Hello my friends. I've been writing a lot about my CPTSD from parental abuse, neglect, endangerment, abandonment, exploitation, shaming and invalidation, enmeshment, family scapegoating, identity pirating and gaslighting. Today I'm looking at how the acute stress responses of fight, flight, fawn, freeze and I'll add fix, have caused me to do ridiculous and pitiful things.
For me, the four acute stress responses happened in a sort of order. I would be threatened in some way by one of my four selfish, sociopathic parents. It might be intense shaming, fury, rage, insulting, sexual harassment or covert incest, lying about something I'd done, manipulation, back-stabbing, chaotic changes made to serve themselves which hurt me, neglect, being put in dangerous situations, being left alone with no resources. It would come from nowhere. I never saw it coming. Which would make it more terrifying. Unbearably so.
It would shock me and I'd freeze (panic). I would go into a sort of emergency, crisis mode fugue-state shutdown. My hands shake and my stomach feels sick when I recall it. I couldn't think clearly. All common sense went bye-bye. Then I'd fawn (grovel, humor, placate) when it wasn't safe to run (flight). I'd literally present, like a wild animal. I was so frightened and confused that I'd cry, beg, sometimes wet my pants. I'd beg to know what I could do to please them, so they wouldn't be so angry. And to make this god-awful misery stop. But hell hath no fury like a narcissist.
Then later, in situations it was safe to, I'd fly. Sometimes. Mostly I just stuck around to be further hurt. I'd been groomed to be the whipping girl. So I thought that's what I was supposed to do in all situations. If I was shamed for running, I'd back down in shame. And sometimes when cornered, I'd come out swinging. But it wasn't to hurt the other person. It was defensive, to make them stop hurting me. Little did I know that a lot of the windmills I was tilting at were from traumatic situations long past.
But the one thing I always do, is the stress response I've added to the list. ALWAYS rush to fix the problem. This is kind of like fawn but with a more active component. Even fighting was a response to make it stop. The other person was deregulating and I was feeling myself going the same way. So I tried in all ways I could to get out of the spiral, to break the cycle, and get us to safety before we both went completely down the drain. If that meant the shock slap across the face, well, needs must.
Of course, you who don't experience this, can see how incredibly dysfunctional it all is. But you can' think clearly when in trauma or shock. It all feels so urgent. And it is meant to. My perpetrators forced me into feeling a state of perpetual emergency over their selfish demands. They created panic with their abuse, harm and gaslighting. I was conditioned to jump in fear and rush to help whenever any of them said to. And it was all over piddly things that I deal with as an adult on a moment by moment basis. There was never a real crisis, except the one they were creating in me.
As you might imagine, all of these stress coping responses have gotten me in trouble in the real world, outside their cultish narc fantasies. What was supposed to keep me safe (an never really did) in the alternate reality they created for me, looked very sick in the light of day. I have scared off a lot of people with my over-reacting, shell shock responses. But then they don't live in the Armageddon in my head. So what do I do that's so strange?
1) Can't differentiate between mine and thine. It's all mine to worry about and fix. It's all thine if you need it from me. If you need something, even if it's something you should be doing for yourself, especially if you guilt me into believing it's my job to provide it, you'll get it.
2) No is not a word in my vocab. Personal boundaries don't exist. I feel ashamed of needs and certainly wants.
3) Don't know big from little problems and little from no problem. Everything was made out to be earth-shattering. So do I overreact? Hell yeah.
4) Stupid myself down to humor others. I will keep quiet about things I know if others are saying it's different. I keep opinions to myself if others say it's wrong. I always think I'm wrong and others are right, no matter how wrong they patently are. I don't speak up when I should. I don't share different perspectives because that would be "contradicting" even though we're both grown adults. I still see myself as the "disobedient child" my parents painted me as, in my 60s.
5) Too agreeable. I'm not exactly ashamed of my ideas, I'm just too afraid of displeasing people. I'm terrified of setting off belligerent, angry people even though they are perpetually set off. And my kowtowing just makes them worse.
6) Let others kick me around. Being the butt of jokes, target of rage, scapegoated, insulted by kids I'm in charge of caring for, shamed and scorned by people I'm supposed to serve, it's all normal for me.
5) On edge all the time. Waiting for the attack.
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