ex-husband had many unique and silly variations to these songs. Now whenever I hear some of these particular songs, I will sing them with his variation and it makes me sad and also wish that I could hear the song without thinking about him. Last year at Christmas time, due to my grief I did not want to listen to Christmas music. I felt the need to avoid this trigger because I would cry when starting to listen to it. I have made a lot of progress and am able to listen to these songs now.
Despite all of my progress, there is one holiday song that I will avoid at all costs: “Baby It’s Cold Outside”. This one triggers my PTSD instead of my grief. My ex-husband always made a huge ordeal about this song every time that we listened to it. He always said that this song was horrible because it was basically a song about sexual assault. He felt like the male singer was coercing the female singer in the song to sleep with him when she clearly wanted to leave. He “cared” so much about the issue of sexual assault in the song, but was willing to sexually assault me, his wife, on multiple occasions. Hearing this song makes me angry, but also makes me flashback to him sexually assaulting me.
As with all triggers remember that it is normal to feel all of the feelings. You may not know why you are being triggered, and it may take some reflection, journaling, and work with therapeutic services to recognize it. Reminder to give yourself grace as you move through this process.
