Fight response part 2

[Rainagain]

Had another person trigger my fight response recently, someone pointed out to me I was about to jump on an aggressive guy, I hadn't even noticed I was about to attack. He wasn't aggressive to me directly but I was about to get involved regardless.


Found out today this guy is a really nasty piece of work, animal cruelty, bully, vicious.

I'm now wondering if my fight instinct is actually like a super sense, my automatic senses spot the threat and want to negate it without my having to think consciously.

If I only get triggered by psychopaths maybe its a good thing?

When triggered I need to pin the person on the ground like I used to when I worked in enforcement rather than hurt them. But I know inside that i would use as much force as needed, even if it caused injury to them.

I'm happier alone or with people I trust.

[ah]

That makes a lot of sense to me, that you may have a special sensitivity towards creeps.

In my experience, it tends to go in two directions: I have a special sensitivity to creeps by being overly compliant to their creepiness, and also by being freaked out more quickly than people who weren't so badly burned by dangerous people.

The first was my default in the past, nowadays it's a bit more of the second. I guess where I habitually played dead or overreacted with fight response whenever a violent person used to get close to me, I now try to learn how to to "sniff out" people who are narcissistic / psychopathic and disengage myself emotionally when I notice I've been triggered.

I guess we respond to cues in their body language, eye contact, facial expression, tone of voice... tiny things that other people, non traumatized people, may be totally unaware of. They may still feel a dull discomfort in the pit of their stomach, they may say "Something was off during that conversation, not sure what" but wouldn't give it a name, whereas in my mind I instantly see a clear danger and I'm triggered.

It recently happened to me with a stranger, a guy in his 20s said one sentence to me (just harmless small talk with smiles, supposedly. But all the subtle signs were there) and I knew I was talking to a psychopath. I responded in a new way for me: with 0% emotional distress, intentionally joking, and he did an interesting thing: lost interest, disengaged and didn't say another word to me. Very interesting. I guess I failed his test?

I think recognizing them is one of the most important things we can learn in recovering from the damage of cptsd. How can we learn to protect ourselves from potential danger if we don't know what it looks like?

[Rainagain]

I get it Ah.

Its part hypervigilance and part awareness of cues and signals I think.

I veer from avoidance of people to wanting to socialise, then getting triggered so going back to being a hermit.

I'm not really happy either alone or in company, oh well!

[Peerapatpp]

I read it is very good. It is really great for readers.

[Rainagain]

Welcome peerapatpp,

It helps me to post what I am thinking about or struggling with, people here understand what its like.

It helps my recovery to understand my reactions.