Fight or Flight?

We all have within us the instinctual fight or flight response, and a tendency to lean one way or the other. Capable of both, however, depending on our nature we will have an inclination towards one more than the other.

I am Flight.

I have been running away my entire life. The first time I was around seven years old. I had precariously stepped over my baby sister to get to the back door to go climb trees at the bottom of the garden. I had misjudged my step, and almost toppled my sister over. My mother automatically screamed at me to get lost, so I ran. I only made it to the end of the road, because I wasn’t allowed to cross the main road by myself, but that was the first of many times I ran.

I’d spend hours aimlessly wandering round the streets after school, just to delay going home. I loved walking, I loved exploring, sometimes I’d just go and watch the ponies in the fields nearby, until I really couldn’t delay it anymore. Eventually one of my teachers resorted to escorting me home, just so she knew I’d make it there safely.

It’s not to say I am not capable of fight, or aggression. I most certainly am. I am a bottler. I bottle things up, trying to ignore them desperately, but eventually that bottle becomes full and explodes. This came in the form of many colourful expletives, and fairly harsh, but true criticisms of whoever was on the receiving end, describing to them exactly why I was in that state in the first place, and although the emotions appear irrational for the current circumstance, it was simply the proverbial stick that broke the camels back. I’m not proud of it, I’m not defensive of it, in fact I have spent my whole life trying not to be like that.

This year, I started to realise why I hadn’t really got a handle of it. A) I was still very much still vulnerable to the triggers that invoked such responses, and B) I was very clearly neurodivergent, and there was a lot more going on that I needed to address than I had previously realised. A lot of the time, I hadn’t recognised was sensory overwhelm. I have been diagnosed with multiple processing and sensory disorders, and of course a diagnosis of BPD due to the trauma I experienced throughout my childhood. The fact that Autism in women is frequently misdiagnosed as BPD was not lost on me. However, I have been labelled as a chronic hypochondriac and attention seeker my entire life.

In fact, I was in chronic pain because I have several physical disabilities that were not diagnosed until after I had had my children. But, the label still very much exists to this day. My family do not understand my disability, because it is not something we talk about, if I just did some yoga, I’d be so much better right. Just try this breathing exercise, ‘But I can only breathe through one nostril’ – ‘That’s nonsense, you’re just not trying hard enough’. I have spent most of my life trying to hide it, occasionally talking about it, but more recently, the past few years, being made to feel ashamed of it all over again.

So, back to the flight response. Even before I had the chronic pain, which started with sciatica since I was 8yrs old, and I was convinced arthritis, because my joints were always so weak and inflamed, agony. I was a flight person. I was a very reserved child for the most part, unless I was comfortable around you, then I would be the loudest person in the room, the class clown, and the person everyone fought to be friends with. But, I am no good in an argument. I am extremely good with words, but can not handle conflict. It’s like my brain shuts down and the brain fog just takes over, I am completely powerless. I cannot access rational thought or memory at all, it’s like tumbleweeds are rolling around up there, just bumping into the edges of my hollow brain and bruising it with the deep seated emotions that the memory carry. No detail, no emotion, just pure agonising emotional pain. That’s where the expletives come in and colourful descriptions of how that person’s continual behaviour and lack of accountability has led me to feel.

Of course this is very very problematic. Particularly when you are opposed to a very logical person, who also has an almost photographic memory. You are automatically at a severe disadvantage. Hence why I most often ran. If I didn’t run, I would end up putting myself in danger and taking the emotion out on myself physically. I have too many scars on my broken body, I do not need any more. They serve as a reminder of what I have survived though, so I do not hide them, I am no longer ashamed of that, and if ever asked, I will happily explain that I had a troubled past, but I have come far in my progress since then, and very veery rarely ‘self-harm’ anymore. Which is of course a lie. It can be possibly described as self-sabotage, I am guilty of that too. I destroy my own projects if I lose confidence in myself, which is a regular occurrence to be fair.

I forget to eat, but when I realise that I have forgotten to eat, it takes a lot of talking to myself to rectify the situation. I am still very much haunted by disordered thinking when it comes to food and sustenance. I am determined not to get lost down that awful road ever again, but it is a CONSTANT daily battle, and I suspect it always will be. Despite, happily announcing I have been five years free (for the most part) of extremely disordered eating habits.

I also suffer with ME/CFS so I don’t have the energy to fight. I have been plagued with brain fog and feeling like a zombie a lot of my adult life. It has possibly been the most unknowingly frustrating part of all of this.

May this year, after going through a cycle of crisis, being sent to a psychiatrist, put on a new medication, given one single follow up and promptly being discharged back to the GP, who will not touch or amend that medication at all. The cycle inevitably always concludes in a crisis a few months later, when they tell me that I just need to try another medication, and the cycle repeats again, and again, and again. In May however, I was put on something aptly named as ‘Californian Rocket Fuel’ – I mean the name in itself should have been a massive red flag right? I have ADHD (unmedicated) and severe insomnia.

I did not automatically recognise the side effects of this new combination of extremely stimulating medication, that I was also at a very high dose of. I only noticed the positives, it was like all the brain fog completely lifted and I was able to access my thoughts again. It felt amazing, the meds did wonders for my chronic digestive issues, that no amount of binders and other drugs could really contain. I was alert, I was motivated, I was able to get a new job, everyone told me how happy I looked, and I was. I felt on top of the world, but little did I know I was stood atop the highest peak, about to oh so dramatically and publicly topple over.

Although I loved my job, I realised that I had been screwed over and bound by an impossible contract and massively underpaid. I took a stand and ruffled a few feathers. That’s when the doubts started, constantly warned to keep quiet, suffer it quietly, ‘you’ll lose your job, then what will you do? Why can’t you just suffer it like the rest of us?’ Well, because I do not suffer injustice well, the main bug bear I had was how appallingly my manager had been treated after she was almost killed by an electrical fault in the shop. I was incensed, but she was also accepting of the fact she was being ignored.

Usually, I would comply. I don’t ever challenge, especially if it is for myself, I just submit, always. But, I felt so driven to be a better, more confident person, that I didn’t let it slide. It was very much the same for my personal life too. I realised that help from the mental health team was never going to be offered, no matter how close to ending it I was. My problem being, I am too aware, I am too capable of communication that I do not fall into the relevant category for help. i also had the crippling diagnosis of BPD, perhaps the most stigmatised condition there ever was, so much misinformation and extremely poor media portrayal, a lot of services just won’t even touch us, yet we are arguably the most at risk category due to the impulsive reactiveness of it. You can go from being on top of the world one minute, to wanting to end it all ten minutes later. All it takes is a certain trigger, a certain environment, exposure to potential threat, and your world comes crumbling down and the emotions take hold. It can settle just as quickly also, which is why it appears as so attention seeking and manipulative. You see red flag, we see our invisible white flags desperately waving and constantly being dismissed.

I had to take control of this myself, and I now felt capable. I was more aware of when my emotions began to fluctuate and start bubbling to the surface. I started to excuse myself, remove myself quietly and discreetly from certain situations, calm myself down and try again. I did this for months, explaining exactly what and why I was doing so to my other half. As I said earlier, I am a good communicator, I knew that my change in behaviour would cause concern, so I laid out all the facts. I found myself constantly having to remind them of what I was doing. I was doing this to heal myself. I was doing this to become a better, more efficient and emotionally available mother, not that I wasn’t available, but I could certainly achieve more. I had four, fairly neurodivergent children with varying different needs, how could I affectively help them understand and manage their emotions if I couldn’t manage my own? By conquering mine, I could share with them the tools I had crafted and mastered along the way. I could be a better, more attentive partner. I am extremely attentive naturally, very compassionate and available, but again, I could do better. The stability in my emotions alone would surely only lead to a more harmonious partnership. I had been planning to propose for a long time, wouldn’t it be amazing if I could show how well I had done this year before it happened? It wasn’t out of nowhere, we had spent years planning our dream wedding and exactly how we wanted it, it was just a question of asking the question.

I soon began to realise, that what had seemed like an ordinary bout of insomnia, was certainly not an ordinary bout of insomnia. I was sleeping on average 2 hours a night at this point. Not a solid 2 hours, but about 10 to 15 minutes at a time, woken by horrific nightmares and chronic pain, migraines etc. But I still had boundless energy. I could not sit still, at all. Restlessness was not unusual with my anxiety, but this, this was significantly noticeable to people around me, and the fact I had also discovered I was suffering with a rare but debilitating form of OCD – sensorimotor OCD. Because it involved an oral fixation, I was unable to eat a lot of things, I had always struggled with textures, but suddenly I was struggling with everything, and the pain I was in was unbearable. So not only was I severely sleep deprived, I was also losing weight, which is a dangerous path for me. The weight loss is addictive, it’s a sudden rush, a feeling of accomplishment, my brain has never been able to disengage from that. BUT, I did not let myself fall. I was not about to lose the chance of ruining everything I had worked so hard to achieve. I was still, incredibly positive, incredibly driven, and certain that I had the ability to pull myself through. I’ve been at rock bottom so many times in my life, and this was going to put an end to that destructive cycle.

However, there were a few things I knew I had to confront, that I knew would be particularly challenging, because it required consensual participation and support from my partner. Communication.

I felt that there was an unequal balance, that could easily be rectified if we both committed to improving together. I was aware that my communication style could be significantly overwhelming when I was feeling aggrieved by something. I am a writer at heart, and very descriptive by nature. My partner, being very verbal. We agreed to compromise. I would communicate verbally as often and as well as I could manage, but if it was something difficult to talk about, I would ensure that if I had to write it down, I would break it up into manageable chunks rather than paragraphs containing multiple references at once.

I also felt that we needed to address accountability. We both get things wrong, we’re human, it happens, so what? The issue I had, was I was the ONLY person ever accountable. As an emotionally led person, I always feel immense guilt after upsetting someone, I will grovel an apology and work very hard afterwards to atone for my misgivings, to be deserving of forgiveness, and to show, that although desperately flawed, it was never my intention to hurt anyone, ever. My partner, never apologised, ever. That’s a lie actually, she would apologise for the most insignificant mistakes that needed no apology, and I would regularly tell her, you don’t need to be sorry for that, it was a genuine mistake, there’s no issue. But, if ever she really hurt me, which was more frequently than I would have liked to be honest, an apology certainly would never be issued, even if I hopelessly begged for it. Shamefully I begged often, in the vain hope that one day it might come without asking. Foolish of me I know. She was famous for her non apology, her whole life, why would I be any different huh?

I tried to explain my simple analogy:

Sorry = I love/respect you

Lack of apology/insincere apology = I hold no regard for you.

I even sent several articles about the importance of apology, particularly in relationships, researched studies with quantifiable data, but they were never read. Just the same adage of ‘I don’t feel like apologising, so I won’t, and I won’t make my children do it either.’ I tried hopelessly to explain that as the perpetrator, it’s not just about your feelings, the person you harmed or upset didn’t feel like being violated either, so why should they have to wait and see if you ever feel ready to apologise. Particularly when the apologies never came.

I had graduated into ‘Fight’ mode. Not aggressively, but calmly, assertively, with explanation, with reassurance. Yes, this felt uncomfortable, because suddenly I was challenging things, which I never really challenged so determinedly before. It wasn’t things I hadn’t raised before, I had spoken about the apology and respect situation for years, but always just abandoned it as fruitless. This time, I couldn’t leave it alone, it had to be rectified if I was to be able to succeed. I had to feel respected and equal, in order to feel capable to remain emotionally stable. It was one simple thing that I was asking for. I was told that I was far too high maintenance, my standards were far too high, I was being abusive because I was critical of her tone, delivery, her aggressive facial expressions and forceful, demanding way of doing things. I just wanted less aggressive delivery, and accountability. I had spent the past six years working on myself, things that I believed were my failings, for example, it was my fault that I was subject to years of violence and aggression from the youngest child, simply because my tone had been too impatient, and I expected better manners, and apologies.

This all came with a very open caveat – “Please be patient with me, I have never set a personal boundary in my life, it may seem heavy handed, but I don’t know what I’m doing. i will find the right balance, but please be patient, and aware of all the challenges I’m facing at once”

I was told I was destroying her, that she couldn’t cope, I was being incredibly abusive and it had to stop. Trigger flight mode.

The suicidality crept in again. I reached out to my mother, who I’d spent the last year diligently trying to forge some kind of healthy relationship with for once in my life. It was hard work, involved a lot of contact and communication, which was something I had been running from my entire life because it always inevitably ended in disappointment. I would never be good enough, never be successful enough, well spoken enough, thin enough, organised enough, the list was endless. But, here I was, feeling like we had made progress, so I put in the group chat with my mother and sisters, that I was on the verge of crisis again. the lack of sleep, the sensorimotor OCD, the issues at work, disappointing and causing my partner stress, which is the opposite of what I was trying to achieve, everything was falling apart, and it was my fault again. Why did everything I so faithfully try to achieve fall apart? How could I have got it so wrong? I was supposed to be proposing soon, the children all knew about it, how could I possibly let them down, but how could I possibly do it when I had made such a mess.

My Mother ignored me. She had read all of the messages between me and my sister, all the little ticks had turned blue, but not a word, nothing. Not for 3 days. I then received a text informing me that I had caused so much stress, that when she was leaving the country (possibly the 100th time she has gone abroad and not informed me) she was going to turn her phone off and remain uncontactable. If I had not only just faced one of my biggest fears – rejection/abandonment, stemmed from all the times she rejected me as a child (far too many to document) – here she was doing it again, but to the extreme, leaving the country and going no contact. I inevitably fell apart.

But, in true Jade style, I brushed myself off, picked myself off the floor, and tried to carry on with my mission, just dialled back by 80%. I stopped begging for apologies, I stopped asking so frequently for tones of voices to be dialled back, or aggressive faces to be softened. I stopped. I figured I could carry on suffering it, and just find another way to release the emotion it invoked, didn’t know exactly how, but I knew I was capable.  Let’s ignore the fact that I continued to struggle with the constant teasing that she would cheat on me (as she did this several times throughout her last marriage, I struggled to see the funny side). Or being excluded from holidays and nights out with a person she used to sleep with, or the new best friend. The one who seemingly can’t extract her head from my other half’s arse. So many people questioned her sexuality and what was going on because we could ask see it. I struggled to ignore the flirting with teachers, and touchy feeliness with a football coach, who was also on her team. But if someone tells you enough times that your just jealous and sensitive, you start believing it.

The proposal – well, it was incredible, but that’s where the story turns sour, and I had to literally run for the hills to save my life after suffering yet again, THE WORST REJECTION I had ever suffered in my life, and being physically abandoned in a hospital, left for dead.

Running saved my life.

Flight saved my life.

I cannot fight. I tried, I failed.

I can easily be crushed by a little finger, so I don’t know what I expected. I though my new found courage and drive to improve myself would save my life, and make my family flourish because of it. I had so so much to offer. A world of understanding about mental health and neurodivergence, which was rife within the household 5-1. An endless amount of patience and compassion, and the insatiable appetite to learn and improve myself always. I never stagnate, I always look for improvement, enrichment and personal development. We live in an ever evolving world, there is no room for stagnation or burying your head in the sand. It won’t make your issues disappear. Burying them inside yourself doesn’t hide them, the emotions come out in other ways, perhaps addictions, violence, promiscuity, any kind of deviance, and sometimes purely childish behaviour. It doesn’t just affect ourselves, it affects everyone around us, and particularly the generations after us. Which is why, I have worked so hard as the eternal black sheep of the family, to ensure that the generational cycle stops with me.

It just seems now, that I will have to continue that journey forever alone.