Can you undo the desensitization and conditioning to violence?

[someo]

With this you really can’t answer how you will react. Once you are in full fight/flight mode you will resort to training or will freeze or run. It’s good to recognize what you can do but in the heat of the moment your cognitive thought will disappear sending you into autopilot. It is the same way soldiers will run towards bullets or try to use something for cover that in no way can protect them from fire. When your heart rate hits 175+ cognitive thought is gone in a fight/flight response.

Great that you are asymptomatic hopefully it continues. Just remember there is not a cure and symptoms can always return.

Well, yes you are absolutely correct, and I wasn't clear enough. But if it's absolute full flight or fight and no control at all, then it's no longer my responsibility in legal and other senses the way I see it. I mean our laws here clearly state that if you are threatened with severe violence then it's not just about whether the robber (for example) was about to kill you, it's about how you read the situation, as long as there was a reason to suspect that you were at severe danger. It's a bit hard to explain in English which is not my native language but the point with that is exactly the fight or flight response. I think it's common sense that if someone threatens you with severe violence and you enter full-blown fight or flight (which has previously for me required either me being attacked or knives being involved) it's the responsibility of the person who threatened you. We have also discussed this with my t who (just like you) says that there is nothing anyone can do about how they react after a certain point.

I'm not that worried though about this aspect because I know from experience that it does take a very dangerous situation to send me into full flight or fight mode. I mean it's again hard to explain but the adrenaline does hit me pretty fast but it takes a lot before I go into full survival mode as I like to call it. I was previously worried that I might do bad stuff when I'm partially in survival mode. Now I'm sure I could manage that situation as well as anyone could.

You are also right about the ptsd symptoms potentially returning. My therapist does not think that they will return ever in full force for a long period of time because the trauma has responded to therapy so well, but she does keep reminding me about the fact that the symptoms do return occasionally in some form. A fact which I have been able to accept. The way she sees it is that it's natural that they return at times but the serious work that we've done CBT-wise should enable me to manage the reactions and thoughts so that it does not become too overwhelming.

 

[Ronin]

Nope... Proportionality.

Just because you are threatened, you can't fly off the handle.

I don't know of any laws that would grant someone the right to going apeshit on someone.

Hell, even traditional laws regulate vendettas tightly and point out reconcilation is a go-to course... even in codexes permissible of honor killing, in their correct legal interpretation.

Being provoked doesn't give you the right to respond however you see fit.

The responsibility is still yours.
Theirs is for their act, but not your response to it.

 

[someo]

Being provoked doesn't give you the right to respond however you see fit.

Yes I forgot to add that. I'm sorry but I have an intense workday and am not able to fully think my replies through. I'm not afraid of responding completely unpropotionally, what I was trained to do is to neutralise the threat, not e.g. kill someone. Yes I know how to do the latter, but it's not what I was specifically conditioned to do. Yes I am trained to do stuff that causes damage, but it ends immediately once there is no major threat. You don't use more force that you have to, and you try to avoid violence in the first place. I was previously afraid that I might overdo it more or less on purpose, but no longer.

The point is that I no longer want to even use force unless there de facto is absolutely no other choice, the other point is that as mentioned here before in survival mode you easily act how you are trained to act. But as I mentioned I was never trained to go berserk on someone, even in Krav Maga we trained to remove the threat and once it's safe, flee the scene and call police. Also we were specifically trained to use minimum force as long as it's possible. The techniques that can do severe damage are meant for clear life and death scenarios like a knife attack or multiple opponents. Like if some drunk person tries to punch you in the face, you just block, maybe hit him with an open hand in the chest to get some distance and flee the scene. However if someone attacks you with a knife, usually you would have to use more serious techniques if you want to survive.

 

[Ronin]

Yep, goes figure and no worries, I got that would be the general intent from your tone on other posts, just pointing out areas I thought are unclear, as defense to a robbery in practice.

Good to hear you got it covered. :tup:

 

[someo]

Yep, goes figure and no worries, I got that would be the general intent from your tone on other posts, just pointing out areas I thought are unclear, as defense to a robbery in practice.

Good to hear you got it covered. :tup:

Yes good that you pointed it out, those were really important points.

 

[Rainman8772]

But if it's absolute full flight or fight and no control at all, then it's no longer my responsibility in legal and other senses the way I see it. I mean our laws here clearly state that if you are threatened with severe violence then it's not just about whether the robber (for example) was about to kill you, it's about how you read the situation, as long as there was a reason to suspect that you were at severe danger.

You are still held responsible regardless of if you are afraid or not.

I think it's common sense that if someone threatens you with severe violence and you enter full-blown fight or flight (which has previously for me required either me being attacked or knives being involved) it's the responsibility of the person who threatened you. We have also discussed this with my t who (just like you) says that there is nothing anyone can do about how they react after a certain point.

Hate to say it but you can be completely calm and kill someone. The therapist can do CBT everyday all day with you and only knows what they read in a book unless put in the situation no one knows. Each situation is different. You can accept previous trauma all you want and freeze like a deer in the headlights of your car when placed in a new situation or fight. However you are still responsible for every action you take.

As to the partial fight or flight mode you always use it 24/7 it is the sympathetic nervous system. It is why you do not pass out when standing up. Also why you do not stop breathing while asleep. It is completely involuntary and increases heart rate and blood pressure in less than a second from resting rate to full rate. It is completely instinctual.

Cognitive thought is the parasympathetic nervous system which controls secondary things such as digestion, hunger, hearing and the like.

Humans put more into smell and visual signals during any altercation or trauma. It is why there are always gaps in memory, and a smell can put you into a flashback reliving that moment in time. The only sense that isn’t distorted during a fight/flight situation is smell. Hearing, vision, and touch all diminish. Taste isn’t used.

 

[Ronin]

However if someone attacks you with a knife, usually you would have to use more serious techniques if you want to survive.

Reminds me...

You might work on multitasking and ability to speak no matter the situation and how to present non-threatening and calming in body language and the similar.

Because just because a knife is present in the situation doesn't mean ergo the smartest thing is focusing on it.

You are not dealing with a knife.
You are dealing with a *person*... wielding a knife.

Ability to calm & control the person may be more use than whatever your martial teachers, none disrespect to any of them meant, taught you.

Soft power is often more than the hard. Also harder to learn & do.

That and get solid on critical care medicine, to the extent needed.

 

[Rainman8772]

^^^^^
Exactly

 

[Rainman8772]

This works better than any martial art.

 

[someo]

Thanks for the suggestions. Though of course I will de-escalate verbally (which we also did train) if I'm not in complete survival mode. I would do that in any case if I have any mindful thought left in me, and might do that even in survival mode (it's just impossible to know for sure).

But what should I do about this specifically? We have been over this like a million times with my therapist and she just thinks that there is really nothing more we can do about e.g. a knife situation and that it's useless for me to keep thinking about that stuff.

Certainly feeling guilty about this and thinking I'm going to end up killing someone one day does not help, I did that for years. It just makes every issue worse.

 

[Ronin]

What about find a mentor.

Military, police, neither but actually lived hard lives & conflicts, who has the yeears / decades of experience to help walk you through life, and perspective offered on Feels hot. Really isn't., situations.

Because even the knives attacks you mention you fear a lot? Don't really look like what your fears have.

And what you describe you intend to do can get you hurt worse. I was just thinking of cut wrists as you execute the block, not starting on angering your attacker, and the similar.

Some times smiling at them can give you enough time to get out of the hold. Or liiightly touching their wrist move their hand away. And so on.

Learning about people may be more useful for violence than learning about violence itself.

 

[someo]

First of all thanks for the suggestions. But let me share what I'm thinking now. So now that I thought about it I think the reason my therapist doesn't want to get into this too deep is that I have extremely high cognitive capacity and tend to easily overthink in a way that it becomes a major problem.

So I'm guessing it might not be that she doesn't think that we should never work on this anymore, but rather that she thinks that my overthinking makes this worse. I mean I can clearly see a pattern here, the more I think about violent situations and my reactions to them, the more I get triggered by those thoughts, and the more there is room for cognitive distortions.

I mean point here is that once I started thinking less and less about this, this started actually improving pretty fast considering that a few months is a short time with this issue and my background.

So I don't know how this sounds but I'm thinking that taking on account this COVID-19 situation which means that the risk of getting into any situation is pretty darn low (as bars etc. are closed and people including me are mostly home, any violent situations in broad daylight are spectacularly rare here in Finland), I should just forget about this whole thing and get back to it after a few months?

I'm not talking about burying this issue but rather I can see that I need to undo certain stuff and I just feel like there is sort of a process going on somewhere in my mind which is getting me into the right direction.

I just feel like it's my overthinking of this (which I still do pretty often) that sort of keeps the issue alive. And I also feel like I need some time and sort of distance to this, so that I can think more clearly.

I just feel like going over this constantly with anyone (including a mentor) at this stage would not necessarily lead to any progress.

Basically I have to say I already knew all the stuff you said and suggested etc, but at some level I keep thinking that de-escalation would never work etc. Which are a clear cognitive distortions. I think driven by past experiences and maintained by what is still relatively constant overthinking.

I mean my thinking of this problem in some ways is ridiculously dumb if I look at it from an outside perspective. These are not always fully conscious thoughts of course.

I just feel like I need to get some distance from this problem and also my past and focus on the present. Focusing on the present is what t says every time we meet, if I bring this or a similar issue up. I mean I now realised that I still often think about this several times a day, which certainly is not smart or healthy behaviour.

So I'm thinking avoid all places that are risky at all (which is extremely easy now) and get some serious distance and perspective to this, then get back to this like after 3 months? Not bury it but get some distance and perspective and then work on it.