What are the 4 Fear Responses (Part 2: Flight) - Video Transcript

Hi everyone. I'm Kristen, the anxiety therapist, and today is part two of the four part series I'm doing on the fear responses. This can also be referred to as an acute stress response and includes fight, flight, freeze and fawn. So last week I talked about the fight response today, I'm going to be focusing on the flight response and this occurs when our brain feels it's not going to be successful in fighting off danger.

So what happens is we try to get as far away from the danger as possible. Our body experiences a surge of hormones which includes adrenaline and it basically gives us the stamina, we need to move away from the threat more so than we would on a regular basis when we weren't experiencing that physiological arousal. So an example would be, you know, if, let's say you're in a burning building, obviously you want to escape and flee the scene as soon as possible so that you don't get harmed in some way.

Now, if it's not a sort of a life or death situation such as a burning building, um this flight response can manifest in other ways when it comes to more sort of anxiety based or general feelings of being threatened. And so this can manifest as excessive exercising, um feeling fidgety tents or trapped. Maybe you're constantly moving your legs feet or arms, you might have a feeling of restlessness, you might have some numbness in your arms or legs and you might have dilated, darting eyes and if you've experienced trauma in your past then this is going to be escalated even more.

So there's going to be a more intense desire to escape or deny pain, emotional turmoil or, or any other feeling of distress. So as a child, let's say, you came from a high con for household where there was a lot of yelling and fighting, maybe some domestic violence, something like that as a kid.

You might have engaged in this flight response by sort of diving into your schoolwork as a way to occupy yourself. You might fantasize and sort of plan out different escape routes or methods as a way to sort of flee the household or you might drown out arguments by cranking up your music. And these were ways that you sort of adapted or coped with the situation as a kid. Now moving into adulthood, this can look a little different.

This can can manifest as sort of like striving for perfection so that you can avoid any criticism or being challenged in any way. Um, you might end a relationship if you feel threatened at all before the other person can end it so that you can't feel hurt or rejected. Um, you may try to avoid conflict because that might elicit, you know, some feelings of distress for you or maybe be a reminder of what you experienced in the past and then you may throw yourself into work or a particular hobby or even substance you, so alcohol or drugs as a way to kind of um numb out that anxiety or panic or feelings of distress that you're experiencing.

So I hope this video was helpful to identify how this flight response can sort of manifest not only in different ways but at different periods in our lives. And you know, just take a look at your own life and see if any of these things resonate with you. If so therapy can be super helpful to kind of identify how that's in acting you now and to make changes so that you don't have to constantly live in this this kind of state of of high arousal and feeling anxious all the time. So be sure to follow me on social media at cathartic space counseling that's on facebook and instagram and check out my website for more information.

And that's www.catharticspacecounseling.com. I hope you all have a great week and I'll talk to you next time.