answering doors

ellie2000

do we hav to answer doors wen someone knocks. wen i hear one i say to myself 'wat the f...., go away' is tht normal? they keep knock at the same volume, tht triggers me. how do i cope with tht?

SpaceOtter

I dont believe you have to open doors. Do you have a little window or hole you can look out to see who it is without them seeing you? If its no one you know, you dont have to open it.
I dont know if its normal but I dont like people knocking the door either.

Would breathing exercies and putting in earphones help?

Sending lots of hugs

Former Member

@ellie2000

You don't have to open doors if that's triggering for you. As long as the people around you know that is a trigger for you. If you are expecting anyone to come by then you can pre warn them not to knock and instead text your phone, or if it's specifically the volume you find triggering then they could do a lighter knock with a pattern so you know it's them. If it's the post man then you could put a sign on the door saying to knock on the window? And exactly what spaceotter said, do you have a window or a peephole on the door where you can see who they are?

Do you know why knocking on the door is triggering for you? What feeling comes up when you hear this?

ellie2000

@RenP @SpaceOtter knocking triggers thoughts of 'wat if its bad-ens' i do hav a peephole but i expect to c ppl frm the past. i havent come to term im somewhere new n safe. how do i do tht? i still feel tht ppl want me to fail

AislingDM

I think this makes a lot of sense @ellie2000 , to be totally honest with you, when I'm at home and my parents aren't there (even if my sister is in as well), I avoid answering the door out of fear. Perhaps this is something to work on, if we want to feel more comfortable in our own homes, equally for you, your fear is built upon extremely reasonable and rational fears. You have experienced so much trauma in your life and although moving away from the area this happened in can be useful, this doesn't mean that you'll suddenly feel totally fine and relaxed answering the door.

A good place to start may be to sit down and think about (or write about) what makes you think it could be bad people at the door? From this, you can then start to consider whether answering the door vs not answering is a good or bad thing. I know you mentioned that it triggers you, because hearing repeated knocking is not only worrying, it's also objectively quite annoying.

I have seen that some people pop up signs like "not interested in sales calls" or "do not knock" simply. I'm not sure if that's something you'd be keen on, but sometimes being upfront about it can deter strangers from knocking at all, because they think it's not worth the 'trouble'. Another idea is to write "please call me when you arrive with my package" if you have ordered food or something else online, because then you can be certain before reaching the door that it is not someone to be wary of.

Coming away from the specifics of knocking itself, I know you're talking about how to come to terms with being in a safer place. This article has some advice about how trauma survivors can try to reassure themselves that they are safe:

https://nami.org/Blogs/NAMI-Blog/September-2020/What-Safety-Means-as-a-Trauma-Survivor

Huge hugs xx