Grace Colleen7 minutes ago
I see your point in the benefit of survival reactions under certain conditions. Mine worked against me in that when an event should have been sufficient evidence to put up a boundary, emotional or physical, the freeze response to the trauma did not allow the appropriate act of self protection to take over. I allowed many abusive situations in my life, and now that I see that pattern, I have changed it by regaining my lost sense of self...lots of work over many years. I believe that this type of defense for me was due to being raised in an authoritarian ethnic family where the men had all the power, and the women had to support that structure or face punishment. I also was sent to private school, Catholic Vatican I rules. Carnal punishment was the norm, and the nuns liked it best if they could beat small children in front of the entire class. The effect was shame for one being punished, and fear for the observers. Horrible people, just plain horrible, and my parents paid for that. I also was deemed as more fortunate than the others as my father was a well to do business owner.
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Well I have also had the problem of not being attuned to emotional nuance in modernity. For instance, I have tended not to react though sophisticated counteractions of hostile overtures. This skill has taken me a long time to learn. Hostility, to me, was someone having a bad day, with the expectation that the storm would pass. Often it doesn't. I've underreacted, and then people start moving around the goal posts at work or in other situations, to provoke a reaction from me. At that time, I go from peace to war, and the war never ends. I haven't coped well in the middle zones of emotionality at all. I've also experienced a lot of physical punishment, too, in my childhood. I take breaches against my security very seriously.
