Approach-avoidance

[Chava]

I've started reading "Trauma and Memory" by Peter Levine and I'm really interested in the role of implicit memory (least conscious, stuff usually just coming from the level of the lower and upper brain stem).

Explicit memory, for context, refers to declarative memory (most conscious: telling stuff, lists, facts...surface level, most useless to therapy) and episodic memory (stories, recalling events or memories with a feeling tone). Next on the spectrum towards less conscious comes forms of implicit memory in this order: emotional memory and procedural memory. Procedural memories are the least conscious and most automatic.

Levine breaks procedural memories further down into:

• Learned motor actions (how to lift your arm, etc)
• Emergency responses (fight, flee, freeze) and
• Approach and avoidance (moving towards nourishment/safety or away from threat)

I already knew about the learned motor actions and emergency responses pretty well...easy to find info on that stuff. I had not yet heard of this approach-avoidance as being an unconscious implicit thing (researchers figure it happens around the upper brain stem area). But I think this is really f*cking fascinating because I think it's the residue I most struggle with. There is a local grocery store I WILL NOT go to if a certain man is working there. I don't know him from anywhere but the store. He's very nice. It makes no f*cking sense, but it doesn't matter. It's not worth it to me to shop if I see he's the only person at the checkout. I turn around and return another day or shop somewhere else. I can't tell you who he reminds me of. But he gives me bad heeby-jeebies. He's too nice, too interested in me, and feels manipulative. He tries to engage with me even if I refuse to make eye contact, so he just feels like a threat that I don't actually have to deal with.

I struggle so much because I avoid...everyone. Nice people: CONFUSING, possibly scary, possibly manipulative. Everyone else: same thing...though easier if they seem a little cold or impersonal and I just need help with the copy machine. I don't do well reaching out for real help. I have actually made progress connecting with some friends a little better and reached out to ask one to pick me up at the ER. I felt safe enough asking her that much. When she asked why I didn't reach out sooner, like before ending up in ER, I really said, "I don't know...I guess it feels like it just doesn't make sense." And I mean it. It takes super hard conscious effort to reach out, and when I'm in a crisis...I can't...way too f*cking challenging. The good news is that I have called my therapist briefly a couple times when melting down. I couldn't say much, but I sort of feel more like I am capable of reaching out (approach) when I need support or help from someone else.

I assume this all has to do with the early traumas that were probably a super f*cking confusing mix of help and threat...like a cold or raging, abusive, mentally ill mother and medical emergencies and hospitalizations (and also add in some manipulation that led to assault later?). I never learned how to reach out safely. There was nobody to approach, I only learned to avoid.

So this is roughly what I work on in therapy...hoping reaching out to my therapist can translate elsewhere and I somehow gradually rewire these ancient responses. Sometimes my hand shakes a lot in therapy...do know why but my therapist always frames these uncomfortable frozen places as something to separate out...like there is probably a need to push away tied to a wish to reach out or connect...badly glued together so my whole organism is really f*cking confused. And that's true. I had a meltdown over trying to reach a stuffed animal I wanted...so f*cking scary. :nailbiting::nailbiting::nailbiting: My therapist let me take the entire hour to get it because that was exactly my process...lots of crying. She offered to just get it off the shelf for me but I wanted to get it myself. And it was a weird painful process of moving towards it and having to look away and cry for a while, curl up, move forward a bit. This is my life..

Thanks if you read all of that. The idea of "approach-avoidance" happening at a deep implicit level is kind of mind-blowing...but this makes SO MUCH SENSE (also believe my therapist totally "gets" this about me, but it helps that I understand the science behind it). This is really my story. I could probably just create a diary for myself and start it this way. But I'm interested in what others have to add...how strongly you recognize this in yourself or how therapy has or is helping you with some of this.

 

[Rumors]

I can relate to most everything you have said. I am not good at reaching out and particularly not good when I am in crisis. Over the years there were just too many people that kicked my teeth in when I did reach out so I am absolutely not putting myself in a position to get the shit knocked out of me again. Not a good way to think and perhaps I need to find some better friends.... Lol.
Thanks for sharing! Great topic.

 

[Teasel]

I relate to this about approach avoidance too. Also has bad experiences reaching out when in crises.

I remember doing a workshop where they talked about reaching out to a care giver being something we learn about as tiny babies. They had us act out this reaching out, ouch!!

 

[Chava]

reaching out to a care giver being something we learn about as tiny babies

Yes, I think this part was an instant fail for me (I was hospitalized after birth, at a time when your parents didn't stick around, but my mom also just wasn't really cut out for mothering at all). I vaguely remember stewing over how to ask her about something I needed and how afraid I was to ask.

 

[KwanYingirl]

@Chava. The approach-avoid trait starts really young and just gets more and more reinforced as we develop. No safety? Avoid the person, the place, any reminder of the event. For me, it's habitual. I know most people are safe, but don't live by that. Still isolate when able. Does the book say that this dynamic is part and parcel of PTSD?

 

[Chava]

Does the book say that this dynamic is part and parcel of PTSD?

I haven't gotten that far yet...just reading the beginning break down of forms of memory. But the book is about trauma...and what I know of Levine's work, the implicit memory stuff is more easily worked through at a body level than cognitively.

Will probably post a little more as I read more.

 

[Teasel]

Yes, in my case she had post- natal depression, and I think felt trapped by my birth, she always told me how I caused her to have a break down. I learned never to show needs and be a good quiet caregiving child.

Do you find showing needs and vulnerability can be unbearable? I don't know but I think people sense I don't feel worthy of a caring response and I often feel people really despise me for it...

 

[KwanYingirl]

I have trouble reading books on PTSD and related subjects. Didn't get too far into the body keeps the score. It's all to triggering me. I miss out on info that is helpful I'm sure. Glad you're feeling positive about it!!

 

[Chava]

showing needs and vulnerability can be unbearable? I don't know but I think people sense I don't feel worthy of a caring response and I often feel people really despise me for it...

Interesting. Yes, I have sensed this on some level too, but haven't thought of it for a long time. I come off as independent and not needing others and that's not super attractive. A college friend told me that she was intimidated by me at first, which just made me sad. I don't know how to not be like that. I still don't reach out or act like I need people, but I believe I'm a little softer. I hope.

@KwanYingirl ...I definitely have an objective and nerdy side that just wants to understand from a different perspective. Van Der Kolk included quite a few stories. I didn't finish the book because...I just didn't. But I liked Heller's book (Healing Developmental Trauma)...informative but not like a lot of stories and direct examples. But this is the first book I've read in a while. I'm interested in the memory aspect, or at least understanding it a little better.

 

[KwanYingirl]

If we could learn to have loving kindness for ourselves instead of false cognitive distortions brought about because of abuse, then we'd be able to come off as relaxed and less avoidant. I also intimidate people and dig my feet in so deep, no one gets in.

 

[Chava]

@KwanYingirl I read a bit more. The content of his short examples might be trigger stuff for you. But I so much appreciate the basic scientific approach of looking at the autonomic nervous system involvement in trauma. There is a diagram of how we respond to levels of threat. From equilibrium increasing in threat level to total trauma, our responses happen in this general order:

Arrest or alert, stiffen and orient, assess, approach or avoid, fight or flee, freeze, and fold. "Fold" would be most like the total trauma freeze that lends to shutdown and dissociation. It's collapse...the nervous system overload. So approach-avoidance happens right before fight-flight, which makes sense. It's a way of avoiding even getting into a potential fight-flight scenario. AND I suspect I keep my own triggers and meltdowns to a lower level through my pretty major avoidance. Well, duh.

Levine proposes a process of "renegotiation" within the nervous system for all of this, and it's really his Somatic Experiencing approach. For the approach-avoidance part, that would look sort of like me allowing myself to avoid but also working more on approach in safe ways...and then retreating if it's too much. This is the pendulation aspect of SE and basically what I'm doing. But it's still so unnatural to reach out to others and it just feels like work.

 

[KwanYingirl]

Oh @Chava, you took the words right out of my therapists mouth today!! The term "fold" is a new one for me and also that wild animals have the ability to shake off their flight/fight and just carry on. Humans don't work that way. That's why we get triggered so easily and develop avoidant behavior so as to protect from attacks that aren't even happening. I miss out on so much because I'm so avoidant. I finally walked by myself through a graveyard 2 weeks ago. I was hypervigelant but did it. I miss alcohol...