How do you know when you get triggered?

@shiningstar, it's a sudden flooding of my nervous system that I lose ability to override and regulate, and it really does feel that way. In the moment, my thoughts start to race, I feel anxiety in my stomach, I want comfort and reassurance (maybe verbally, maybe physically), I get overbearing if it involves a disagreement (I don't lash out, but I don't want to walk away and discuss later, I want to hash everything out right NOW in case there is no later and we never talk again). If it goes unresolved and it's conflict with someone really important to me, it can be followed by up to a week of more racing thoughts, rumination, inability to eat much, maybe a couple days of bad sleep interrupted by anxiety and waking up. It is horrible! The eating habits may not reregulate for several weeks.

Minor triggering is getting slightly uncomfortable from feeling emotional tension in the room, tension that's other people's moods and thoughts and unrelated to me.

Since earning secure, I haven't been majorly triggered, I can communicate what I'm feeling, and minor triggering is annoying but manageable. Again, being able to understand and communicate in the moment and in general what's happening is a big change that really helps. Earning secure also came with rationalizing my fear of abandonment, so it's just better all around.