Disengaging

This thread can be for anyone who needs support to disengage from anything that is triggering to them.

Rather than fight, flight, freeze or fawn responses to anxiety provoking triggers, to disengage is to calmly stop, or walk away, or keep silent or speak calmly.

After fruitlessly doing the above trauma responses, I am hoping disengaging will bring about better results, letting the moment of conflict pass without incident.

From the moment I wake, he’s off with an anxiety provoking agenda. I feel sad, lonely, frustrated that it’s never how I want it to be. No matter how I have communicated my needs, they will never be met. I wish I had disengaged sooner. Though, I am proud that I was able to after only one hour of his whirlwind struggle. I jumped off the struggle bus this morning (yay!), but wish I had not even gotten on. Maybe I’m getting better at this and next time will not engage at all.

This is interesting. Except that i need to engage with my hoard in order to disperse it. But maybe if i can disengage the feelings somehow. Or engage the feelings but not flight fight freeze or fear.

I got tripped up in a conversation that seemed to turn to make me look bad. Scratching my head as to how that happened. That felt frustrating to be a part of. All I said was I’d just take a ride to see if the med was at the pharmacy rather than this whole discussion about it. It felt like I was getting grilled as to what kind of a call or text I got. I felt like I was testifying, shish. He barked at me, “Why do you have to be like that?” In front of our son, who was frustrated from the circular conversation leading up to that conflict. When I went to put on my shoes, he called the store to see if the med was there. It was. He ran out to the store, preventing me from going...why? WTH? Everything feels like so much struggle. I’ll try to keep more quiet, gray rock, don’t trip into it. I couldn’t be any more boring!

In my case, I recently realized that, for me, disengaging was burying the hurt and being too much of a coward to engage people about important things. Sometimes engagement shows love. Sometimes talking about things to others rather than the person that hurt us might mean we haven't forgiven them (and they might have hurt us because they are unable to show their hurt and cover it up with anger). I know that occasionally, when my H and I fight, if the fight gets too intense, we bring up things we did to each other in the past. I only recently figured out I am not as forgiving as I thought I was. I beat myself up sometimes instead. But am becoming a little more brave about letting other people know when they have hurt me. It can be hard to discuss things sometimes. It can be hard to let go of angry words. My H and I are figuring this out and I pray that my children will eventually understand all the collateral damage all of our hurts and misunderstandings caused. It is the hardest for the children to figure out a parent is a mess and understand it.

Thank you so much for this wonderful thread.

I had disengage with one of my sister who feels she is better than everyone because anyone who married to any branch of military is better then everyone else and knows more about every topics there is all due to her own jealousy. Even though what my sister had said had really hurt my feelings because of how she has bullied me over the year’s. I chose to no longer have any contact with her even though she has come over many times.

I'm sorry you're going through this. I could have written this myself. Grey rock grey rock grey rock.. yep!

We can try all we can but it's not sustainable.. and they do catch us off guard because we're HUMAN and not designed to be a grey rock.

Stay strong! Continue teaching yourself about how to prevent yourself from the circulation.. it's exhausting!

A strategy that helps is to repeat yourself again and again. For example, he questioned you about the medication. Just say, "My medication is ready and I'm going to pick it up." Doesn't matter what he says.. again, "My medication is ready and I'm going to pick it up.".. and say so as you're putting your shoes on. Invite your son to go with you. Easier said than done. I've started doing this via text.. literally, copy and paste.

Tisha, another strategy I use when I notice passive-aggressive or attention-seeking behaviours is to turn on the "happy" mood. It's easier for me to do because I have young children so I engage in play with them while also including dad somehow.. the including dad is the important piece, as if you're "oblivious" to what's happening and are "just having loving fun". .. then BAM with the grey rock if he becomes direct about whatever "issue" he has.. and alternating between the two.

Not sure if this makes sense or not.

It sounds like he doesn't trust you. You may never know for sure what he is thinking/thinks that he is heading off by preventing you from going on your own. Finance issues? Issues about you seeing others when he is not there? It must be something like that though sometimes we can let things grow in our mind until they get past reasonable...

I am also ??? about him rushing to the pharmacy when you said you wanted to go. It would be hard for me to disengage with that instead of being annoyed and angry.

I never heard of the fawn response before but recognize it as something I do!

This morning I was asked to provide feedback on a program I'm not enjoying. It feels like a double-edged sword - they ask for feedback but I don't think they really want it. I spent twenty minutes trying to figure out a diplomatic way of expressing my thoughts. Disengaging is a better option.

What's the fawn response?

Pete Walker, M.A. Psychotherapy

Pete Walker, M.A. Psychotherapy

I found Pete Walker’s website through my googling, searching for answers. I think he added the Fawn response to the other F’s.

I think my h ran out the door so I didn’t because he is trying so hard to show me his value, like I can’t live without him. I know it sounds strange, but that’s what that was about. It’s ridiculous, because I do not feel at all like I secretly wanted him to do the errand. I thought it would be a nice break for me to get out of the house tbh. But he functions at this level of anxiety. He is overly doting in some ways but will not simply engage me in the relationship I need. Like he overly shows he takes care of us to compensate for how he doesn’t in the way that matters to me. And why can’t he? He just can’t. I’m not angry at him because he’s not capable. I really need to just accept it and learn to disengage from my obsessive wanting it.

I don't know your husband. But is he the type of person who tries to show image to others like this? With some people, there isn't much to try and mindread because what they show is what you get. I thought of this because you also mention that he is not able to engage in the relationship itself. I.e. he doesn't sound like the emotional, affectionate type.

Also if he's this type then he may be action focused and anxious to do things and that would be a possible drive for him to run to the pharmacy rather than demonstrating value, image, intent.

Sorry if this was too trivial or something. Just my thoughts.

I like the thread BTW... it's something I'm trying to do internally. Like, not externally because I'm able to keep in the trigger emotions and I just get extremely tense instead. I actually have a thread about this in the ptsd section. If I could disengage INTERNALLY, I would not have to be so tense to the point of scary muscle cramps sometimes even. If I could disengage like that, there would be no more problems with this... Or something.

My therapist said to just accept what has happened and not panic. It sounds like you get anxious ne tense and freeze up. I get panicked, frustrated, want to flee and give up. I have emotional meltdowns. Both ways of dealing with these stressful, conflict situations are not working for both you and I.

Being around people and situations that are enjoyable and not traumatic are ideal. But sometimes we just can’t avoid it due to people who we have to deal with or situations unavoidable.

Thanks. That is interesting. I don't know what I am feeling when I get so tense. But I think it's a sense of terror/horror mostly.

What would qualify as freezing? The tension for me is because I hold it all in and try to keep control. Is the freezing about avoiding feeling the emotion? Because while I try to keep control like that - half intentional, half automatic - I definitely don't feel it properly.


Your therapist makes sense, my problem is though that I would first have to know what really happened before I can accept it.

When I'm able to figure it out in retrospect sometimes, then I'm better able to accept it yeah. But I have to figure it out first to know what it is I am accepting. If that makes sense.


...I think what I'd like is, be able to disengage before I even know what it is, because I know oh it's "just" a trigger/emotional flashback right? I don't need to know more in the moment, can figure out the rest later yeah?



PS: Oh well. I can do that if I've rebuilt enough of my sense of reality. Like after cPTSD you kinda get it all garbled up. Lose the basic sense of safety and things both internally and externally are messed up and all that. So if I rebuilt enough normalcy, then it's like, I can contrast these triggers against the normal background and know they are no big deal then. Make any sense?

Freezing is to tense up and go blank, be afraid, not act. There are responses to trauma; fight, flight, and freeze. I’m more fight/flight. You may be more freeze. If you can see it coming, and can avoid it, that would make you feel in more control of yourself. It’s an awful, helpless feeling getting triggered and falling in it.

Hm, yeah I hold back from feeling the emotions (terror/horror/whatever) so much that I don't actually feel afraid or helpless.

Do you think it's a strongly controlled freeze response then?

What makes me shocked thinking about this is that I originally was fine with fight until I was told I shouldn't do that because anger is inappropriate and blah. But ofcourse it would be an overreaction sometimes if I was to express anger or too much anger, but it was like I was disabling anger internally too. And that's just not okay by me. I've been working on undoing that.


So I mean I didn't originally mind acting. I just know that I do not want to act on triggers if I know they are just triggers. So if I am not seeing clearly about the stuff then I have two choices by default: fight or freeze.

And if I disable fight that means I hold back from action or from expression of anger or even from FEELING anger. And then I feel very tense in a crappy way like that.


It's just no good, oh well. I've been working on restoring my anger (without overdoing it btw). Because I think I still like fight more than freeze, unless I know the fighting would be seriously destructive because it's just such an overreaction in some cases, if the trigger/flashback is strong enough, very strong.



Anyway I don't expect you to comment on the above, you just helped me think.


But I'm interested in this: what is it like if you know IN ADVANCE that the trigger/flashback is coming and then you actually can avoid it?! I'm very interested in this.




PS: I also added a PS to my previous post lol but that was basically just saying, gotta be patient, while sorting out more of this stuff over time. lol sigh

Are you aware of your triggers? Are they basically always the same? Are you aware you are about to be triggered and able to avoid it? That would be ideal!

For me, I have the same basic triggers, only a few things that really cause me a trauma reaction. They are only from a couple people closest to me. An acquaintance may say or do something very upsetting, and I may get upset, but I wouldn’t call it a trauma reaction and I can just let it go and may not like them anymore. It’s the closest to me who really push my buttons. I don’t know if it is those people who press those buttons, and say, if I replaced them with new people close to me who were not the kinds of people who would do those same button-pressing behaviors and I would not be triggered at all. Is it possible for me to avoid being triggered? If so, that would change my life for the better 100%