6 Steps to Breaking Out of the Fight Flight Freeze Response in cPTSD

Hey there, everybody, and welcome to this video on 6 Ways to Break out of the fight, flight, freeze response. I'm your host, Dr. Donnellice Snipes. Let's first start by talking about what the function of the fight or flight or our stress response actually is. The stress response can look like fight, I am going to get angry. I am going to use my energy to dominate, to push you away. Or it can look like flight, I'm going to use my energy to run. And that can be physically running away, it can be withdrawing from others, or it can be mentally dissociating. Sometimes people can't actually physically leave a situation, so they flee. Cognitively, they kind of check out, if you will. Freeze is another response that we see. And this can be seen in, in wildlife, for example, when they start to get threatened, when they feel afraid, they just freeze in place. It's sort of like, well, if you can't see me, then you can't hurt me. And if I'm not moving, maybe you won't notice me. Fawn is the fourth F. And Fawn represents doing whatever you think is going to make the pain stop. Whatever I need to do, I will do it. And then finally forget about it. And the fifth F is one we see when people have been in fight or flight for a really long time and their brain has started to undergo changes in order to protect itself, in order to conserve energy for those extreme threats. So when they're not in an extreme threat state, they often feel flat, depressed, anhedonic, or they don't feel much of anything at all. And it's important to recognize that this is often a combination of what we would call depression and anxiety combined with the trauma that may be going on. But ultimately, the five Fs are designed, or your stress response is designed to try to protect you. Based on prior information. Your brain says, okay, well, what do I need to do here? Your internal autopilot is programmed, if you will, from your past experiences and the anticipated probability of harm. So in the past, if you've had similar experiences to what's going on now, then your brain may call on that schema or that shortcut to help you anticipate what's going to happen next and what you need to do to stay safe, that is a good thing in large part because you're trying to stay safe. Now, I have a couple of numbers down here. And when we're talking about probability of harm, if you are exposed to chronic stress or chronic trauma like domestic violence or child neglect, then the frequency that you were exposed to harm was like 2, 365 times. And this one time, maybe it's not a threat, but your brain goes, yeah, odds are that it's probably going to be bad. So I'm going to activate that trauma schema. It can also happen if the traumatic event, whatever it is, is extraordinarily powerful. And. And then it can happen one time, and your brain goes, oh, I never want to experience that again, and forms this really strong schema that whenever it's triggered, it says, okay, we need to just default on the side of safety and assume bad things are going to happen. All right? That is your brain's way of trying to protect you. Extended extreme stress or trauma causes strengthening of the default mode network and the amygdala connection. So your autopilot and the fear processing area of your brain. So the longer you're exposed to fear, the stronger that connection gets and the harder it is for your executive control network or your wise mind or higher order thinking, whatever you want to call it, to override that. So you tend to stay on autopilot more often. And that's when people start feeling like they may be stuck in this fight, flee, or freeze sort of situation. We also see changes in the actual structure of the brain. The hypothalamus shrinks, the amygdala can get bigger. So we're seeing actual structural changes in the brain as the result of extreme ongoing stress or trauma. We also know that it changes the gut microbiome. Remember, that's the factory where your body breaks down the food you eat in order to make the neurotransmitters and help whatever is necessary for your body to heal. And as a result, we also see changes in neurotransmitter levels. The neurotransmitters are on the stress end, if you will. They're priming for constant threat instead of priming for fun things. And the changes in the gut mean that you're probably going to have an increase in your stockpile, if you will, of stress hormones. There's difficulty learning new material when you are in the stress response. Fight, flight, freeze, fawn, or forget about it. Your brain is being bathed in hormones like glutamate and adrenaline that make it difficult to focus on things that make it difficult to think. Okay, what was that strategy my counselor told me to use here? Your brain is on get me the heck out of here mode, Protect me mode, get me safe mode. There are sleep problems when your stress response is consistently activated, then you're not going to be able to relax enough to get that restful sleep. When you have inadequate quality sleep, it actually increases ruminations, it increases a feeling of anxiety, it increases the strength of those ruminations and decreases your ability to silence some of those automatic thoughts. And it decreases your ability of that executive control network to break in and turn off the autopilot. There's increased pain and inflammation as a result of extended activation of the HPA axis or the stress response, and a lot more. But you get the idea. There's a lot of stuff that happens. It's not just all in your head. It's not just a choice how you're going to respond. The your physiology actually changes in response to the stressor. Well, the good thing is your physiology can heal, but it's going to take time. Changing an ingrained behavior, especially one designed to protect you in the past or just learning a new behavior. How do I respond to this now? Because I don't want to respond the way I used to. It takes time. Think about a child learning how to play basketball or play the piano. Why did I choose those? Because those involve physical activity, those involve neurological responses, those involve the nervous system. In addition to just cognitions, in addition to just deciding this is what I'm going to do. They actually have to learn, for example with piano, how to read music with their eyes and make their fingers hit the right keys. And then ultimately you've got pedals on the bottom that actually have to work too. And so you've got a foot, a hand, a hand and a hand going literally three different directions. That takes some time to master. Same sort of thing for recovering from trauma. If your brain has adapted, has learned how to survive in a trauma based environment, then when you're in a new environment, it's going to have to learn different responses. Sometimes I make the analogy that healing the nervous system is like healing after a stroke. When people have a stroke, we don't expect them to get up the next day and go out on a jog. It takes them time. Some people have to learn how to talk again or walk again or feed themselves again. Because strokes actually alter parts of the brain. Sometimes it kills parts of the brain. The good news is our brain is very resilient. And just like people who have a stroke that recover, it takes time. But their brain learns workarounds. Their brain learns how to redo stuff. Your brain, your nervous system, can as well. One thing people who endured ongoing trauma didn't have was a secure attachment figure who provided safety. Without safety, the HPA Axis or the fight or flight response stays activated. That makes sense. If you don't feel safe, then you're going to be on guard. A first step in healing the stress response so you're not stuck in that on position, is to create a secure attachment to yourself, create a sense of safety. When you were younger or when you were in that situation, you may not have had control. You may not have been able to take care of yourself. Now, as an independent person, an older adolescent, an adult, you have the ability to comfort, to care for, to respond to your needs and the needs of your inner child. As you prevent and address distress, it will help you feel empowered. You'll start feeling like, okay, I got this. And it also gives your HPA axis time to heal. As you start feeling safer, as you start feeling more empowered, your HPA axis is going to activate less frequently. Instead of feeling really anxious about something, you may start feeling curious. Instead of feeling really angry about something, you may decide it's not worth your energy. But it's going to take time to develop those new responses and train your nervous system that you now are safe. So how do you break out? You're going to create a secure attachment with yourself. It starts with being consistently mindful of triggers and vulnerabilities. If you're aware that this particular time of day or this particular cologne or this particular whatever is triggering to you, then you can be mindfully aware. And when you encounter that, then you can respond instead of operating on autopilot, where you're just kind of blindly going through your day, not paying attention to much, and then it feels like you're triggered from out of the blue. Consistent awareness of your environment, of what's going on can help you identify those problems earlier. So you can intervene earlier. You can decide, okay, what am I going to do? Some of those triggers and vulnerabilities. Physically, if you are sleep deprived, I already talked about that. If you're not getting adequate quality sleep, it's going to make it harder to turn off those ruminations and those intrusive thoughts. So being aware of if that's going on, all right, then we're going to jump down to responsiveness. What do I need to do about it? I can't. Maybe I can't go back to bed. So what do I need to do to protect myself today since I'm going to be more vulnerable to stressors? Pain is another one that can make us more vulnerable. Whether pain is keeping you from getting good quality sleep or pain itself triggers the HPA axis. We do know that. And remember the HPA axis is that stress response system or poor nutrition. If you're not giving your body the building blocks it needs to function to create the neurotransmitters to heal the HPA axis, then you may be more vulnerable. Likewise, if your blood sugar's out of whack, you may start getting what some people call hangry, hungry and angry. It's important to remember that our body responds to physical stresses like pain and low blood sugar by activating that HPA axis, that, activating that stress response. Just like if we encountered something that caused us to feel anxiety, affective, being aware of the things that cause you distress. If you know that you're getting ready to go into a meeting that you really hate, or there's something big coming up that's causing you distress, or maybe you're grieving about something, being aware of that, recognizing that that puts you in a place where you are more vulnerable to strong reactions to stress. Cognitively, pessimism and cognitive distortions can make you more vulnerable. If you're being pessimistic, if you're focusing on the negative, if you're hyper vigilant and only noticing the bad things, then guess what, your HPA axis is going to be going through the roof. So it's important to recognize if you're in a negative, pessimistic mood, what can you do to prevent yourself from being overly triggered by things that you encounter during the day? Same thing with cognitive distortions. Environmentally, a lot of people with trauma histories can be triggered by sights, sounds, smells, or just particular places, like, you know, being in church or the doctor's office or something else. That's okay. Recognize that. Recognize that's a trigger for you and be aware of it. If you have to be in that environment, having a plan for how to respond is going to be helpful. Now, it doesn't mean you're always going to respond the way you want to. You may drop back into that old way of responding, that fight, flight, freeze sort of situation. And that's okay. It's going to take time to develop new ways of responding relationally. Self esteem. It's important to recognize if you're not feeling good about yourself, if you're not feeling safe and empowered, then you're going to likely be more vulnerable to threats in the environment, threats of abandonment, threats of rejection, threats of harm. Because you feel, you may feel more isolated like you felt back then, and a lack of support of others. You know, being aware of. If you have support of others in Your environment. Once you're aware of your triggers and your vulnerabilities, then you can make a plan for how to deal with them. Sometimes, like I said, you can't undo them. And I, I can't undo the fact that I didn't sleep well last night. Okay, well, what do I need to do to be compassionate with myself, to help myself continue to feel safe? Because I know that I'm more likely to be irritable today. Be edgy today. Attention. This means purposefully and proactively engaging in positive behaviors and thoughts to reduce HPA axis activation and allow for healing. For some people, that is doing vagus nerve work in order to strengthen the rest and digest, to strengthen the relaxation response. So it's better able to turn off the stress response, turn off autopilot. It also involves getting good sleep, getting good nutrition, providing your body, your body factory, if you will, all of the resources it needs to heal itself. It's going to have to rebuild bridges, rebuild roadways, if you will, in order to develop the new behaviors and new attitudes that you want to develop. That takes time, but it also takes resources. You've got to give it the resources. Validation and radical acceptance is also important. A lot of people, when they feel like they're stuck in the fight flight freeze response, get so angry and so frustrated and they start telling themselves they shouldn't feel this way. Well, you do. And struggling with it, arguing with yourself, condemning yourself for feeling this way is activating that stress response. It's actually doing the exact opposite of what you want it to do. Instead, consider, consider radically accepting it and saying, okay, I'm being triggered right now. I recognize where this is coming from. It's not what how I wanted to respond, but it's how I'm responding and then getting curious, what is it that's going on right now that led me to respond in this old way that led me to trigger that fight or flight response. Getting curious, Validating for yourself, okay, this is how I feel now. Let me understand a little bit more about that because once I understand it, then I can start addressing it. Encouragement. And this is a big one. Focus on progress, not perfection. Just like the person recovering from a stroke, they're not going to jump out of bed and go run a marathon. It's going to take time and some days are going to be better than others. And a lot of times recovery is not a straightforward path. It's more like a cha cha. Two steps forward, one step back. Two steps forward, one step back. That's okay. Recognizing and being compassionate with yourself, recognizing those small steps you've taken forward and keeping a log that can be super helpful. Keeping a log of the frequency and intensity of your fight, flight, freeze responses can also be extremely helpful. And finally, safety. This is what you desperately need. You desperately want. Developing a sense of self compassion. So when you have those relapses, if you will, into the stress response, into being stuck and fight, flight or freeze, you can be compassionate with yourself and say, all right, you know, things aren't going perfect, but I'm lovable. I deserve better than this. I deserve to feel happy. And recognizing what you do have control over, recognizing your personal power in the situation. So it is a process and it takes some time, a lot of time. But it's important to recognize that you can do this. However, you know, envision, if you will, your body rebuilding after a tornado or a hurricane or something. And the factory has to be completely rebuilt. So it takes time for all of those systems to get back online, to get reprogrammed, retrained, but you can do it.