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Originally Posted by unhappyguy
Great article. Thank you for posting it. I am definitely a Fawn with Flight and Freeze tendencies. It explains why I am so complex to treat.
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No problem, I enjoy sharing things that I've found helpful in my recovery. Complex - PTSD is harder to treat and also takes more time to heal.
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Originally Posted by wolfie205
Freeze and Flight. I must be incredibly hard to treat and be friends with, lol.
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One of my friends is a Freeze/Flight type and he was always very quiet, mostly kept to himself. He has gotten better over the years and is further ahead in life than me at this point.
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Originally Posted by Yoda
I only skimmed it but I all I saw was ptsd as a result of childhood trauma. My trauma occurred when I was an adult. Not sure if what he says applies to me. He says children who choose 'fight' develop narcissistic behaviors but my 'fight' was literally fight to the death.
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He was talking about Complex-PTSD. Generally speaking it takes more time and effort to heal from. Either way PTSD certainly isn't fun and can really take its toll on our mental and physical health. My first trauma happened before I could form memories, they continued throughout childhood, adolescence and into adulthood. I never really paid attention to myself and didn't know that I was ill for a long time. Even though I was diagnosed in my adolescence with other mental health disorders (Depression, ADHD and OCD) I've exhibited PTSD traits since childhood, it "runs" in my family along with mood disorders. Don't take the narcissistic thing as offensive either, most narcissists are unaware of their behaviors and its an extremely common condition in America. Think Wall Street for example.
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Originally Posted by A Red Panda
Yoda: You can still get quite a bit about the Fight, Flight, Freeze and Fawn responses from the article. They can be applied to any kind of PTSD, just that maybe some parts might not apply quite so well.
I read this article about a month ago, and it's sorta what made me go "Oh." I'm very much a Flight Response person. But I do have my secondary impulses that I act on - which are actually different depending on where I am in my bipolar cycle.
Baseline: I'm Flight, but also a Fawn response.
Depressed: Flight is still the main one, but I won't fawn and instead I'll Freeze.
Hypomanic: Again, still Flight, but if I feel stuck I'll start showing more of the Fight response.
It sounds like I use all 4.... but the 3 really are quite dependent on where I am - I never, ever, show any signs of a Fight response unless I'm in an up.
But by and large.... I'm a flight response. My T even picked up on that I think within the 1st meeting, maybe some time during the 2nd.
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That sounds similar to me, it just depends on my situation which reaction I'll have. Over the years I've learned that the most acceptable one is indeed the flight response, nobody gets hurt that way. Plus once I get away from the situation I can let my boiling pot of anger simmer down and handle the situation more rationally. I still tend to need to do something physical during my adrenalin rushes or they can really take their toll on my physical health. I hate the adrenalin that's why I avoid a lot of negativity and just talking about negative stuff brings me down and triggers my primal fight/flight response. Lately when what I really want to do is fight, I'll get away from the situation and exercise to let out all that pent up energy.
Think of it this way, PTSD was actually beneficial to have before civilization came along with its laws and traditions. Especially the fight or flight reaction, danger! You would run and escape certain death at the hands of a vicious animal. When confronted by a sneak attack and you would either fight to the death or die and never get to reproduce. So our bodies would produce adrenalin which seems to give us super-human strength, tunnel vision focus while our rational pre-frontal cortex part of our brain is highjacked by the limbic system. The hyper arousal would have been necessary for survival in such an environment because after we are attacked once, our brains tend to hold on to the negative fearful memories more than they hold onto the good times.