Trauma
Here are some trauma responses education.
When we experience any kind of trauma, we can respond to the threat in various ways to cope.
We are all familiar with the fight or flight response, but there are actually four main trauma responses, which are categorized as "the four F's of trauma": fight, flight, freeze and fawn
Fight Response
When you're triggered by an event, you might experience a fight response. This happens when the sympathetic nervous system and hypothalamus are activated, which releases adrenaline into the bloodstream. A fight trauma response is when we believe that if we are able to maintain power over the threat, we will gain control. This can look like physical fights, yelling, physical aggression, throwing things and property damage. It's also possible to experience a tightening in the throat and stomach knots along with other symptoms such as balling your hands into fists or having tears in your eyes.
Freeze Response
The freeze response can help you slow down and carefully evaluate a dangerous situation in order to make an informed decision about what to do next. When this protective mechanism is activated, it frequently leads to "freezing"-feeling frozen and unable to move, or getting trapped in a fog or oblivious to reality.
You don't feel like you're really there, and you're mentally checked out as you leave out what's going on around you and what you're feeling in an attempt to obtain emotional security.
Fawn Response
Fawning is an unhealthy pattern of behavior characterized by putting other people's needs before your own, and deferring to them at all costs to avoid conflict. It can lead you to abandon yourself and your own needs as you become lost in other people. Most likely, you feel like you're not understood by others or overshadowed by the people in your life.
Flight Response
The fight-or-flight response is a physiological reaction that occurs when you feel threatened or exposed.
Avoidant behavior can follow the flight response as a way of self-protection. If you're healthy, you might choose to avoid conflict and disengage within limits. However, trauma survivors may go one step farther by shutting themselves off entirely in an effort to escape from a dangerous situation or any unpleasant emotions.
Take a moment to read through and reflect upon your own responses. Which reactions do you resonate with & why?!
Which do you resonate with & why?
@CrystalSchaefferLCSW
Thank you for making a post about this important topic!
Which reactions do you resonate with & why?!
I react in a mixed way when my trauma is triggered. I might feel anger arising but keep it inside, I will never become violent. To calm I use breathing techniques and supportive self talk. What I find most helpful though is talking about it or at least part of it in a safe place to just express what happened and how it impacts my responses to some situations. I still do avoid certain places. A great part is healed thanks to what I learned in my volunteer work here.
Good work! Sounds like a lot of good old self reflection is the key! Thank you for sharing this.
@CrystalSchaefferLCSW I do all of these. It depends on the situation I guess. The fight response is never physical or yelling. Anger usually gets internalized pretty quick
@CrystalSchaefferLCSW
"The freeze response can help you slow down and carefully evaluate a dangerous situation in order to make an informed decision about what to do next"
I'm not sure I agree with this. When we freeze/dissociate the front brain is offline and the body shuts down all non essential functions and at it's extremes, prepares for death. There is definately no capacity for careful evaluation when I dissociate...
Ref: https://images.are.na/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJhcmVuYV9pbWFnZXMiLCJrZXkiOiI1OTM5MzE0L29yaWdpbmFsXzQxYTAxZDFkYmFkZjA0MTNjZTVjNGQ4OWRlNzdlNjkzLmpwZyIsImVkaXRzIjp7InJlc2l6ZSI6eyJ3aWR0aCI6MTIwMCwiaGVpZ2h0IjoxMjAwLCJmaXQiOiJpbnNpZGUiLCJ3aXRob3V0RW5sYXJnZW1lbnQiOnRydWV9LCJ3ZWJwIjp7InF1YWxpdHkiOjkwfSwianBlZyI6eyJxdWFsaXR5Ijo5MH0sInJvdGF0ZSI6bnVsbH19?bc=0
Yes true for some. Others freeze in order to breathe , take time to reflect and make an informed decision. Others including myself go into brain fog when something shocking happens and it’s much for difficult for us to process emotions. I feel like those who get that “ brain fog” kind of freeze tend to suffer from anxiety and or panic attacks. But, the more nerve wrecking situations we face, the better chances we have to change the way we handle it. So it has a positive side ;)
@CrystalSchaefferLCSW
Hello! I don't think any of these fit me? Maybe freeze? Though I never feel like I am not really there or shut down.
***The following may trigger some people who are easily scared***
My "trauma" -if you could call it that- was when I was a child, I was on a farm and a mortar strike fell right infront of me a couple hundred meters away. I saw it with my own eyes how destructive it was. I was out in the open, and while the world had slowed down for me, as I moved to the side a bit, I heard a clinging sound behind me. When I turned around I saw a steel pole had been pierced through by what seems a fragment of the bomb shell (I was leaning on that pole). And everywhere around me had holes in it. I ran inside the farm house and went to my parents who were looking for me, they were on the opposite side protected by the farm house, and I sat there in a daze.
This is basically it. For a period of time that memory had been erased for me and I only dreamt about it. However as I got older I started to remember it more and more vividly. When I encounter a similar situation my response is pretty normal, I try to survive, I look for the best place to hide or the best course of action and only that. However after the situation ends, I feel weak all around my body and I am reminded of that certain moment when I was a child. 💁🏻♂️ but I think that is a standard response to a life-threatening situation.
Definitely prone to freezing, which I haven't found to be helpful. I have partially trained myself out of that though.
I wonder too if nervous laughter comes after is part of fawning or is that something else? I found that to be fine with others who dealt with a similar situation - a way of debriefing and supporting each other. Unfortunately it lead to (male) authority figures not take teen girls/young adult women all that seriously when we would laugh relaying a serious of encounters.
