Human beings are part of a social survival based species.
Think about survival in two categories:
1. Physical survival
2. Social survival
Addressing either throughout the website, here I am addressing the mechanisms of our stress response / survival system operation.
When the stress response is actiated the survival brain anticipates the worst case scenario on a better safe than sorry basis, and makes the scenario so emotionally vivid that the body scrambles for an immediate solution to survive the event and begins taking survival action before the mind has to take the time to think about it.
Although commonly referred to as fight / flight, there are actually 4 recognized defaults our survival system uses to survive a threat, fight, flight, freeze (fainting in extreme cases), and fawn.
1. Fight = Fight
2. Flight = Run away
3. Freeze = Hold still
4. Fawn = Appease an attacker to buy more time and space to figure out a better solution
In any combination, one of the four is our primary default, followed by one of the four as a secondary default -according to Pete Walker's book, Complex PTSD, From Surviving To Thriving.
Whether your default combo actually is fight flight, or if it's flight fawn, or fawn fight, etc it makes no difference; as survival based creatures we're born to have the highest probable chance at surviving within the crazy tribe we were born into.
If our primary doesn't work, or is unfeasable, we default to one of the four again as a secondary default
We want to think we are the ones in control, however when our survival system is activated our adrenaline charged impulsive behavior is more like a fishing lure being pulled through the water at incredible force and speed, as opposed to us pushing the lure through the water by our own conscious direction.
After the fact the mind reimagines the scenario as if we were directing our movements by conscious control and introduces unfair elements of harsh inner criticism and self blame, when infact it was unconscious responsive survival based impulsivity making the moves, to get us to safety before we have to take the necessary time to think about what just happened.
There's nothing personal about the response of our genetics, the mind personalizes everything it can about it inorder to self abuse and self punishment ahead of time to hedge against any mind imagined scenarios of tribal rejection to come.
This is the social survival element that provokes system reactivation when the mind runs with the memory of the survial event for a while after, and this part is often more brutal than the physical survival portion of the overall survival system activation experience.
System activation is always terrible, however the more I understand about it, the easier it becomes to deal with it. Always terrible, often difficult, also easier.