Question About Startling

[poptart]

I got out of a very abusive (and psychologically torturous) marriage almost two years ago. I noticed about four years ago that I DON'T startle easily. Once, while driving down a newly tarred and gravelled road, an approaching car kicked up a rock that shattered the window just inches from my head. I didn't flinch, or feel anything at all.

More recently, a couple work friends decided it would be fun to sneak up behind me and try to scare me. It never works. No jumping, no racing heart, nothing.

About a month after I left him, my husband got in touch with me to say he was coming to see me. Only then was I jumpy and easily startled. He did come to see me a few times, and I had to call the police to get him to leave. It wasn't until several days after he left town to stay with relatives on the other side of the state that my cool cucumber demeanor returned.

Now, I'm seriously decompensating and even had to check into the psych ward for a few days. And yet I don't startle at all. Ever.

Does anyone have any explanation?

 

[radicalgratitude]

It sounds like you freeze. It's an innate animal-survival instinct similar to "playing dead." It also sounds like you dissociate during those times.

 

[franciemarnie]

I remember taking care of my mother one winter in a warm state when she had cancer. My father was still working in our home city and would visit every six weeks for a couple weeks. When he wasn't there, I had no startle effect. No matter what happened, whether in the hospital or out, driving, anything - no startle.

When my dad visited - OMG! Literally every time he came in the same room as me, I'd jump. (And that made him mad.)

We maybe become hard wired to startle with the one who was the source of our trauma or situations reminiscent of the one. The body/mind remembers.

If we are lucky, we can go back to "normal" after they're gone.

 

[Justmehere]

Maybe a neurologic problem?

 

[Barconian]

You have less fears than you think... Only certain things startle you, albeit the most part of life doesn't. Obviously, the thought of your husband puts you in fight or flight mode, which would make you jumpy and have your nerves on end.

 

[Notsowild]

We maybe become hard wired to startle with the one who was the source of our trauma or situations reminiscent of the one. The body/mind remembers.

This is very enlightening @franciemarnie. I am more jumpy around older men and my abuser was my father.