The Stress Response
How Chronic Trauma Response Affects Your Health
“Traumatic stress cuts to the heart of life, interfering with one’s capacity to love, create, and work – incapacity brought on not by poor lifestyle choices, moral weaknesses, or character flaws but by a complex interplay among biology, genes, and environment.” Shaili Jain, The Unspeakable Mind.
People respond to abusive situations in a number of ways. These instinctual methods come from our primitive drive to survive and keep ourselves safe from danger. When we feel scared or under threat, our body goes into defense mode. This consists of the following:
Fight or flight
Freeze
Fawning
When a person is in one or more of these states for a continued period of time, they can also become highly alert to threat and hypervigilant.
We hear these terms often, but what exactly do they mean in terms of someone dealing with abuse? They are all responses to trauma and perceived threat.
This article will explore these states and how they affect mental and physical health.
Fight or Flight
Fight or flight is when you decide to either stay in the situation and fight, or leave. The body produces various sensations in its preparation to fight or run. These may include dry mouth, increased heart rate, butterflies in the stomach, the need to urinate, cold hands, clammy palms, muscle tension, shallow and rapid breathing, and lightheadedness. You may feel shaky and have difficulty concentrating on anything other than the threat.
Once the threat has passed, people can feel trembly or queasy for a while after. Some people also get headaches after their fight or flight response has subsided. For others, it can leave them feeling exhausted and sleepy.
Freeze
Freeze is when you can neither fight nor leave. It is an unresponsive state, brought on by fear. It is characterized by a reduced ability to communicate, defend yourself, or react. Your body may feel heavy and cumbersome to move. You may have difficulty getting words out and being heard. In freeze, you feel blank and are unable to think and decide what to do or say. People also undergo the sensation of being trapped or frozen in place. While in freeze, you may numb out and feel as if you are outside the experience.
This response also may result in tiredness and the need to sleep. After the event is over, you may find yourself angry and frustrated over your response (or lack thereof). You go over things you could have said and done in the moment and replay the situation in your mind. Doing this over and over is almost like reliving it, and each time you do it your body feels the stress of it again.
Fawning
Fawning is a coping mechanism and occurs when a person develops the habit of appeasing their abuser. They go to great lengths to make themselves as agreeable and compliant as possible to avoid further abuse. This is also referred to as ‘overwhelm’. In this state, a person does not have the energy in their system to fight off the threat or to run from it. They neglect their own needs and make themselves almost emotionally invisible. Fawning eventually results in an emotional disconnect from people around you. It can also lead to withdrawal and isolation. A persistent state of fawning can make you feel humiliated and resentful. Your boundaries will be almost non-existent, as it affects your experience of being and robs you of self-worth. Fawning forces a person to live in an inauthentic, undignified way.
Alert to Threat and Hypervigilance
After spending prolonged periods in this tense state, a person becomes hypervigilant and highly alert to threat. Alert to threat is exactly what it sounds like – you are constantly on the lookout for danger. Hypervigilance is a trauma response that presents in ways in which a victim is keenly sensitive to their abuser. The victim is continuously keeping an eye on what their abuser is doing, and where they are physically in relation to the victim. They are assessing their abuser’s mood, tone of voice, and body language. They are aware of certain phrases their abuser uses when they are about to inflict some sort of harm on them.
Spend enough time in this condition and you will be able to tell when your abuser has slept well, or woken up at the wrong time. You will immediately know when they are irritated, pretending, hiding something, or about to start conflict.
It is exhausting to constantly monitor another person in order to protect yourself. It is like you are walking around with a hammer hanging over you by a thread – at any moment it can fall.
Effects on Mental Health
When a person’s fight or flight reflex is chronically activated, it affects their mental health. Spending enough time in a raised state of stress like this can also lead to emotional shut down – numbing out feelings in order to function. Long term stress causes depression and anxiety disorders, and can lead to addiction. A sense of disconnect or dissociation trickles into your daily life and relationships. This is a self-protection mechanism, and creates distance from yourself and trauma or abuse.
Mood swings are a common occurrence, as is increased irritability and frustration. People feel powerless and unable to respond to stimuli in a measured way. You become reactive, instead of responsive. Tolerance for others and yourself decreases. You will find that you are overly critical of yourself. People experiencing this can be harsh and unforgiving towards themselves. They feel anger and resentment – outwardly and also inwardly, at themselves.
You may find that you forget things a lot more. Brain fog, which is the inability to think clearly, remember things, concentrate, and make decisions is also present in those suffering under chronic stress responses.
People with anxiety, often a result of hypervigilance, may reduce their social activities. They will avoid situations they perceive as challenging. Withdrawing from interpersonal interaction – or greatly limiting it – leads to isolation.
A person’s relationships also suffer when they are struggling with the issues mentioned in this article. Conflicts arise from miscommunication, as the ability to express yourself effectively is impaired. You may have trouble reading others accurately, as you are seeing them through your alert to threat filter. So, it becomes difficult to maintain and nurture existing relationships, and hard to forge new connections. It is an extremely lonely experience for many.
The abovementioned factors come together and cause great damage to your self-esteem and identity. You may feel that you are not good enough, and tire yourself out trying to prove yourself and please others.
Effects on Physical Health
Existing in prolonged states of stress means your body has raised levels of the stress hormone, cortisol. This affects almost every major system of your body.
Recently, the relationship between mental health and gut health has received a lot of attention. Studies have shown that gut issues and mental health difficulties are linked. Stress can lead to disordered eating and unhealthy weight changes. It also affects how effectively you digest your food and absorb nutrients. Existing gut issues, such as irritable bowel syndrome, are exacerbated.
The mind-body connection should not be underestimated. What is happening with one affects the other. This is why people suffering from chronic stress symptoms caused by excessive fight or flight and hypervigilance can have impaired immune systems. The body is putting so much energy into these responses that its resources gradually get depleted, making room for illness.
The energy and motivation you may have had is negatively affected. Along with depression can come extreme fatigue. People are unable to perform at their jobs, even daily tasks may seem insurmountable. Stress also has a detrimental effect on your sleep and bedtime routine. Sleep patterns become inconsistent and disturbed, further adding to the malaise caused by mental and physical fatigue.
When you are emotionally pent up and tense, this tension filters into your body. Your muscles become stiff, unyielding and you loose flexibility. You may then develop tension headaches or migraines. Other parts of your body may also become sore and achy, and musculoskeletal issues can develop.
Libido, sexual performance, and reproductive system health is also impacted. Chronic stress is known to affect fertility in both men and women.
This kind of stress on the mind and body can also have consequences for heart health. People may develop hypertension or heart disease.
While this list of the mental and physical ramifications of stress responses sounds dire, you can recover. If you are unable to effect change in the troubling areas of your life, and find it increasingly difficult to manage your stress and function, you may need extra support. Consider reaching out to mental health services in your area. This can be the first step on the path to your healing and health. Talking to a therapist who can hold space safely for you and guide you will enable you to make the needed life changes.
It is okay to reach out for help, you do not have to do it alone. Here at Trust Mental Health we have a team of diverse therapists who speak numerous languages. Get a free 15-minute consultation and let us match you with one of our experienced therapists.