Have a chuckle with me! Recently I listened to a couple of discussions about our response to trauma and the impact that response has on our parasympathetic nervous system and metabolic health. The general thinking suggests people respond to traumatic events in predictable ways, "flight, fight, or freeze." So we will either run away, fight back, or freeze like a possum.
I proceeded to win friends and influence people by suggesting there is one more response that just never seems to get talked about. It just doesn't fit well in our 3 F's of, "fight, flight, or freeze," but there is one more trauma response common to humans and that is, surrender. You could have heard a pin drop. I actually watched the disgust and revulsion rise up from the ground like a sulphurous fog. One gentleman turned to stare at me as if to say, ewww, we have among us a yellow bellied, cheese eating, surrender monkey.
One woman promptly informed me, NO, that is not true. Surrender is NOT a valid response to trauma. I thought she was going to tell me I had to "respect the science," but she settled on just giving me a dirty look and rolling her eyes. I couldn't help myself, I zeroed in on that one word "valid," and completely ended our budding friendship by attempting to mention that "valid" or "invalid," it was still a very real response!
Having attempted to fight back, I then proceeded to freeze, before surrendering to the fact that no one was listening and eventually running away and getting out of there as quickly as possible.
When covid hit, every shuttered business posted a sign that said "keep calm and carry on," with a little crown on it. No offense intended here but I immediately thought, "Nope, I'm not British!" Americans are not any better, we are quite proud of our own stoicism, "no surrender, no retreat!" "When the going gets tough, the tough get going" or something. Basically it amounts to, "let's all play pretend and congratulate ourselves on how strong we are."
I had to totally surrender to the fact that the whole darn world had just gone off it's rocker.....
Also, not that any trauma experts care, but my biggest trauma is actually when people just, "keep calm and carry on," when clearly everything is all wrong and we should all be thrashing about on the ground and screaming at the top of our lungs. An even worse trauma, when the "keep calm and carry on" bunch proceed to assure everyone, "all is well, this is just our new normal."
Right, and I'm supposedly the alleged cheese eating surrender monkey? I think not! I despise that word, "normalize." I will not be surrendering to any "new normal."
Anyway, I feel compelled today to remind myself and others that "surrender" can also be a trauma response. One problem with sneering at it or pretending it doesn't exist is that we are more likely to be controlled by things we are really busy pretending aren't there. I know this from experience because I have had to become good friends with my own surrender response. It is neither valid or invalid, in the right hands it can actually be very wise. For example, surrendering to the fact that one should probably not try to argue with fools least you become one yourself.
For myself, I personally need to be way more forgiving towards those who's first response to everything is to just surrender. "This bad thing happened so I just lay down and died," is so not my mind set. "I tripped over my own feet in my eagerness to comply and demonstrate how compliant I am so as to avoid future confrontation," so not my mindset! But attempting to understand that surrender can actually be a trauma response, does go a long way towards helping me to be more compassionate and more forgiving, towards myself and others.
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