Fight or Flight?

Heart beats harder. Stress hormones flood. Perceived threat. Panic.

"Fight or flight response...a physiological reaction found to occur in an animal when it encounters an apparent threat" (Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia).

When I was 18, I fled my parents' home so that I could fight for the life I wanted to lead. Despite their criticism of this decision and the strain on our relationship, despite suffering a robbery and violation of my new space, I pushed through, stayed on my path, (moved to a different apartment), and survived, fighting every step of the way.

Immobility. Freeze. Stop, look, listen.

At 28, a well-known writer at the writing residency I attended for a month at the Vermont Studio Center shook my hand, looked down at it, and said, "You don't have a writer's hands," and then proceeded to rip my novel to shreds.  Despite his criticism and threat to my dream, I pushed through, stayed on my path, and became a professional writer and journalist (but that novel was only sent to a few publishers, rejected, and now sits in a box).

Internal fire alarm. Instinct to flee.  

At 35, after experiencing broken bones, painful recovery, emotional trauma, and marital difficulty, I fled to Yellowstone National Park to fight for my sanity and psychological well-being. Despite the internal critic that begged me to quit, I returned home, moved to Auburn, AL (where I knew no one), began work on my doctorate, and hoped for the best.

"Today, the stresses we face are very different from what they were in prehistoric times.  Sometimes, our fight-or-flight response gets triggered when there is no actual threat to our survival.  With no external, life-threatening danger to focus on, bodily sensations and scary thoughts can spiral into a panic attack" (Panic).

At 37, after suffering the personal failure of divorce and feeling the pain of aloneness and the despair that I would never find love again, I learned to lean on my new Alabama friends to fight for the life I deserved.

Determination not to quit. Faith in goals. Strength from inside and out. Fighting.

At 38, after a terrible falling out with a committee member that resulted in me scrambling at the 11th hour to find a replacement, a professional moment of despair that almost ended my pursuit of this degree I knew I wanted, I felt psychological pain that took my breath away. The flee response was stronger than it had ever been, and yet my friends and family wouldn't let me make a terrible mistake and quit. They pushed. They reminded me how much I had achieved, how far I'd come, how committed I am to this path. So I felt the pain, the disappointment, the panic, the uncertainty, the despair...and kept going.

Faith in goal falters. Want to flee. Want to quit. Remain in place.

At 41, after buying my first home, Chase told me I hadn't paid my mortgage (despite cancelled checks that proved otherwise), and threatened to foreclose. In this moment, I anticipated the worst. I was pushed to the edge, lost faith in the system and my fellow man, questioned my own decisions, and truly felt despair and panic. My new network of friends and colleagues and an incredibly understanding and helpful boyfriend reminded me that this was just a greater-than-average bump in the road, that my decision was sound, that Chase would back off once the slow wheels of bureaucracy ground away. (They did.)

Doubt. Despair. Questions. Frozen. Chin out.

Sadly, I "inherit" this tendency to anticipate the worst from my mother. I tend to hope for the best and then feel let down when things go terribly wrong, but so many people in my life have always had the perspective that things always work out with perseverence, hard work, and a little faith. This perspective keeps me grounded and gives me hope and strength to fall back on when I feel the urge to freeze and flee.

How does the fight-or-flight response work in your life? Have you ever fled from something because of a perceived threat, only to discover later that it wasn't really as bad as you had anticipated? Or have you never fled from anything and always stood and fought?