I've heard of combat vets with PTSD patrolling or going into fight mode and actually punching/kicking in their sleep or upon waking from nightmares.
How many complex, childhood trauma/abuse survivors also have this?
In my case, it gets triggered by my "Momma Bear" sense of needing to defend someone vulnerable.
I woke up today dreaming that I was beating the shit out of a man who was stealing my friend's art and purse and on the run. Somehow, in a dress, I managed to throw a high heal at his face, knock him down, snap his neck, and kill him with my bare hands.
It felt "good/right" to do this, and I basically felt, in the dream, the pure adrenaline "fight" mode rush that I recall from one of my trauma's in which I fought off an attacker who was trying to kill someone I loved and needed to protect.
In both the dream and in the memory of when I fought that person, I just realized how instinctual survival truly is. Yet, in the dream, my fear of fighting inappropriate to the threat level was highlighted. He was on the run and not an immediate threat to us. He was unarmed, just a thief. My anger at the injustice triggered fear and fear triggered my fight response.
I have been triggered into this "Fight" state in the past by anger/fear combos and have not had control over the next couple of minutes in which I actually started to attack. Luckily, I was able to snap out of it. But I have, I guess, good reason to fear myself.
As I process how I fought the attacker in real life, as a small child of age 6, I instinctively attacked the face/head of the assailant. If I had hit the nerve of the neck area, the attacker would have let go of the child she was attacking, who would have drown by being carried away in the white water of the river. Instead, I sought total submission and shock/awe, not loss of nerve reflex, grip, or consciousness.
I remember it happened so fast, and I remember seeking to dominate her will and make her submit to my will. She did. I gained power over her.
The downside? Yeah, we survived, but now, I am afraid of my willpower over others. I am afraid of being triggered into this mode again by a stimulus.
Do Vets with PTSD fear that their training will kick in at the wrong times, or that they will hurt someone unintentionally?
This seems to happen to me at a semiconscious level. I'm scared that if "Scared" in a situation I might kill someone, especially now that I'm an adult. If I could subjugate an adult at age 6 going into fight mode, what could I do now that I'm grown?
These fears seem to keep me from feeling confident, about my ability to have control over myself, to feel safe with myself, to trust myself to fight only when needed.
Please, if anyone has had this happen, to the point when triggered they actually fight when they are not in real threat, but are triggered into fight mode as if the need were real, please tell me how you have coped and how you have dealt with the re-traumatization of being afraid of yourself, feeling like you pose a threat to others.
Thank you.
How many complex, childhood trauma/abuse survivors also have this?
In my case, it gets triggered by my "Momma Bear" sense of needing to defend someone vulnerable.
I woke up today dreaming that I was beating the shit out of a man who was stealing my friend's art and purse and on the run. Somehow, in a dress, I managed to throw a high heal at his face, knock him down, snap his neck, and kill him with my bare hands.
It felt "good/right" to do this, and I basically felt, in the dream, the pure adrenaline "fight" mode rush that I recall from one of my trauma's in which I fought off an attacker who was trying to kill someone I loved and needed to protect.
In both the dream and in the memory of when I fought that person, I just realized how instinctual survival truly is. Yet, in the dream, my fear of fighting inappropriate to the threat level was highlighted. He was on the run and not an immediate threat to us. He was unarmed, just a thief. My anger at the injustice triggered fear and fear triggered my fight response.
I have been triggered into this "Fight" state in the past by anger/fear combos and have not had control over the next couple of minutes in which I actually started to attack. Luckily, I was able to snap out of it. But I have, I guess, good reason to fear myself.
As I process how I fought the attacker in real life, as a small child of age 6, I instinctively attacked the face/head of the assailant. If I had hit the nerve of the neck area, the attacker would have let go of the child she was attacking, who would have drown by being carried away in the white water of the river. Instead, I sought total submission and shock/awe, not loss of nerve reflex, grip, or consciousness.
I remember it happened so fast, and I remember seeking to dominate her will and make her submit to my will. She did. I gained power over her.
The downside? Yeah, we survived, but now, I am afraid of my willpower over others. I am afraid of being triggered into this mode again by a stimulus.
Do Vets with PTSD fear that their training will kick in at the wrong times, or that they will hurt someone unintentionally?
This seems to happen to me at a semiconscious level. I'm scared that if "Scared" in a situation I might kill someone, especially now that I'm an adult. If I could subjugate an adult at age 6 going into fight mode, what could I do now that I'm grown?
These fears seem to keep me from feeling confident, about my ability to have control over myself, to feel safe with myself, to trust myself to fight only when needed.
Please, if anyone has had this happen, to the point when triggered they actually fight when they are not in real threat, but are triggered into fight mode as if the need were real, please tell me how you have coped and how you have dealt with the re-traumatization of being afraid of yourself, feeling like you pose a threat to others.
Thank you.
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