Other Actual Or Immediate Threat Of Death Or Injury: How Does It Work?

[Ed Norton]

I obviously can't speak for @joeylittle of course but in my case.I felt the survival responses kicking in..focusing on each breath..slowing down, despite adrenaline so that ventilation and perfusion, so to speak, were commiserate with the rate that I was able to breath. Ie I got with the living program quickly, physiologically. Like f*cking Barbara Graham, I was like 'I want to live'

Barbara Graham -didn't get her wish as the gas chamber is pretty unsurviveable, in case anyone wonders about the reference.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

This is so true. And I don't know if it's a conscious will or an automatic physical response. And I don't know why I want to know the answer to that question. And, and, and...

Via the will to survive, ive been trying to beat it and have yet to but to know why, thats still unknown, via my research anyway.

Humans are animals after all & every single animal has a will to live & survive. Best way i can answer it.

 

[joeylittle]

When coming right up against the threat of death, your body's deep survival mechanisms kicked in.

This is what I suspect is true. The body is a pretty solid machine, and knows a great deal about how to 'right' itself. I was reading recently about what the body does in reaction to hyperventilation, and it's pretty fascinating. If one manages to hyperventilate to the point of passing out (because you are venting CO2 faster than you can produce it) - which is rare - your body can and will stop breathing for a period of time, until the levels in your blood even back out. That's a really basic description, but it's fascinating to me, how autonomous our systems are.

 

[joeylittle]

Driving a call 100 mph towrds a brick wall or on coming traffic & you'll always swerve, drowning, always come up for air.

These are the cognitive mechanisms, though. Not everyone swerves. Not everyone comes up. But yes, I think it starts with our brain saying 'hold up, reverse, no dying here'. After that, though, there's something else. Something more like a reflex. I think it's also different whether you are killing yourself or someone else is killing you.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

@joeylittle thats the same with hyperthermia, before the person dies, all body functions slow to pump more blood to the heart and brain and a person can survive a long time, or longer than ine thinks is possible.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

Something more like a reflex. I think it's also different whether you are killing yourself or someone else is killing you.

Ah, maybe, but ive felt the same sorta primal reaction boty back then and when i did that.

I guess its a relex but ive always wondered if my intent was to die then why swerve. The brain is an amazing muscle for sure!

 

[lostforgottensoul]

I just call it "the human nature to survive" as my intent was the exact opposite.

Back then, being held under water, all i can remember thinking is "i need to breathe!" Afterwards i was all mad at myself but during that was the only thing in my head.

It was done many MANY times after that time i posted about and there was one time I remember thinking "please let him kill me" but would pass out and wake up with him slapping me all piss off that i passed out. "Well you held me under water you stupid f*ck!" I say that now, knew better back then.

 

[Ed Norton]

'Autonomic and physiological compensatory mechanisms'

But, I have seen a more detailed answer in a (horrible huge book)
Anderson's Pathology :yuck:
Not the pictures or death just the size and esoteric minutiae contained therein and the survival instinct boiled down to the first thing written here they didn't need 100 pages to say that!

Anyone who read both volumes of Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine or a small amount or Anderson's should be included in the PTSD criteria Naccarelli et al's Cardiac Arrhythmias-A Practical Approach, borderline.






A tiny amount of ironic humor to be shared between fellow sufferers- please don't anyone take offense.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

Once they locked me in one of those big lay down freezers, have no clue how long and it SUCKED but i never lost conscience or anything.

I do remember wishing i were dead, that they'd just kill me and get it over with but when presented with a loaded gun begging me to kill myself i turned it down. Have no clue why and today sometimes mad that i did.

Im sorry if im hyjacking this thread or anything...

 

[Recovery4Me]

I have been on a non-sleep jag, so excuse the crude nature of dialog. However, I truly feel in the moment that those experts within authority of DSM selection or those experts whom pondered the sanctioned criterion need credentials of surviving torture or sustained immediate death experiences. I think then perhaps, there might be less rhetoric in the DSM and more clarity. Anger... perhaps.

In my example there's never any "immediate threat" of death while the person still has the emotional capacity to fear death.

Agreed insofar as when my mind splinter. Death or life flat lined into constructs that no longer mattered. There was only the now of pain and the manipulation of false hope. Not all retain 'will' during splintering.

 

[Chava]

But when you are being held captive, I guess on a certain level it doesn't matter.

This aspect seems more directly brought to light in complex trauma diagnosis proposals. But being trapped, especially where your body knows you are not safe, easily induces the deepest level of freeze response...humans or animals. You CAN'T flee so there is total shutdown within the nervous system. You could be shaking with adrenaline and calm the next minute.

From the animal world: a baby bunny freezes when a predator is near. Doesn't have to think about it...its body just does this, which is an amazing defense. They are still loaded with a burst of adrenaline and flight response, and will dart the second they feel it is necessary or an available option. And f*ck will they run fast! A deeper freeze happens when they are actually caught. My dog caught a baby bunny once...was actually holding it lightly in his jaws because he knew I was pissed off. I thought the bunny was dead. It looked absolutely lifeless...open eye glassed over. It was no longer still...it had gone completely limp. My dog let it go (wow!) and the bunny ran off, unharmed. And f*ck, it ran fast. In the human nervous system, the hindbrain areas, it's really no different (there was a video on here somewhere that demonstrated this so well!). The first level of "freeze", if we think of the threat response in terms of a spectrum, involves more like not being seen...heavy orienting responses, ready to escape when the predator is gone. The deeper level, being caught by a predator, induces a really deep freeze. The body is flooded with opioids to help the organism die a less painful death. It's all naturally programmed into mammalian survival responses. This freeze is also akin to mega dissociation. In the animal world, they eventually flee or are killed. Torture is this terrible middle place that happens in the human world.

Anyway, I don't want to drag that all up since you were only touching on that topic, but yes it's bad. Also, lots of kids sadly get kicked around in their own homes, without any feeling they have some other option. Being hit or having things thrown at you might not kill you, but it's the same continuous threat of harm and the dangerous captivity factor. Complex trauma definitions account for this better than the standard PTSD criteria. But trauma-specialized therapists "get it"....why the diagnosis needs to be coupled with intelligent intake.

 

[scout86]

What about the possibility that it's not "reality" that matters, it's your perception of it that matters? Wouldn't it make sense that your brain is going to respond to what it THINKS it's experiencing, regardless of what might literally be true? I don't mean that I think the criteria should be expanded to include watching a scary movie, I mean, if you fear for your life, you do, whether or not you're accurately perceiving the threat and your brain is going to respond accordingly, isn't it?