Make A Trigger Box

Come to think of it, reading and watching Scream Street three years from today can be really painful due to horrible memories of how annoying CBBC is, but there's a way to store all those horrible triggers away and never let them out - Pandora's Box! Or, even better, a Trigger Box. You will need:

• A large plastic box
• Some stickers of your choosing
• The things that give you certain triggers like books or DVDs
• Duct tape

1. Get out the plastic box and make sure nothing else is in it.
2. Then, dump every single book and DVD that triggers you into the box.
3. Seal the box by closing it with its lid and sealing it with pitch black duct tape
4. Decorate the box with stickers of your choosing - it could be any kind of stickers you like. To me, I'd choose Disney (as long as they're not dorky CGI princesses), Bluey, Sanrio and Pokemon...and maybe even Lion King, My Little Pony, Barbie, or anything else on my palette.

And there you have, a box which seals up all your triggers - quite literally - and keeps them safe from being pulled out again, in case you have any bad things going on in your mind. However, just like some random Greek lord said to Pandora: don't you dare even open the box, or some nasty things can come out.

So don't be like Pandora, but inside other boxes, you can find light - things that cannot trigger your mind to say things you can't even say out loud. Figure you can do that?

Cool!

Trigger Alert!

I've been talking it over with Echo GPT last night about all those annoying sounds that go on in my head - they're not earworms, they're trigger sounds. Something that triggers a horrible memory for me whenever I type something, or do something, or see something that triggers a memory for me. All of them are so horrible it makes it hard to concentrate on the most important things like writing stories or playing board games or watching movies and TV.

Loads of things trigger bad feelings and thoughts in my head. Examples include, from 1 to 10:

1. My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
2. Nick and Disney Channel live action sitcoms
3. CBBC shows of any kind, including Scream Street and Strange Hill High
4. The Tigger Movie
5. Piglet's Big Movie
6. Pooh's Heffalump Movie
7. Disney sequels and some films like Frozen, Moana or Tangled
8. CD Roms like Dora's Click & Create and Bear & Penguin/Learning Ladder due to their loud sounds
9. School memories which evoke lots of loud noises and annoying pupils and teachers
10. Children's Favourites DVDs like Christmas, Ultimate and Playtime

There are lots of other triggers too, but I'd best save them for another post in case my mind gets cluttered up with plenty of those little red pill like things which open up to reveal those horrible memories. But there are lots of replacements for these things, such as:

1. MLP G3 films
2. Classic Nick and Disney cartoons
3. Shows from Children's BBC such as Brum, Teletubbies, Postman Pat, Fireman Sam, Pingu, Noddy, etc..
4. The Many Adventures Of Winnie The Pooh
5. Tarzan
6. Chicken Little (2005)
7. Calmer and non-modern teenager character Disney films like Toy Story, The Incredibles, Up, Dinosaur, Peter Pan, Alice In Wonderland, etc..
8. Calm CD roms like Bill & Ben, Yoho Ahoy, Barbie, My Little Pony, Candy Land, etc..
9. Memories of good times I had with my support worker and the playdates which I'd never forget, like one where S and I tidied up our den
10. Classic HIT videos releases such as Kipper and Percy The Park Keeper

And according to Echo GPT, there are lots of things you can do to help calm your inner mind triggers, like:

1. Make a trigger jar
2. Make a trigger box
3. Write a character annotation trigger list
4. Write some of your own trigger replacements
5. Make a trigger threat level

And lots of others. But, the worst parts come at night, when the triggers get even worse. So worse in fact that it makes it hard to concentrate on getting enough sleep. The louder they get, the more horrible a supposed night's sleep becomes, until you are too restless to even think about pleasant friends. But there are ways to get rid of night triggers.

Just wait and see...right?