What's up with people that get "triggered" to become angry?

This summer has proven to be a funny one.

Imagine my surprise when I witness two guys in their 50's lose their shit. This happened on two different occassions with two different men. Afterwards they apologize - or rather, deflect - that they just got triggered to become angry and yell and shout, and they're not perfect since they're human. Which, I wonder.... is this even for real? Is it a coincidence that two men in their 50's claim the exact same thing? Aren't they really just saying "if you trigger me again, it might happen again?" Seems toxic...

After having witnessed all this, I can't help but think... is there some truth to it? Are we really just people with certain boundaries that get crossed from time to time, and eventually we blow up?

Or are some people trying to claim no responsibility towards the actions because they get triggered?

It was not like they wanted to end things... they wanted to keep arguing with the ones they had a issue with, in their heated states. Maybe it'a a way of wearing people down to come out as the winner of the argument.

Yet, here I am... a 25-year who rarely get triggered and more rare is that I explode. I have witnessed two guys in their 50's lose their shit about different things. And I feel their "excuses" are terrible.

So... is getting triggered a real thing? And are some people deflecting responsibility when they explode in anger?

Do some people tend to get triggered easier than others? If yes, why is that?

It might too soon for me to ask, but how in the world do you deal with these people when they explode? Unfortunately, the "victims" of the shouting joined in and shouted back. Seems like you want to be the one in control in such a case, not join in and escalate things.

Help me understand human behavior that seems farfetched to me.

I'll admit. there are people who trigger me. Mainly it is from past experiences I'm unhappy about and their words or behavior just bring up that Resentment, fear, anger, etc.


I need to work on that...

Ajay-

You've got hot-tempered and cool-tempered people. Cool-tempered take time to build up to an explosion. But will stay angry longer when they explode. Hot-tempered lose their cool much easier. But also cool down a lot faster. The hotter someone's temper, the easier it is to set him off.

Then you have issues that people are sensitive about. The issues people are most sensitive about are ideological and respect-related issues. If someone holds a belief that boils down to "What I believe is right, and anyone who does not believe it is a fool, an idiot, or a devil", that's a belief you can get an explosive reaction out of by pushing on. Internet trolling, for instance, rests on attacking people on issues that are likely to get a rise out of them. Or if someone holds a belief that boils down to "Anyone who insults me on this metric is trying to hurt me", that's a belief you can get an explosive reaction out of too.

And you have people at various levels of "stressed out." The more stressed a man is, the closer he is to exploding over something small. Much of the time when people explode, the thing that triggered the explosion was only a proximate cause (a "trigger"); the stress and anger simmering underneath was mostly the result of other factors in that person's life or head.

Also... and this is very important to be aware of. There are all kinds of people living all kinds of lives. Some people are very, very angry. Some of those angry people feel like they do not have anything to lose. Or are in despair or desperation. Sometimes they will do stupid things if you trigger them. That doesn't mean to walk on eggshells. But it does mean to be aware that there are people out there who are not in that "Everything's cool, no problem, we can work it out" mindset. Some people are just waiting for a hair trigger to set them off and give them the chance to try to hurt or destroy someone to make themselves feel better. When you encounter people like this, you need to either give them space, or be able to scare them enough (or defend yourself if necessary) to get them to back off.

So yeah. Mostly it is not really about the proximate cause - whatever that is, is just the 'trigger' that allows all the pent up bad emotion to come out. The hotter the temper the easier it is to trigger that... but the faster the person cools off, too. And there are people at all levels of cheerful contentment vs. bubbling, boiling rage. Cross swords with the wrong ones - even unintentionally - and you can find yourself in a very nasty confrontation (all while wondering what the heck set this guy off, and thinking his reaction seems completely uncalled for).

Chase

Thanks Chase, that was insightful!

Can you or others following this thread tell me more about the aspect of dodging responsibility in this regard? Especially for hot-tempered people (or people who seem like they are hot-tempered - you never know what is really going on in their lives if they explode a couple of times per month).

On some level, I can understand when they say "I am who I am". Because deep down, we are who we are. We all have our core values.

However, when you are having a disagreement over something, I can't help but feel like the exploding people are sub-communicating things like "my attitude depends on you. If you piss me off enough, I will explode. If I ain't right in your eyes, you will know. And I will do whatever in my power to change your mind." (I'm going a little over the top here to make my point). And from what I saw, these guys didn't have any intentions of changing how they reacted to their triggers. If they feel like it's justified, they do it.

As I'm writing this, I can only bring up anecdotes from my own life to compare to. By the end, you will probably understand why these things make me look like a huge question mark.

I was mostly hot-tempered as a kid. One certain trigger I can remember, was getting teased (and somewhat bullied) by others and thinking it was personal. There are two important aspects to consider when I got over this trigger:

• 1: Since the journey to improve my social skills began some years ago, I finally understand that people are rarely teasing you because it's personal. And as such, it doesn't bother me anymore. I may play along, depending on the situation and my mood.
  
  2: Whenever I hit a point of low stress, high confidence and high self-esteem, it is like nothing can knock me out of balance. Or rather, it takes a lot to knock me out. Even in times when I thought teasing was personal, I would just think it was silly. But I would also tell myself "I don't have time to deal with others' teasing". I also do physical activities (like working out and stretching) where I can let off steam, and I think that plays a role too to get triggered less.

As a consequence of saying "I don't have time to deal with X", I have literally made it a choice to not explode (and sometimes even not to get triggered). I would say I have a lot more cool temper these days.

As a martial arts instructor, there was a time not too long ago where I was opening up about something personal to some of my students, and they crossed a line about it. I didn't lose it in the moment it happened. But I realized an hour later that I was annoyed, and it could nag me for some time. I decided to deal with it fast and get over it. The next day, I told them calmly how they had crossed this line, how I didn't like that, and they could pick between consequence A or B (where A would be the obviously bad choice, and B the obviously good choice). I could have exploded instead, but I made the choice to do otherwise. One of them looks up to me, and he told he respected me more after that incident. I wonder if he would have thought the same if I had exploded. So yeah, that's me.

I'm certain there are times and contexts where exploding will be perfectly okay. I just don't know them yet and will have to discover more of life to find the answers to that myself.

From my perspective, here and now, it seems silly when people say "I am who I am, I got triggered and exploded". I know that more people would take responsibility during a trigger if it was easier. So I get that it can be difficult if you're not used to that. But is that ever a good excuse? Because I look at myself right now and think "If I can compose myself during a trigger, what makes you think you cannot?"

What are we up against when it comes to avoiding responsibility? While some of the factors I mentioned could play a huge role, I feel like there are more to it. Like upbringing, social circles, internal justification etc.