Playing dead: a natural reaction to stress? – GOOD SHAPE

Oh, how I needed that rest! I had been dreaming about this weekend at the inn in the middle of the woods for some time. I took a long hot shower, put on a fluffy bathrobe.

I lay on the bed, ready to sleep, turned my head to the side and my heart jumped: a huge spider was walking around me. I screamed asking for help to the boyfriend who immediately started to devise the plan to hunt the insect. He picked up a glass to use as a trap. A glass cup, with a high chance of an accident, we know. But when it comes to stress, rational planning is not the strong point!

The spider realized the plot and paralyzed. He didn’t move a single hair on his paw. Completely motionless in the corner of the wall, barely visible. The three of us stayed very attentive, short breaths, each one preparing for his action.

The cup was released, the spider was cornered, we put a leaf under the cup so it wouldn’t come out and we released it back into the wild. I breathed relieved. For the spider, and for the glass.

But the spider’s behavior kept haunting me. In an endless web I caught myself thinking about all the times I pretended to be dead in front of life. Because I was going through a situation that I thought I would not be able to face, out of fear of making a decision, out of unwillingness to face change.

That stress response we learned in the past to call the Fight or Flight Response has now gained another nickname: the Fight, Flight or Paralysis Response. Yeah, when stress appears we can fight with what threatens us or run away. But when the stress is too much, we can also freeze in the face of what challenges us.

Dr Hans Selye, a great scholar of stress, said that it is not stress that kills us, but our reaction to it. This reaction is closely linked with the way we perceive the situation.

If we feel capable of dealing with the challenge, if we have had positive experiences in the past or if we are confident in our ability to act, we respond in a way that adapts to the situation. However, if our previous experiences were negative or traumatic, if we feel without resources to deal with even simple everyday situations, this can paralyze us.

Building a repertoire with different physical, emotional, spiritual resources, giving new meaning to uncomfortable experiences, creating a new narrative for our memories, all of this allows us to increase our ability to adapt to adversity. It is often necessary to follow up with a health professional and use medication, yes, but this is only one part of the care and not the only one.

A broader look at what scares us little by little allows us to take small steps towards the unknown. With that, we are leaving the web that paralyzes us and we stop “playing dead” in the face of the wonderful challenge that is life.