The impact the fight-flight-freeze response on your emotions

If you're someone that's experience trauma or high stress situations in your lifetime, you may experience the fight, flight or freeze response.  You've probably heard about this response before, but I want to demonstrate how fight, flight or freeze may show up in your relationship to your OWN emotions. 

Let me start by sharing a personal story with you.  The 5th grade was the worst year of my life.  Here's what went down: my grandmother died of cancer (I had a nightmare about her dying moments before I woke up to hear my mom on the phone reporting to someone "My mom just died"), 9/11 happened and I was woken up by my mom to "see what's happening to our country" and proceeded to sit, frozen, watching the horrors televised on the news (wondering at what second an airplane was going to crash into my home or school), started my period (just the cherry on top of an "amazing" end to my summer), and then I predicted my parents' divorce (though my dad PROMISED it wouldn't happen)- they officially separated on Valentine's day. 

I was severely afraid of death and my dad remained present with me at night, either talking to me, playing guitar for me, or laying down next to me, so that I could comfortably fall asleep... but with the separation, he was gone, I was alone, and I laid there terrified every single night (wondering where all my toys would go when I died).  These are high stress situations, that in comparison to the sufferings other humans have encountered, were actually quite mild.  

Regardless, these situations felt traumatic for me- and already being a highly sensitive person with the nature of an empath- I was an emotional wreck.  I had so much anxiety as a child, that I would dissociate in a panic and then in response would slam my hand on a surface as hard as I possibly could just to remind myself that I was still alive.  One of the only people that understood what I was doing at the time was my little sister.  But even she referred to me as a "drama queen."  

My whole family did.  I was "too emotional," I was a "drama queen," I was "too sensitive."  And I needed to "stop being so emotional and start being more rational."  I was criticized for being an emotional girl, and so I learned to criticize myself.  I was conditioned to believe that if I beat myself up enough for being an emotional person, that I would eventually stop being so emotional.  And if I could stop being so emotional, I might finally achieve validation from my parents; they would finally be proud of me. 

So I learned to fight.  

I fought so hard against my emotional self, that by the time I was a teenager, I was so angry.  My frustration tolerance was so low and my temper was so high.  But here's the support I got; MORE criticism.  I was told that I needed anger management... which only made me more angry.  

Here's what I didn't get: understanding. 

So here's what I didn't give myself: understanding. 

I beat myself, I blamed myself, I criticized my emotions, and I remained in cycles of anxiety and anger... and then I ended up in a co-dependent relationship with someone that did not meet my needs except for one: the need to feel understood.  He understood me, but at the time, he wasn't healthy for me. 

I also learned to flee my own feelings.  Because I thought they were wrong to have and because I thought I was indeed "TOO emotional," I learned to dismiss them.  I put off setting boundaries, I numbed myself out, and I tried to pretend like there weren't problems where really there WERE problems (hence why I stayed in an unhealthy relationship for so long). 

Here's what I didn't know back then: neuroscience. 

No wonder I couldn't be "rational..." 

It's because I had an over-active amygdala serving as the never ending alarm going off in my brain and in my body.  I also didn't know that when the amygdala senses threat, that it starts the release of cortisol in the body and this rush of cortisol prepares the body for fight, flight or freeze.  

I was living in a state of alarm. 

And when living in a state of alarm, the brain does what it does best; it focuses on SAFETY.  And it felt SAFE for me to criticize myself and to dismiss myself (because it had became so FAMILIAR).  I had to learn that in order to make a change, I would HAVE to be uncomfortable and I would have to remind myself that uncomfortable does not necessarily equal unsafe.  

I learned to hate my emotions. 

Why would I nurture something I hated?

And this is where we get into trouble.  This is where we become mentally ill; when we hate ourselves so much that we don't nurture, support and heal ourselves (we remain stuck in cycles of anxiousness, overwhelm and self hate).  Yup, I said it- self hate.  I've hated myself.  And sometimes, when I'm on auto-pilot and thinking in anxious and impulsive ways, I hate myself again.  

So what the hell do we do? 

We have to first RECOGNIZE whether we are fighting, fleeing or freezing.  Because the more aware we become about how we auto-pilot respond to our emotions, we can start to respond with intention.  That's really the trick here:

...to stop responding on auto-pilot and to start responding with intention. 

If you criticize your emotions, become upset with yourself for feeling a certain way, become guilty for feeling a certain way, ruminate on your emotional discomfort (without doing anything active to reduce it) or obsess over the way someone made you feel... you might be in FIGHT MODE.  If you take drugs or drink alcohol specifically to cope with your feelings, if you laugh off your emotional trauma, if you make fun of yourself for the way that you feel, if you try to suppress or ignore your emotions... you might be in FLIGHT MODE. If you zone out, dissociate or disconnect from your body or environment, or if find yourself procrastinating on your healing process... you might be in FREEZE MODE. 

It's possible to experience all three or any combination of these three situations.  And you don't have to have experienced severe trauma in comparison to others in order to be impacted by the stress and trauma of YOUR life and in order to fall into one or more of these categories: fight, flight, freeze. 

Becoming aware of your own patterns is crucial in your healing process, and the sooner you can begin to acknowledge how your own trauma impacts your auto-pilot way of being, the sooner you can begin healing from your past and restructuring the way you live in the present.  

As a therapist for anxious women with childhood trauma, that's my jam: helping individuals process the past so that they can replace anxious cycles with peaceful ones.  If you're ready to take the leap and begin your own healing journey with a therapist that gets you and can help you nurture yourself in ways you've never been nurtured, now's the time to set up a free therapy intro call with me (let's get to work).