Part 3 of the series on Trauma Defenses: How the flight response escapes through avoidance. Learn to transform compulsive running into conscious choice.
This was article was really packed with new ways of me viewing my avoidance tendencies. I for sure have the emotional and somatic flight show up often. Very eye-opening for me.
The line “flight would rather disappoint than feel trapped” resonated deeply with me. I feel that with every fiber in my being.
Thank you Brandi, I am glad to hear that it resonated and was helpful for you. There are so many ways we can avoid uncomfortable emotions, and it is understandable! I still do it too sometimes and its difficult to turn back toward the emotions rather than away from them. Sadly and ironically, that also keeps us trapped in them.
I often wish I had better measaures to activate flight "mode".
What if the opposite of flight, the reliving of memories of a former relationship becomes the default mode, the glorifying of what felt broken while in it, the ignorance that two people weren`t meant to be together.
I know this is very personal and still vague, but what you say there can also be too little of flight?
I think I see what you’re getting at Philip and it sounds like you went through a very painful loss. I’m sorry for that. I think the vast majority of us have experienced that kind of heart ache.
What you’re suggesting is a bit like the movie, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
I don’t think the answer is in flight, which is a maladaptive defense, but perhaps it’s more in radical acceptance of change and loss. There is a beautiful book by the same name that I highly recommend.
Or perhaps it’s the Buddhist concepts of impermanence and non-attachments.
There is definitely a way to move out of that default mode that keeps us stuck.
Thank you Daria! There are so many ways we can escape or take flight. Once we name it that way, we are empowered to male different choices. Thank you for reading! 💜
Since it cannot fight or flight, a baby hearing loud noises nearby, such as that of quarrelling parents, can only “move into a third neurological state, known as a ‘freeze’ state. … This freeze state is a trauma state” (Childhood Disrupted, pg.123). And it’s the unpredictability of a stressor, rather than the intensity, that does the most harm.
When the stressor “is completely predictable, even if it is more traumatic — such as giving a [laboratory] rat a regularly scheduled foot shock accompanied by a sharp, loud sound — the stress does not create these exact same [negative] brain changes” (pg. 42).
Although society cannot prevent anyone from bearing children, not even the plainly incompetent and reckless procreator, it can educate all young people for the most important job ever, even those intending to remain childless. And rather than being about instilling ‘values’, such child-development science curriculum should be about understanding, not just information memorization. It may even end up mitigating some of the familial dysfunction seemingly increasingly prevalent in society.
If nothing else, such curriculum could offer students an idea/clue as to whether they’re emotionally suited for the immense responsibility and strains of parenthood. Given what is at stake, should they not at least be equipped with such important science-based knowledge?
Thank you for your thoughts, Frank. You are correct that babies don't have access to Fight or Flight. I actually have an essay on the Freeze state coming out next week. In addition, there are also 2 more states that babies have access to, Submit and Attach and those come out later in July. Perhaps these will be helpful for you?
This was article was really packed with new ways of me viewing my avoidance tendencies. I for sure have the emotional and somatic flight show up often. Very eye-opening for me.
The line “flight would rather disappoint than feel trapped” resonated deeply with me. I feel that with every fiber in my being.
Thank you Brandi, I am glad to hear that it resonated and was helpful for you. There are so many ways we can avoid uncomfortable emotions, and it is understandable! I still do it too sometimes and its difficult to turn back toward the emotions rather than away from them. Sadly and ironically, that also keeps us trapped in them.
I often wish I had better measaures to activate flight "mode".
What if the opposite of flight, the reliving of memories of a former relationship becomes the default mode, the glorifying of what felt broken while in it, the ignorance that two people weren`t meant to be together.
I know this is very personal and still vague, but what you say there can also be too little of flight?
I think I see what you’re getting at Philip and it sounds like you went through a very painful loss. I’m sorry for that. I think the vast majority of us have experienced that kind of heart ache.
What you’re suggesting is a bit like the movie, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
I don’t think the answer is in flight, which is a maladaptive defense, but perhaps it’s more in radical acceptance of change and loss. There is a beautiful book by the same name that I highly recommend.
Or perhaps it’s the Buddhist concepts of impermanence and non-attachments.
There is definitely a way to move out of that default mode that keeps us stuck.
Thank you Linnea,
I will look out for the book you mentioned. And yes, you`re right.
It`s crazy that even 3 years later it`s still affecting me, but it is what it is.
Healing takes time, but I`m very open to doing whatever is possible to move on.
Feel free to drop me a DM if you like. There is something about this person that makes it hard to let them go.
Perhaps it’s not the person themself, but some connection to the past that they evoke.
Good article, Linnea. I've always thought of many of these things as "escape." But flight captures what we're doing much better.
Thank you Daria! There are so many ways we can escape or take flight. Once we name it that way, we are empowered to male different choices. Thank you for reading! 💜
Since it cannot fight or flight, a baby hearing loud noises nearby, such as that of quarrelling parents, can only “move into a third neurological state, known as a ‘freeze’ state. … This freeze state is a trauma state” (Childhood Disrupted, pg.123). And it’s the unpredictability of a stressor, rather than the intensity, that does the most harm.
When the stressor “is completely predictable, even if it is more traumatic — such as giving a [laboratory] rat a regularly scheduled foot shock accompanied by a sharp, loud sound — the stress does not create these exact same [negative] brain changes” (pg. 42).
Although society cannot prevent anyone from bearing children, not even the plainly incompetent and reckless procreator, it can educate all young people for the most important job ever, even those intending to remain childless. And rather than being about instilling ‘values’, such child-development science curriculum should be about understanding, not just information memorization. It may even end up mitigating some of the familial dysfunction seemingly increasingly prevalent in society.
If nothing else, such curriculum could offer students an idea/clue as to whether they’re emotionally suited for the immense responsibility and strains of parenthood. Given what is at stake, should they not at least be equipped with such important science-based knowledge?
Thank you for your thoughts, Frank. You are correct that babies don't have access to Fight or Flight. I actually have an essay on the Freeze state coming out next week. In addition, there are also 2 more states that babies have access to, Submit and Attach and those come out later in July. Perhaps these will be helpful for you?