My triggers have become the catalyst for reclaiming stolen worth.

Beady-eyed, he smirks, his lips curling back from his bleachy-keen teeth; he is adorned in his vulgarity and crimes like the victor’s laurel wreath. Like a rat on the run with food, the state representative scurries away with pieces of women’s sanctuary. His words reflect utter indifference to decency, “it’s not my fault she was blackout-drunk and didn’t say no.” Criminal and bully, he’s a carbon copy of the boys-will-be-boys club of mediocre men who use their privilege to violate others.

The legal and media inquiries confirm his pattern of invasions and violations. His adamant denial of accountability reeks of long-standing comfort with trespasses against women and people of color — he’s been at it for a while.

For me, the ongoing unfolding of truths featuring his face on my phone, TV, and computer amount to a force-fed diet of triggering moments — he’s familiar, a poster boy of violations and violence: the product of a creepy, cookie-cutter mold reserved for the patriarchy’s brand of good on paper, star athlete, boy-next-door type.

The coddling of enablers and monied family connections secure their bright futures ahead.

While these images and headlines threaten to pull my peace asunder, they also remind me that triggers are potent catalysts in healing self-worth and reclaiming power. Something and everything about the repugnant representative’s story have a way of triggering my core. Sensations of panic and feeling trapped arise as my body remembers that I’ve met this creep before. It took years for my mind to remember the trauma of that night, although my body always knew.

Superbowl 1991, my roommates and I went to a party to watch the game. The following morning, I woke up on a couch, still in that house. Instantly shaken by the sensation of my wet clothing, I felt panic and shame and feared that I’d peed myself while asleep. My body ached and my head hurt like no other time in my life. My thighs burned, chest felt bruised from the inside out, as if my lungs contained gravel and my head felt like a rusty can opener was rotating along the crown of my skull.

Embarrassed, I rushed home to shower. It took hours for me to feel clear-minded; still, I could not remember anything after a certain point of that night. “I got too drunk,” I told myself. For years, that evasion suited the story I adopted to explain the black hole of time.

Recently, an old photograph stored in a shoebox knocked me on my ass. This trigger moved every hair and cell of my being. My hands trembled, and my heart raced as my breathing became shallow. I felt as though I would throw up. In the photograph, I lay on the couch of the house where I’d attended the Superbowl party. My facial expression displays confusion, discomfort, and anger. I remember waking up to hearing my name, laughter, and the snap of a camera.

Then, I knew.

One of the guys gave me that photo a couple of weeks after that night. Now I know it was to see if I remembered anything that occurred. That was the second time they tested my memory. The first was the morning after when one of my “friends” joined me at a yoga class. I recall thinking it was unusual — he had never attended our class before that day. Never did I consider it a nefarious observation of my sobriety and memory.

The photo clarified the darkest parts of that night and verified the weight of shame I’d tethered to my self-worth for years. Hot tears splashed out to the floor — it was the release of liability, the rain of relief, and the reckoning of many long-held, misguided beliefs about me. Wounded worth and trauma responses became coping mechanisms in everyday life, hindering self-care and growth. Whenever I’d experience fear around sexuality and safety, I’d resist the discomfort through various forms of avoidance. I did not understand nor possess the language to identify that my physical, emotional, and energetic responses came from triggers attached to trauma. I blamed myself for relationship problems,

This trigger was ever-present — in relationships, in bed with lovers, and in my self-care. It was always there.

I’d seen the photo other times in the decades since that night; I never stopped to look at it but never threw it away. I was drugged and raped the night before by people I considered friends.

A part of me knew it would be a significant impetus to my healing, leading me into more profound self-acceptance. Leaning into this trigger reminded me that healing trauma is a lifelong dedication. Even the recent images and headlines mentioned above have value in their triggers — I know they call me to listen once more in recognition of parts of me returning home to my essence.

Healing trauma moves us both backward and forward. Triggers often arrive when we need them most; they herald our self-worth’s imminent expansion. With this, we release ourselves from shame, blame, and self-doubt. We move into trust, self-love, and empowered expression.

To lovingly listen and attune the memories and places within that carry the scar of defilement is to take back the stolen power. It is to rise to our birthright and claim our right to exist. And when we do this, we open the way for other women to own their stories, step into more profound self-acceptance, and love themselves wholly.