Today I am emerging from two days of having my body and mind taken hostage by chemical peptides that were originally designed by God to help me to survive. It's called the Fight or Flight reaction, and it's that part of our instinctual survival mechanism that is intended to happen outside of our awareness, because if we had to stop and make a cognitive assessment of a dangerous situation before we responded, we would probably end up dead.
God made the Fight or Flight process. . . .to help us survive the dangers of our world.
There is a third aspect to this process, a third face to this survival mechanism, and that's called the Freeze part. If you are unable to fight or flee, then God has designed it so that the mind and body become paralyzed and immobile. It happens a lot in nature when an animal "accepts" that it's about to die, it will sort of just sit there waiting for the inevitable. It also happens when a person is unable to fight or flee. . . and so they freeze up, not knowing what to do. (This actually happens a LOT with me.)
God may have designed this process to help us survive, but Panic Disorder (and PTSD) is absolutely the Fight, Flight, or Freeze process gone wild and completely out of control.
I don't know if we're born with certain proclivities toward one reaction or the other, but what I have learned about my own process is that I don't like to "scruff" with people, so I'm typically not a fighter, but I will when backed hard enough into a situation. Although there are ways that I fight, my predominant method of response is the flight part, only I call it my "escape plan." And I am just starting to learn about this third way and how it affects me, how the "Freeze" part manifests in terms of every day process.
It's just interesting to me (sitting here safe and sane) that I have just lived through all three responses. Going to Prescott for the last of the PTSD treatment groups on Friday, the part that kicked in was the Fight response. . . .not fighting other people, but the fight against the PTSD, making plans and hoping for a better life, renting space for my creative artist to thrive on the other side of a relocation into an environment that IS better suited to meet my needs. That was the warrior in me. . . .fighting against the odds. . . .lol. . . fighting against what oppresses my creative spirit. I love this warrior self. . . .she is, quite honestly, the only reason why I am alive to this day.
And I left Prescott fueled with hope and excitement. . . .until about halfway between Prescott and Ashfork, and that's when the fear-induced creeping toxic panic begain to take hold causing a very frantic 24 hours of dealing with the trailer incidents that ended up with me spending a whole lot of money for nothing. This was the Flee part of the reaction. . . .the "it's now or never" part of the belief that helps to fuel the panic, and when it couldn't happen, the next layer invisibly kicked in, the part of my process that is much less understood.
When I returned from Flagstaff yesterday, I felt completely immobilized, both psycholigically and physically, like how even folding my laundry and putting it away felt like an unnatural act that required the sheer will of a saint just to fold one pair of socks. My brain ached, and my body just didn't move. . . .so I sat there staring off into space feeling like a failure as a human being, wondering what the hell was wrong with me, and trying to figure out what I needed to do next. Am I not praying hard enough or correctly? Am I not doing something else well enough or right? And then I had to pull myself together and go to work. . . . lol, but not until after I was able to spend the evening with a friend who understands the effects of stress, so she helped to normalize the effects the stress were having on me, and we laughed and enjoyed a wonderful evening together.
By the time I drove home this morning, my brain no longer ached, my body was trembling, and when I lay down to sleep I could feel the tension release, finally cry and feel the truth of my very young self all curled up in the darkness of her closet unable to fight or escape what was happening in the next room. And so it was that patience and compassion filled my spirit so that I could soothe the young me whom God had helped to survive unnatural events by immobilizing both my mind and body. Feeling the truth of this and releasing the grip allowed me to sleep, even if for a short while.
This is the process I am learning to embrace in an environment that micro-manages every single aspect of our lives, so it's humbling and humiliating on a level that the average person can't really understand. There is no privacy here, no personal moments where a flawed humanity has a chance to heal behind the veil of a pulled together projected self-image of strength and confidence. So be it. . . .if people judge me here, then that is honestly their issue, not mine. I am doing the absolute best that I can, and if that's good enough for God, then it's good enough for me.
If I were a parent with a child who responded to the world in this way after having survived the chaotic environment she grew up in, I would protect this child fiercely from the judgments of well meaning, but ill informed bystanders, which is exactly what a good parent does. Maybe people don't always understand me, or the way I go through life, but I am learning how to navigate my way through an unnatural terrain created by an unnatural environment filled by unexpected wolves with rules that just no longer make sense. And I am also finding unexpected allies in healing here at the canyon (and elsewhere). So for these brave and compassionate souls, I am eternally grateful for the hugs and FBcomments of support when I feel the most ashamed and at my utter worst.
I don't think my life is any more or less stressful than anyone else's, but I do find that the way I respond to that stress is skewed and screwed. Some people drink, some hunt elk, some jump out of airplanes or blow things up as a way of "releasing" the stress caused by everyday life, but me? I fight against the panic by creating escape plans, and when they don't work, I become immobilized for a while until this toxic torrent of biochemical process releases my body and mind back to the rational, reasonable me.
I am learning, albeit slowing and painfully, how to change the way I invisibly respond to the stressors in the world, but it's the way God made me so that I could survive, even if it is, at times, way too much of even a good thing.