Here is what to do when someone is being triggered and opening up about their trauma - or at least what works for me:

1: Make Sure They Are Safe - out of danger to and from themself and to and from others/the environment.

2: Make Sure You Are Safe - physically, emotionally and spiritually available, capable and able to helping the person without being overwhelmed or triggered, or at least only to an acceptable level.

3: Ground Them In The Present Moment - this will help stop them from being triggered, get them to focus on what they can see, hear, touch, taste, and smell. Help them to slow down the breathing and heart rate and get them what they need: food, water, clothing, comfort items, medication, shelter etc.

4: Practice Unconditional Positive Regard - Hold space for their truth, even if it doesn’t makes sense to you, or seems objectively ‘incorrect’, in that moment, it is their truth. Be a loving and accepting mirror. Their feelings are their feelings in that moment. And realise that if they’re triggered, they are quite literally biochemically structurally back in that past trauma.

5: Listen & Offer
- Hear them out and if appropriate and only if you are willing, offer what you can do to help.

6: End With A Promise
- have them promise that they will reach out to you (or someone specific) if they are at risk or if the triggers and flashbacks return.

7: Follow Up
- Tell them that you are going to follow up and do so. This shows you care and are extending the care into the future, reinforcing their promise.

8: Self Care
- Practice self care and ensure your own ongoing physical, psychological, and spiritual safety and wellbeing.

- Blackness - Chapter from Under The Influence
- Guard Your Mental State At All Costs - Blog
- Create A Crisis Plan - It May Save Your Life
- Poetry From A Dark Night Of The Soul - Book

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