Trauma/shock trauma - fight/flight/freeze,fawn, fitting in

Are You a Fighter, Flee-er, Freezer or a fawner ?

When you encounter a mild, moderate and/or severely stressful situation, harmful or traumatic event, what’s your default pattern?

1)
A) Do you have a tendency to fight?
Maybe you:
1) Get defensive and try to prove your case? (Even if you know you’re
wrong. You hold your ground anyways and would NEVER admit fault.)
2) Raise your voice and display raging bull-like tendencies?
3) Become a bit of bully and even get scary to the people you love?

B) Do you have a tendency to flee?
Maybe you:
Ignore the situation and pretend it didn’t happen?
1) Leave the room, or conversation and do your best to avoid any and all confrontation?
2) Get busy and pre-occupied with something that’s completely opposite to the situation at hand - you start cleaning, or knitting, etc… in the hope
that it will just go away on its own?

C) Do you have a tendency to freeze?
Maybe you:
1) Go completely blank and find it hard to express ANYTHING, let alone make any kind of social engagement?
2) Hope that if you get really quiet and still and don’t make a peep the issue will just go away on its own? (No one will know, right?)
3) Completely forget the stressful or traumatic situation even happened and when someone asks you about it you kind of say “what are you talking about?” (And you really do have NO recollection of the incident.)

D) Fawn responce

pete-walker.com/codependencyFawnResponse.htm

taylorlab.psych.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2014/10/2000_Biobehavioral-responses-to-stress-in-females_tend-and-befriend.pdf

What is Fawning?
Fawning it is a protective state in which our nervous system unconsciously and automatically prioritises our safety over the authenticity of our expressions. The term was first coined by Pete Walker, therapist and author, and has been picked up by many interested in Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal Theory.
Fawning is a stress response that allows us to imitate a “safe and social” ventral vagal state, when we are feeling threatened. It happens when it is either not possible, or it would increase danger to ourselves, to Fight or Flee (high sympathetic responses) from the perceived threat. It is also sometimes called appeasement or "people pleasing”.
In this state, we may say or do things that are incongruent with our true feelings, as a survival mechanism. We might act in a way that is friendly, agreeable, even funny, even though we are feeling angry or scared (threatened). We might surrender our own needs or preferences, due to fear that expressing them might make us more unsafe.
When it isn't safe to fight or flee, then pretending to agree with, and perhaps even flatter, the source of "threat" can be a way of achieving safety. The less threatening we appear to another (e.g. a predator), the less likely they are to attack us. They might even relax enough to allow us to escape from the situation unscathed (“Flight”).
An extreme example of Fawning can be seen when people are being held against their will, and attempting to Fight or Flee will not bring them more safety, but more likely lead to an increased risk of harm to them. This can become Stockholm Syndrome, where they begin to identify with their captor, and feel bonded with them.
In terms of the autonomic nervous system, fawning is thought to be a state that involves both high sympathetic activation (stress) and a degree of dorsal vagal (shutdown) engagement. That means that we have lots of sympathetic energy in our bodies, which by itself would make us act bigger, louder, and more threatening. But the dorsal vagal immobilisation tones down our expression, so we act smaller, quieter, and less threatening.

Females:

In trauma studies, we have tended to regard the nervous system as sex and gender neutral. However because women, on average, have far more estrogen than most men do, women are disproportionately impacted by the social nervous system, both its strengths and weaknesses. Estrogen is a bonding hormone that primes us to be perceptive and attuned toother people’s experiences. This awareness of and care for social bonds is crucial for the survival of our species and is an extraordinary gift. It evolved so that we would take exquisite care of our young.
That said, there are downsides to our bonding superpowers.

We are more susceptible to the social nervous system reactions under stress—both fitting in and fawning. Women are often more prone to social comparison, concerned about how our actions are or will be perceived, and hung up on friendship and relationship problems. We can minimize our perspectives, opinions, intelligence, and aspirations to keep the peace or maintain the status quo of our relationships, family, or work life.
These concerns about belonging can become deafening and keep us in unhealthy situations—whether they’re dates or jobs or marriages—way longer than we might like or might be good for us, because we are afraid to break connection, to not be liked, to be labeled a tease, demanding, selfish, or bitchy. We are hardwired to care more about connection and be more socially invested in our relationships than men are.
A better understanding of the impact of hormones could also help us understand some of these behaviors. In the meantime, we can also develop considerable agency when we examine our relationship to social norms, which may be operating to create some level of primal safety but may not be serving our best interests and our true, long-term safety and well-being. Women are confused as to why hey went along with their doctor’s recommendation when it dident feel right, or stayed with an abusive partner, or had sex again with someone who violated them. Yes, our conditioning to be “good,” “nice,” and not disruptive comes into play here, but so does our internal sense of survival, which tells us that we may not survive separation or conflict.
Many women have gone back to their abusers, back into situations where abuse was likely to continue, or simply remained in dangerous environments even though they knew it was unhealthy. It makes no logical sense; why would we do that to ourselves? But the social nervous system sometimes compels us to pull threats closer, and we feel “safer” with proximity to a known threat than with one
that is lurking somewhere out in the world.
Have you ever felt like you just couldn’t have a difficult conversation, even with someone you loved and trusted? You waited and waited, because that interpersonal conflict seemed like such a big deal you could barely handle it? Beneath the fear of confrontation or conflict might also be a fear of losing that connection, and depending on your past history of belonging and attachment, it can feel incredibly scary and difficult to end a relationship. Similarly, consider a more extreme situation in which a woman finds herself afraid for her physical safety, where someone has power over her. Her desire to please and remain socially connected can override her deeper impulses and instincts, and ultimately that can lead to a lot of shame and blame. She will ask herself questions like “Why didn’t I speak up? Protect myself? Get away? Fight?”
Once again, it is essential that we women remember this is not a moral issue; we need to learn about, respect, and have compassion for the survival mechanisms of this complex social nervous system of ours. The more we understand, the more power, more choices, and more true safety is available to us. Being attuned to our social environment is important. Can youimagine if no one paid attention to how their actions impacted others? We’d all be terrible neighbors. That’s not a world we want live in. However, many women err on the side of taking upless space, remaining quiet, becoming invisible, swallowing their needs so as not to create waves or conflict. We unconsciously choose these behaviors, which become habits, and personality styles, because conflict can threaten the intactness of our social nervous system that is critical to our survival.

youtu.be/LmBABftg9jY


D) All of the above:
Maybe you:
1) Want to fight in some situations?
2) Find yourself wanting to flee in others?
3) Go completely blank and shutdown in others?

Write down your response:
Were you one distinct response (fight, flight, freeze) or did you realize you were a combo of a couple? Or, all three pending the situation?

2:
Can you think of a time when you experienced your survival instincts helping you out?

A. Getting you out of harm’s way?
B. Giving you the “juice” to set a big boundary and show some healthy fight energy?
C. When you needed to flee and leave a stressful or threatening situation?
D. When you might have gone into freeze (aka: shutdown or shock) after an accident?

Write DOWN your response.

How often do you feel stress: these distinct survival instincts..
a. Once day?
b. A few times (1 to 5) a day?
c. Many times (5 or more) a day?
d. All the time?

Then, do you ever stop to notice them so you can properly release the stress?

Trapped Stress is Toxic and it Causes Illness
When we don’t come down and out of our stress responses we (can) end up with stress-related ailments.

These fight, flight, freeze reactions are real and we need them, but if we aren’t careful, they stay stuck ON for too long.

1. You are now more aware of your own reactions and how your own biology, those fight/flight/freeze instincts, have helped in you in past traumatic and stressful events.

2. You have reflected on how you feel stress during the day, and whether or not you actively engage in practices that help to release it.

3. You have listed what, if any, “troubles” might be plaguing you.

This Fight, Flight, Freeze Worksheet is one of the first steps in gaining an understanding of what your nervous system is and how it calls the shots in your body. when people gain awareness of the biology of their stress responses, it gives them the chance to get a step ahead of their stress reactions. This in turn gives more opportunity, more time, and choice to choose a different way forward.

More about the fight, flight, freeze responses:

Look at the following list of flight, fight freeze responses below, possible signs that one is no longer feeling safe and might need to stop what they are doing. This is not a complete list but may help to identify what you need to be watching for:

Fight:
Crying
Hands in fists, desire to punch, rip
Flexed/tight jaw, grinding teeth, snarl
Fight in eyes, glaring, fight in voice
Desire to stomp, kick, smash with legs, feet
Feelings of anger/rage
Homicidal/suicidal feelings
Knotted stomach/nausea, burning stomach
Metaphors like bombs, volcanoes erupting

Freeze:
Feeling stuck in some part of body
Feeling cold/frozen, numb, pale skin
Sense of stiffness, heaviness
Holding breath/restricted breathing
Sense of dread, heart pounding
Decreased heart rate (can sometimes increase)
Orientation to threat

Flee:
Restless legs, feet /numbness in legs
Anxiety/shallow breathing
Big/darting eyes
Leg/foot movement
Reported or observed fidgety-ness, restlessness, feeling trapped, tense
Sense of running in life- one activity-next
Excessive exercise

Common areas that tend to hold onto resistance and keep it trapped are:

• The throat (often connected with needing to speak and be heard)
• Back of the eyes (often connected with tears, sadness)
• Jaw (often connected with anger)
• Chest/heart area (often connected with deep grief)
• Belly/stomach (often connected with gut knowing and avoiding it)
• Diaphragm/breath (often connected with fear and fright, helplessness, threat)
• The groin/perineum/genital area (often connected with power, or lack thereof)
• When you start to PAUSE, SENSE and LOCATE where various sensations might be residing in your body, you start to harness the energy of those sensations.

More about the freeze response:
Freeze sympathetic nerveussystem wants to act strongly and defencevly and the parasympatheic nerveussystem is trying to put the brakes on.

The freeze respons might look stationary and passive but underneath there is a incredible arousel.
IT is an extreme state of being stuck thats typacily fraught in fear, dissociation and immobility - even paralysis.

Some People
can loose their ability to speak or hear.
The cranial nerve that activates the voice box and/or the inner ear, can shut down.
People living in This state can have difficulty communicating their distress and staying precent when IT happens.
For people with desorganised attatchment style or other kinds of trauma, IT can occour when a person feels overwhelmed.
When we are being confronted with a threat we can become immobiliasied. IT is not healthy to stay in This state for Long. Our intake of oxytocyn level drops, and we can not breath correctly.

You can take deeps breaths, but even Better if you can find some sence of safety.
In This state You can also feel Cold sensations, lethargy, depression, and dissociation.
When any of these symptoms occour, IT is a good idea to move the Body around.
Even the smallest physical movement can help you.
IT is important that you can feel, that you can have a sence of safe boundaries.

Exercise:
Choose your right or left arm and extend IT out in front of you. Hold This arm out as if you are reaching out to connect with someone or you are recieving a gift.
How does IT make you feel ?
Does IT feel okay and safe or maybe voulnarble and frightening ?
Now try the other arm. How does This feel ?
Now try to reach out with both arms. With your arms side open and then with a gesture in wich your arms are closer together. How does This feel ?
Are you relaxed or are you feeling tence in your Body ?
Now place your right hand out infront of you as if to defend yourself. This gives a sence of "stop, go away, back off". The Words can come later
Now let your left hand come in as if you were making a space of boundarie infront of you. Imagine you are in a protective sfere. Feel around you where your energetic boundaries are. Do this in front of you, to the side, abowe you and behind you.
Get a sence of what This space is like. How does IT feel in your Body ?
Do you notise any sence of empowerment ?
Does one direction feel safer than the others ? If one direction feel less safe you can bring in a competent protector.
Imagine Them of the Edge of your spfere.
See if that helps your spfere expand.

This exercise can bring Up some boundary rupture that you dident know about. This is normal. Try to Say No, leave med alone, stay away. Any Words that comes to you are fine.
You can Say Them out loud or Imagine your competent protector saying Them.
Feel what happens in your Body and in your spfere of safety.
Do you feel stronger, more secure ?
Does the spfere Seem to expand ?
If you get overwhelmed try Them out with someone you trust who can support you, someone who has your back. If you want to you can let the person put a suupportive hand on your back.


(A SE/attatchment teacher)

An SE therapist explains how you can tell if a client has some trauma / disorganized attatchmentstyle or trauma later in life:

Some of the signs can be one or more than one:

1) They always move in the direction of stuckness and there’s always a ton of resistance blocking their way, no matter how much positive headway they make and positive affirmations they repeat. They have trouble with attention and focus and can’t seem to stay consistent with anything.

2) They’re eating cleanly, never overeat and are getting way more activity than what they’re used to, yet they are still fatigued and unable to lose weight.

3) They get hijacked by fear and anxiety, even though they know there’s nothing to be afraid of (and you could have sworn that they finally got through their fears… so why do they keep coming back?!) They ruminate on things that happened weeks and often months ago, and they tend to create these downward spirals out of seemingly nothing.

Or the flipside: they often seem numbed out and can’t feel anything – in their body, or in their emotions – and no matter how many fancy tricks you throw at them nothing seems to budge. There’s no ‘joie de vivre’ in them, and sometimes all you want to do is shake ‘em up a bit.

4) They’re a magnet for getting into the wrong relationships and continually end up being a victim to toxic people and risky situations (even though you’re working on building healthier boundaries and relationships in your work together). They also a) continually try to please and/or apologize for themselves, their actions and their inactions, and/or b) they’re defensive or unwilling to admit failure or any sign of weakness.

5) They’ve stumped all of their doctors and specialists, and even though you might help them get a little bit of relief, their system is like a slippery fish: just when you think you’ve got something figured out, that ‘something’ pops away immediately and another sign or symptom emerges.

Early and/or developmental trauma is anything that occurs pre-verbally, meaning before we can make meaning or associate emotions with our experiences, or talk. It’s also the kind of trauma that happens when we grow up in an environment that’s chronically unsafe and doesn’t offer the securities of healthy emotional attachment with a primary caretaker, bonding and the basics, such adequate food and consistent shelter.