Trauma makes assholes of all of us. It just does. This is true both for the person going through it and for the people around it, either supporting that person or just peripherally looking in on it all.
When something traumatic happens to someone, no one handles it well all the time. To be fair - it’s biology. And a whole lot of societal misconceptions. The more you understand what’s happening and why, the more compassion you tend to have for people going through the process, including for yourself.
So, first up - forgive yourself for your very mammalian reactions. You did the best you could. Second - now that you know better, try to do better. You know that old saying, “if you don’t heal your wounds, you’ll bleed all over people who didn’t cut you?” It’s a saying for a reason.
The people around you are not the ones to blame for a virus that turned out to be capable of causing a global pandemic - no matter how mad you may be at some folks for the way they’ve handled it. It’s no one’s fault. It’s just biology. Coronaviruses are bastards. There are all kinds of viruses that are worse, of course, but that doesn’t make this one less of a jerk. This one just happened to have some features that are common to pandemic capable viruses. The rest has just been individuals doing the best they can with a situation they found themselves in.
You have been doing the best you can with a situation that you have found yourself in.
I want you to take a second and say that to yourself.
I am doing the best I can with a situation I have found myself in.
Good.
Okay, so now that that’s out of the way, let’s learn some more about Survival Modes and the best ways to handle them. In my last post, I covered the most common types of Survival Mode. There are a couple that I didn’t cover in that post because they deserve special mention and a post all their own. They also need an understanding of what I’m going to tell you in this post to make proper sense of them. I should have it up soon for all of you. In this post, I’d like to cover the stages of Survival Mode. I want to go over these first rather than geek out about the types of reactions because there are some misconceptions around how long Survival Mode lasts that are more important for you to understand.
There are 2 main stages to Survival Mode - short term and long term. The short term part is designed to get you through your encounter with the bear (or illness, or whatever), the long term part is to get you through the recovery.
Have you ever seen an action potential? It’s how our nerves communicate and is actually very helpful when discussing the stages of Survival Mode. It looks like this:
Action Potential
Both our short term and long term phases of Survival Mode follow this pattern (biology tends to repeat itself), the difference being the time scale for the phase you’re discussing. For both phases, they follow the same pattern - you have the initial inciting event, your nervous and endocrine systems switch over to their Fight/Flight/Freeze mode, then once the encounter is over, you crash and recover. The difference is the short term phase lasts minutes to hours, and the long term phase can last months to years.
Let’s use our bear analogy to help this make more sense.
For the short term phase of Survival Mode, which is the one that most people are familiar with, you encounter the bear (or threatening situation), you have a big outburst of anger or panic, then once the situation is over you crash and recover (tears, shaking, feeling bad, retreat, etc). Most people make the mistake of thinking that that means they are now out of Survival Mode, but that’s not the case. That’s just the beginning of the long term phase.
The long term phase begins with that same initial event - you fight a bear - and follows a similar pattern, but again, the timeline is MUCH longer because it needs to get you through the recovery process.
You see that upswing in the action potential? After a life threatening event (or 3 events with the potential to be life threatening) people have this phase of happy/extra energy - they feel grateful to be alive, they start to explore the meaning of life and their purpose, they start to eat better food, exercise, everything seems great and awesome and then at some point, again sometimes years later, they crash and go through a phase of depression/anxiety/PTSD before levelling off again.
So, what’s up with that?
Think back to our bear example - you get into a tussle, you’re injured, but you escape. Your short term Survival Mode gave you the energy and focus to get through the initial attack. Your long term Survival Mode gets you through the recovery of your injuries. But! Remember, this response is still set up like we’re all just tribal groups living in the woods, so you need to find food and shelter first. This is why tissue healing is delayed in your stress response. You need your energy to gather enough supplies and find somewhere safe before you can enter into ‘healing’.
That peak on the graph? The thing that initiates the ‘crash’ of this response - that’s safety. You come down from the peak once you (short term response) get away from the bear and (long term response) get enough supplies and have found a safe place to heal. You only start the come down part once your nervous system is convinced it has finally found safety.
This is why people who seem to be doing so well post-inciting event eventually hit the skids. The phrase I most often hear when this happens is, “I don’t understand why I’m having such a hard time now, everything was going so well. I finally felt like I had my life back.”
Most people are relieved to hear that that’s actually completely normal and all just a part of the healing process.
In pandemic terms - once people had a semblance of safety - be it ending of waves or lockdowns, or the announcement of vaccines, or receiving a vaccine, or maybe you haven’t felt safe yet so yours is still coming - they went through a ‘crash’. Because that feeling of safety was the cue to your brain and body that you have everything you need now for the actual healing to occur.
Been feeling extra tired? Can’t focus? More short tempered than usual? You’re in the healing phase of the long term phase of Survival Mode. It’s a good thing. All of that tissue healing and emotional healing that got delayed can happen now. This is the part where you actually heal from everything that’s happened.
Here’s the trick though - that cornered, wounded animal analogy? This is where that comes in. If you encounter a potential threat during this phase…. Wooooooooooooo… So vicious!
Remember in the first lockdown when everyone was baking and doing arts and crafts and gardening? That’s that long term phase upswing - getting food and shelter. Then lockdown was over and some folks entered their down-phase (or healing phase) because they felt safe again. But then another lockdown happened. Those folks didn’t handle the second wave as well. Then the third… etc.
Go back to that graph I showed you - see that ‘resting potential’ part? Each new inciting event you encounter will start its own new Survival Mode response, except that the new one will start from wherever you are in your own personal curve - meaning the ‘resting potential’ has changed. If you weren’t back at baseline before the new curve started, your new Survival Mode response will be that much bigger and stronger.
This is why people seem to be losing their minds a little bit. It’s why each subsequent wave and lockdown seems so much harder than the last for some people. Depending on where you are in your Survival Mode curve, you’re going to be reacting very differently. Some people, who haven’t left their initial upswing part, are loving life, whereas the folks who have reached their peaks, thought they were safe now, and then bam! Another one! They’re not doing so hot. They started their healing phase and it got interrupted by another threat, triggering an even bigger response.
If you’re still in baking and crafts and feel like life is amazing and great mode - excellent! But be prepared - you’re going to crash eventually, and it will be when you finally feel safe again. Forewarned is forearmed.
The good news is that no matter where you are in your Survival Mode curve, there are ways that you can actually take control of this process so that it happens when you want it to and have time/space for it. It can actually be a really lovely process when you get the hang of it. And it’s often the only way to finally get your nervous system back to its true baseline.
Trauma recovery is a much longer process than most people realize. Understanding this is super important for helping yourself through the phases of it so that you bring your nervous system safely back down to a normal resting state. In my next post I’ll talk about what we can do to support ourselves and each other through each of these phases - how to recognize which phase someone’s in and how to best support them/interact with them during that phase, both for yourself so you can ask others for what you need, and for others so you can avoid the cornered, wounded animal effect. But for now, if you’re struggling, go back to my first post in this series and give yourself the safety that your nervous system is craving. If you’re still out there just loving life, you just keep doing what you’re doing. I’ll have some posts for you folks in a bit too.
Til next time, folks! Stay safe out there!