Fight Or Flight Response

[Lethe]

Is it a "fight" response or an anger response? For me, my fight response isn't and never was emotional. It's a very disconnected state, where I'm aware of what's going on and what I need to do, but I'm not invested in it or the outcome. Like I know what I need to do to take out the other guy, but I'm not worried whether I'll be able to or not, just that I am going to do it. For a long time, I thought I enjoyed fighting and getting into dangerous situations, but I learned that I was trying to get that empty state that was a consequence of those situations. I really didn't care what happened to myself or anyone else as a result of those situations, just that I was there and I was able to cleave myself away internally.

 

[Cate]

Hhhmm. I would say that we all enter our 'fight' or 'flight' responses with one thing in mind and that is to stay safe and to survive. We are survivors after all. I can be in both responses, depending on the incident.

 

[JimmyJames902]

I can be in both responses, depending on the incident.

I can't be in both responses, depending on the incident. I was conditioned over years of verbal/psychological abuse as a child to "not fight" -- the fight response was not tollerated by my dad. If I fought back or tried to defend myself, it only extended the intensity and duration of the verbal assault upon me.

I wish I could have had both "fight" and "flight" in my arsenal of responses, but I seem to exhibit just the flight response (and the "freeze" response, which I call "deer-in-the-headlights"). Fear of that type can be quite literally paralysing.

James

 

[anni]

Flight. I do like what Tb said about even that being a form of fight. Anything I can view from an 'energized' perspective lets me get my head around it and hence deal with it better. To someone who has anger issues of course it's not positive, but if I could work up an inclination to fight back against anything at all there'd be energy funneled into some kind of direction. I'm really, really tired of fleeing in all it's intrusive forms.

PLEASE do know I realize that the people here with horrible problems with anger do not in the slightest view anger as postive and of course in their perview it isn't. It's as out of control as fleeing and since it can involve hurting others would be much more damaging in the long run.

To try to explain without being drearily long winded-I have to think there's a point of healing where we reconcile both responses and walk away from whatever event like 'normal' people. As in walk, not flee or fight. We'll get there, at some point.

Anni

 

[Mercy]

I am naturally a freeze person even now. Added to and driven in by discipline that taught to me to freeze effectively so the men I was rented out to could do what they paid for. I freeze at raised voices, even my own children's voices when they were teens. I guess that means a lot of disassociation but I don't really know that. Fight or flight escape of any kind would have meant being beaten to death, real, no more breathing, stiff death.

 

[wattle]

For the most part I'm a flight person, I hide at home, avoiding and isolating, if things go belly up I take flight and hide. When confronted and triggered though I freeze, I want to take flight but my brain disconnects from my feet, I can't even turn away and ignore whats going on, it's like the scary stuff is a show put on just for me. Sometimes I wish I could have a little of the fight stuff instead of flight and freeze, if I could fight I'd stick up for myself and be braver.

 

[anni]

Mercy,

Just wished to say thanks for putting something into words. Fleeing is tough to even contemplate when one was clocked on a regular basis for the effort. Your post just connected some dots in my head.

Take care,

Anni

 

[useless]

For the most part I'm a flight person, I hide at home, avoiding and isolating, if things go belly up I take flight and hide. When confronted and triggered though I freeze, I want to take flight but my brain disconnects from my feet, I can't even turn away and ignore whats going on, it's like the scary stuff is a show put on just for me. Sometimes I wish I could have a little of the fight stuff instead of flight and freeze, if I could fight I'd stick up for myself and be braver.

I think that being a "fight" person will make you less likely to get into any kind of trouble. Just saying there is good in anything.......................

 

[JohnnyM53]

A trauma therapist I saw last year listened to my story and said that, in addition to traumas caused by abuse and witnessing violence, I probably experienced medical trauma at age 2. She added that medical trauma is being recognized more and more.

So I'm guessing that, aside from the fact that I was very small, very afraid, and felt helpless, I think I didn't fight because I was in an internal conflict. If someone was picking on me, anger would build up but then I was too afraid to let that anger out and fight back because that could mean getting hurt if the other person got even madder than me or was a better fighter, which could mean having to see a dentist or doctor to fix whatever wounds I might sustain.

 

[useless]

I think that being a "fight" person will make you less likely to get into any kind of trouble. Just saying there is good in anything.......................

I meant to say "flight".

 

[Jestadud]

Sorry to see that you changed that timebomb as I agreed with it in the first place. Knowing how things can develope and how far they can escalate means I go a long way to try to calm things down or defuse a situation before it gets out of hand.
But I guess that is probably the same for all types fight, flight or freeze and suspect that because of our ptsd abilities we are all less likely to get into any kind of trouble than those who don't have our defense mechanisms.

 

[useless]

Knowing how things can develope and how far they can escalate means I go a long way to try to calm things down or defuse a situation before it gets out of hand.

That has been my situation as well. But I know that if I ever decide to go off on a real "fight" that it will be very bad for me legally and personally. So that is why a flight person might avoid trouble that a fighter won't. But there are so many variables in either situation that I probably should have just kept my mouth shut.