What is your favoured mode of reacting? fight, flight, freeze or fawn?

[digger]

Freeze mostly.

Flight if it's possible, but I think in most situations my brain has shut that down as not being a safe option. Although I wonder if dissociation is a kind of internal flight?

Fawn I think I probably utilised as a child, trying to placate certain people, but I don't think I head that way much now.

Fight - rarely even enters my head.

 

[Rani G2]

Sorry, I wanted to write @Abstract
Has anyone of you tried imaginative techniques to handle such incidents?

I just got a book from my therapist which is explaining about tools to create shields when assaults happen. Selfprotection shields and influencing one's body while it happens.

I dont know if reading a book is helpful. I will give it a try.

 

[Lucycat]

I freeze - and yes I agree with others that dissociation is a sort of 'pretend flight'. I do that - hide in my head. Because freeze comes first I cannot move or speak. I would like to change but I am not sure how to. I think I have learned to avoid situations that I perceive as threatening, and probably it needs to be more threatening now than previously.

 

[Silver.]

I fight and flight. For years, I purposely dated people that lived hours away, so I only had to see them a few days a week.
With my current s/o, the first two years of our relationship, we fought and broke up more times than I can count. It wasn't until we got serious, made a promise not to run anymore that we stopped breaking up (stupid stuff too, but when those instincts are ingrained in you, that's what you do).
And truth be told, I am mean. When I fight, I say the worst things possible, the things that are buried inside, things that make you hate me so you will leave. I did a good job of pushing people away in the past.
But because of the past I have with my s/o, I've taught myself to just stop. To stop and take 5 mins, 10 mins, however much time I need so I don't rage out and get the normal thoughts on their way to my tongue.

 

[jaccat]

Flight, followed by freeze or fight.

 

[Anarchy]

Freeze,
there's not much that can follow on from that.

 

[shimmerz]

there's not much that can follow on from that.

Besides fawn.

Sat in my T-docs office at the very beginning of therapy (which was 2 years into my latest kindling). Based on what he heard (my keeling for no apparent reason and with no warning), he suggested that the 'initial trauma' happened before I was physically able to use fight or flight or even freeze. So his guess was that it happened before I was able to move (newborn-ish).

lol. I thought he was nuts at the time. The story I had been told was one of loving birth parents. 3 years later I stared down the truth as to what the situation of my first two years was. He knew in 5 minutes or less what took me years to figure out for myself.

As I have progressed I have learned to internalize anger (allow myself to be angry for myself) rather than freak out when I felt others were being unfairly treated. I often wondered why I could be so protective of others and not myself. *heavy sigh* Now I know. Still working on it.

 

[Noxyoursox]

Fight/freeze when I was a kid--my temper was on a hair trigger and I would get in physical fights with any kid who even slightly made fun of me, but I tended to go off on my own and immerse myself in solitary make believe in order to avoid other kids. I was terrified of adults though, and tended to follow rules compulsively (which still is mostly the case).

Joining the military quickly changed that to flight/freeze (it was like I became a completely different person in the space of a couple months). Almost nothing makes me lose my temper anymore, because I maintain emotional distance by immersing myself in art, fiction, and video games and only interacting with "real life" when absolutely necessary. However I keep myself extremely busy, and quickly get depressed if I don't have enough to do. When I am stressed I become impulsive, with a tendency to suddenly sever all ties to whatever is causing stress (quitting jobs, leaving relationships, giving up stressful tasks or endeavors, very sudden urges to commit suicide). My fight response is a last desperate resort, and functions as a form of cutting free and escaping (justifying myself with anger). I still have a lot of difficulting thinking of myself as an adult, or standing up to people I regard as more "adult" than me.

 

[Hope69]

haven't read the article, but freeze was my instinctive reaction. Learning to change that into healthy boundaries and get the F* out if it feels wrong!

 

[lostforgottensoul]

Has anyone of you tried imaginative techniques to handle such incidents?

Thats part of DBT and yes, Ive tried. I have a "world" that I disassociate to but couldnt use that as it was used to escape what i shouldnt be so i finally was able to "paint" (seriously Boss Ross way, and his name is in the book as his voice is soothing lol) an imagined safe place but ended up loosing it and has stayed loss and thus where im stuck in that book.

 

[mp2277]

Btw nothing personal but treating these reactions as something biologically given -and- set in stone piss...

True. I am a freezer. Been that way all of my post childhood life. Didn't know what it was until a couple of years ago and therapy helped me see it and learn to stop it. I have made remarkable progress but still have still times I battle it. I've learned the victory lies in spotting the trigger and stopping my response ASAP. I had neuro feedback for about 20 sessions and although I don't understand how it worked it did work. There is absolutely hope and healing for us all!

 

[mp2277]

Btw nothing personal but treating these reactions as something biologically given -and- set in stone piss...

True. I am a freezer. Been that way all of my post childhood life. Didn't know what it was until a couple of years ago and therapy helped me see it and learn to stop it. I have made remarkable progress but still have still times I battle it. I've learned the victory lies in spotting the trigger and stopping my response ASAP. I had neuro feedback for about 20 sessions and although I don't understand how it worked it did work. There is absolutely hope and healing for us all!