The 4F’s

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

I would like to hear your stories, experiences in regards to the “autonomic nervous system (sympathetic) response”... that “amygdala thing”...  

“To produce the fight-or-flight response, the hypothalamus activates two systems: the sympathetic nervous system and the adrenal-cortical system. The sympathetic nervous system uses nerve pathways to initiate reactions in the body, and the adrenal-cortical system uses the bloodstream. The combined effects of these two systems are the fight-or-flight response.”

The “4F’s”...
*fight
*flight
*freeze
*fawn

... I’ll give an example, back in the day, when I was ejected from the marriage bedroom suite, and banished to the leather couch in the office, sentenced to the silent treatment (ST)... when I would hear my wife open the bedroom door to leave for her work, which at that time was about zero six thirty in the morning, before “reveille”, or sunrise... I remember the sound of her high heels clicking across the hardwood floors in the living room... and I would have a “reaction”... fear, anxiety, my heart would jump, my stomach would “drop”... I had great apprehension that she might come into the office and “lite into me again”...

But when I heard her car start, the garage door open, and the sound of her car backing out of the garage, and then the garage door close again, I knew she was gone, and calm would return... and then I knew it was “safe” to venture out into the living room, and kitchen for coffee, and to let the dog out...

Isn’t that crazy... a grown man,

Today I was with “T”, he was doing a “recap”... he said, “Red5 is codependent... and has now come down with a mild case of CPTSD... which he said is quite common in marriages in which the wife may be udx bpd, with covert narcissism / traits...

Yeah... the “4F’s”... flight-fight-freeze-fawn,

Anyone else want to share?

Red5

[Red5]

I would like to hear your stories, experiences in regards to the “autonomic nervous system (sympathetic) response”... that “amygdala thing”...  

“To produce the fight-or-flight response, the hypothalamus activates two systems: the sympathetic nervous system and the adrenal-cortical system. The sympathetic nervous system uses nerve pathways to initiate reactions in the body, and the adrenal-cortical system uses the bloodstream. The combined effects of these two systems are the fight-or-flight response.”

The “4F’s”...
*fight
*flight
*freeze
*fawn

... I’ll give an example, back in the day, when I was ejected from the marriage bedroom suite, and banished to the leather couch in the office, sentenced to the silent treatment (ST)... when I would hear my wife open the bedroom door to leave for her work, which at that time was about zero six thirty in the morning, before “reveille”, or sunrise... I remember the sound of her high heels clicking across the hardwood floors in the living room... and I would have a “reaction”... fear, anxiety, my heart would jump, my stomach would “drop”... I had great apprehension that she might come into the office and “lite into me again”...

But when I heard her car start, the garage door open, and the sound of her car backing out of the garage, and then the garage door close again, I knew she was gone, and calm would return... and then I knew it was “safe” to venture out into the living room, and kitchen for coffee, and to let the dog out...

Isn’t that crazy... a grown man,

Today I was with “T”, he was doing a “recap”... he said, “Red5 is codependent... and has now come down with a mild case of CPTSD... which he said is quite common in marriages in which the wife may be udx bpd, with covert narcissism / traits...

Yeah... the “4F’s”... flight-fight-freeze-fawn,

Anyone else want to share?

Red5

[Enabler]

Every single email I receive from my W produces a rocket like state of anxiety like someone has shot me in the arm with some kind of panic educing drug. I can feel the drug in fingers and legs, in my head it's like a muzz that just won't clear, I get a pressure in my eyes. I get the same sensations when I'm alone in the kitchen with her and the kids aren't about and have gone to bed... it's the anticipation that she's going to say something about the divorce. If she converses about something else it doesn't stop the anxiety as I know from experience it's the last conversation she will have.

I can only imagine it's similar to a prisoner laying in bed (Think Shawshank Redemption setting) and the jailer dragging his baton along the bars as he selects which prison he wants to give a beating that evening.

I've gotten better at taming my monkey telling it I'm not going to die!

Enabler

[once removed]

it got to a point where i dreaded the mornings, or whenever id wake up.

shed expect to hear from me, and that made me anxious.

i take a while to wake up. i dont like being chained at the hip. so maybe i didnt want to talk to her for a while. i suspect she could sense that...a lack of enthusiasm, when i spoke to her.

so if i did talk to her, there was a reasonable chance something was going to occur that led to a fight. if i didnt talk to her, even more likely. and if i sensed her prodding me when we did talk, id feel adrenaline, and be either closed off, or hostile. so, wed fight.

mind you, thats when we werent staying together, which we usually did. i was always fighting for space.

after we broke up, id wake up with a huge sense of dread over things imagined or not specific. within about thirty minutes, id go into an anxiety attack that could last for as long as eight hours. that lasted for months until i treated it.

i think there was some relation there...my body was used to that adrenaline/anxiety kicking in after i woke and really went into overdrive when she broke up with me.

[Gemsforeyes]

Oh man... my exH or my current uBPDbf?

Okay, exH.  I worked remotely from home for a large company during the last 10.5 years of our 19 years together.  I had a large in-home office. 

The house was ALWAYS clean, very clean.  He did NOTHING to keep it clean.  He actually never helped me with anything.  This is not an understatement.  Or overstatement?  I did all the grocery shopping, cooking, digging of trenches during flooding rains, animal care, paid for most everything, etc.  I’m not sure when he ever worked.  He loved his leisure and social time.

Pretty much every day, in the middle of the day, he’d haul into my office and BOOM at me:

“ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT SUPPER?”

I was normally in the middle of some conference call with my wired headset clearly ON MY HEAD.  That didn’t matter.  The fact that I’d politely held up one finger trying to stop him didn’t matter.  And my heart would POUND... as the people or person  on the call HEARD and usually asked, “so Gems, what’s for SUPPER?”

Or if we were having people over (which was very frequent), he did NOTHING to help.  Instead, he followed me around the house and BOOMED “WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO DO THIS?  WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO DO THAT?  When are you going to cook THIS?  WHY did you decide to cook THAT?  You KNOW I would rather have THAT!”

And yea, an envelope on the kitchen table... an envelope.  There was nothing, not a spec of dirt anywhere.  But if I forgot and left an envelope on the corner of the kitchen table when I walked in the back door... He would say “hey, HEY!”  And move his big hand in a circle above that envelope.  And I would stand there and look at his hand and its circular motion.

One day I said out loud “what I do doesn’t count, only what I DON’T do.  I HAVE to remember I feel like this.”  And then I forgot.

If after working 60 hours a week, I went rowing (probably 6-8 miles) on a Sunday and came home, showered and hopped in bed for a little nap, and he came home and “caught me” napping; he’d yell “get up, you’re not being PRODUCTIVE!”

And I’d fly out of the bed.  He hadn’t SEEN me scrub all the windows and blinds on Saturday.  He was out on a hike or swim or bike ride all day...

This is only a teeny tiny portion of it...and not even the major stuff.  I don’t know where any of this fits into the 4 F’s .  I still have trouble with that concept, even though My T discussed it (once).  I may have disassociated during that talk.  Some things at certain times are painful to listen to when you have C-PTSD.  You need to really focus and be ready, I guess.

I hate myself when I see these words.  It’s like I’m talking about someone else now, not me.  It took me a while to admit I was in an abusive marriage.  It’s even harder to admit I’m doing it again, although it’s “different” this time.  UBPDbf is less “conscious” of his abuse.  But it’s abuse all the same.

Yea, I hate myself when I see these words.  Because I never relied on my exH for a living or a life.  And I don’t know why I stayed.  But when I left, I had to flee.

Gems

[Enabler]

Gems... needless to say but I’ll say it anyway, your exH sounds like a colossal prick. Do you find yourself triggered by similar but not the same situations... out of context situations eg like an ex infantry man being triggered by the misfire of a car?

[Gemsforeyes]

I do, Enabler.  And it’s my fault for ultimately choosing men that lack self-awareness.  That’s not even the right word, they’re SO aware of what THEY want; that what I need or want is so far down on the list.  Except what I can DO for them.  They want to be NEAR me...always.  I create comfort.

Before uBPDbf comes to my house, I will sometimes stay up nearly all night cleaning.  And My house is never that out of shape.  And I don’t even know if he would notice if there were a spec of dust somewhere.  My heart pounds and then I hurry to fit in my bath before he arrives so I’m sweet and clean before he walks in.  And I have all the perfect foods and drinks...

But yes, the real  “backfiring car” happened about 2 weeks ago.  I’ve been doing aLOT of work in therapy around this abuse thing... Acceptance, healing, forgiving myself and dealing with the self-loathing stuff.  UBPDbf all of a sudden breaks into a rage and screams (in my house and NONE of his business) “what have YOU done this week?”  I told him it was none of his business what I do on any day EVER!  Nice, mature response, right?

But yep!  I rely on him for NOTHING.  In fact, he owed ME money (again) so it really IS none of his business whether I’ve been able to pick up more work or not.  He’s not my H and he’d made that clear in a public setting, so I made it clear in private.  Caffeine make me edgy?  No.  Edgy, Triggering topic?  Yes...  like the choking hands around my neck.  If anything, I CANNOT have another adult monitor my time ever again.  And that he wants to do... time and time again.

Thank you for inching me through this. You  brought me some new awareness.

Oh, and yes... my exH was a world class prick.

Warmly,
Gems

[Harri]

Hi Red, all!

This topic caught my eye as I have the diagnosis of PTSD with the understanding that it is c-PTSD (c-PTSD is not recognized in the DSM5).

Anyway, I can look back and examine my past and see all the reasons I picked the particular 4F I did, though one is primary - freeze- I can do all 4.   .  What interests me now is how it has affected my attachment style and how it influences my reactions and responses in the present day.   I am working on changing that.

I can get triggered by a smell or a loud sound, sometimes I can have the more typical flashback with visual and auditory memories but frequently it is an emotional flashback.  Sometimes i do not know what triggers me.

Anyway, as you know I hang out at the PSI board where we talk about Pete Walker MA, MFT and his work on c-PTSD quite a bit.  Here is an excerpt from his article on the four F's with a link at the bottom to the whole article:

Variances in the childhood abuse/neglect pattern, birth order, and genetic predispositions result in individuals "choosing" and specializing in narcissistic (fight), obsessive/compulsive (flight), dissociative (freeze) or codependent (fawn) defenses. Many of my clients have reported that psychoeducation in this model has been motivational, deshaming and pragmatically helpful in guiding their recovery...

Fight types avoid real intimacy by unconsciously alienating others with their angry and controlling demands for the unmet childhood need of unconditional love; flight types stay perpetually busy and industrious to avoid potentially triggering interactions; freeze types hide away in their rooms and reveries; and fawn types avoid emotional investment and potential disappointment by barely showing themselves - by hiding behind their helpful personas, over-listening, over-eliciting or overdoing for the other - by giving service but never risking real self-exposure and the possibility of deeper level rejection. The 4Fs: A Trauma Typology in Complex PTSD By Pete Walker

I am interested in hearing your thoughts on the article and if you can identify the primary F you use (actually anyone here).

[Red5]

Harri, & 99

I want to read this book sometime... also by Pete Walker;

Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving: A Guide and Map for Recovering from Childhood Trauma
Book by Pete Walker

Don’t know if it’s reviewed here in the groups... I honesty haven’t looked yet... I hear a lot about this book in other circles I visit.

Of the 4F’s... I’m a flight (flee) type... but if there is no escape route, I will freeze, eg’ try my damn’st to not feed the conflagration... the last resort, before I lose the edge and fix bayonets (fight)... is to “fawn”...

*perhaps my own pathological narcissism, a defensive measure... fight,

The “fawn” may last hours, or even days... I became very adept to picking up the vibes (negative vibrations) of my ______, and I would actually try to “go along” to get along, what ever that was... but when you are targted... well, that’s it, you are going to get it sooner or later... no matter how much $$ you kiss, which was my “fawn”... then as the artillery barrage commenced... I would “freeze”... hoping to give a non combatant silhouette... which never worked out...so it was then onto “flight”... or “fight” in order to get to a place of “flight”...

Ugh...

I too have attachment issues... due to ______.

  (Another silly Red5 analogy)... We were discussing Cobra attack helicopters yesterday at work... a feisty critter is the venerable “snake skid” AH-1,

This aircraft has a slender fuselage, and when its facing you, it presents a narrow silhouette of a target... the way the aircraft is configured, cockpit, engines, rotor systems, and weapons...when directly facing you, at a distance, it’s very hard to see, or engage... but make no mistake, it has a 20 millimeter Gatling gun in the nose, and it’s little stub wings have missiles and rockets mounted... and it’s night attack capable... a tough and proven machine this Cobra...

So don’t mess with it, when it pops up over the sand dune, or just over the tops of the trees, to take a peak... and is only looking at you (freeze/fawn)... hoping you won’t engage (fight)... but if you do go and “engage”... the Cobra, he now has sevearal choices... to take cover again (freeze), or to dissengage (flight/flee)... or he may chose to unleash H3LL upon you (fight)... there will be no “fawn”...

Better just let the AH-1 Cobra be... & leave him alone... hmmmm,

Kind of like the poor non, whose spent years, perhaps decades in this toxic relationship dynamic... now “wise” and hardened... but still “hanging on to that rope”... hopping that his loved one won’t engage him again... because he’s had about all he can take... we’ve all been right there, at that “merge”... and many of us, me included, didn’t handle it well, we “unleashed H3LL” right back... only making the dynamic even more toxic...

... the 4F’s... flight - fight - freeze - fawn,

Red5

[I Am Redeemed]

My main trauma response is freeze, though like harri, I can do all four.

When I was in the midst of the abusive relationship, I used fawn a lot to get the abuse to stop. Sometimes I would dissociate and freeze during the abuse. I believe that even while using fawn, I was still operating within a larger, prolonged freeze state, and I believe that is what kept me paralyzed and unable to leave the relationship for so long.

Gems, I can relate when you say that you hate reading the words that you wrote about yourself, what you tolerated, asking yourself why you didn't leave sooner. I do that, too. The freeze response is the best answer I have for why I stayed. I was stuck. My brain was actually working against me in assessing the situation and its risk, and in formulating a proper self preservation response to the danger.

Since I can remember, my response to any stress is to hide away in my room, or now in my own house since it's just me and S3 here. Freeze. Hide from anything that produces anxiety, which is usually anything that involves social contact with others. I'm slowly making myself do things that are uncomfortable so I don't stay stuck in an anxiety loop.

Something that triggers me into an emotional flashback is my own child screaming or badgering me. These behaviors are normal for a three year old, but they are so eerily close to the behavior of my ex who is in his forties, and whose temper tantrums could be violent. I have to step back and remind myself that I am dealing with my son, a preschooler, and the situation is not as dangerous as my emotions feel that it is.

[Cat Familiar]

Flight is my go to strategy and I can feel productive and enjoy what I’m doing while my husband cools his jets. Lots of time there’s no need to even try and talk it out because later, the issue is long gone and to attempt to do a necropsy on the conflict would only reanimate it.

In the past, I was more of a fawn-er. I’d try to “work it out” and do backflips to make sure that I was “giving it my all”. That didn’t work out so well, and even engendered more conflict, despite my best intentions.

Then, when all my good will was exhausted, I’d fight, with the cold calm of bitter resentfulness.

Much better for me to go off and do my own thing and not engage, until peacefulness resumes.

[Coastgirl]

Oh yes! I always get stomach pains when I am driving home not knowing who I am coming home to. When things are ok I find it fades some but I'll get a phone call or text and I jump. I always find it silly when I get off the phone and everything is ok.
What's worse is when he goes into a rage because he is triggered and something small sets him off - its typically me. The feeling of knowing there is nothing I can do to make it better and then knowing that he will blame me for not descalating him. I freeze which leads to me not responding the way he needs me too.
The anxiety is endless.

[Jetta]

I relate to this big time. When I am home alone, I'm happy and relaxed. I can be myself. My son (20) and I will banter and do our own weird little things. Like when my husband was taking a night class, my son and I would go to the international grocery store after work, get random snacks, and go home and watch an international film on Netflix. I planned for us to do that on nights when my husband got home late because he gets agitated when the TV is on something that he doesn't want to watch. And he doesn't like a show unless it was his idea to watch it.

Then when he does get home, it's like party's over. The fun gets sucked out of the room, we need to be somber and not too loud. Even when my son is laughing in his bedroom, my husband gets annoyed. He's the first person I've ever known who gets irritated by overhearing someone else laugh. But then again, he seems to get annoyed at everything, so I guess that shouldn't be too much of a surprise.

I'm not myself when my husband is home. I have to be careful of what I say because if I say too much he will find something to criticize. It's like he can't just let things slide. Every little detail has to be examined. Even texting is laborious with him.

My co-dependent F of choice was fawning. But freeze came in from time to time. Now that I've been working on myself, I refuse to fawn. I do freeze at times, but now I guess it's mostly fight (assert my boundaries) which starts off as me being another F, firm. But turns into a fight because my husband hates it when I set boundaries.

Like the other day when I slipped up in thinking that he and I could have a normal conversation (I should have preemptively froze and not said a thing), I started telling him a story about how a co-worker microwaved the same type of heat pack we have in the office microwave for way too long, it burst open, got all charred, and made some horrible smelling smoke.

In the middle of my story he interjects "it's not the same kind of heat pack they make them with plastic beads now, blah blah" something like that. I told him that I only said it was the same type as we have so he could visualize it and that the actual construction of the thing is irrelevant, don't hijack my story. I proceeded, but then he still wanted to tell me about the new friggin material in those heat packs, and again, I said stop, that's not what this story is about (I don't think I had actually gotten to the good part yet, about the awful smelling smoke and how we opened our windows and it was windy and papers kept flying off my desk). I think he pressed one more time but I interjected: no, what was in the heat pack is not relevant, just let it go. Then he sulked off and gave me the silent treatment for the rest of the evening.

[khibomsis]

Definitely fawn. I'm the queen of co-dependence. Learnt disassociation also somewhere along the line, so much so that if I don't remember something these days I just conclude it must have been traumatic