Fight, Flight, or Freeze

Our basic lizard brains respond immediately to threats with one of the following survival strategies: fight, flight, or freeze. Thinking back, I tend to be evenly distributed between fight and freeze, although it's hard to distinguish between them at times. Are you frozen and just waiting for danger to pass or ready to fight but holding still until the danger is closer? I know that I don't tend to attack, I prefer to wait and judge the situation. But I can't remember a single time in my life when I ran from something physically intimidating...

Until this morning.

It started out typically. We recently built a dock down by the creek and I have created a habit of eating breakfast down there, watching the water, listening to the creek sounds, gazing at fish, or relaxing with the sunbathing turtles. It's peaceful, and even the obnoxious squirrel that chatters at me can't ruin the moment. Which might be why my reaction was so extreme.

I brought my breakfast and coffee down, along with a cushion for the deck chair. Breakfast and coffee went on the table as I arranged the cushion on the chair and adjusted the footstool. I glanced up and not five feet from where I was adjusting my lounging chair, I see this.

 

 

 

Now, I'm not afraid of snakes. I actually think they're pretty cool. Their skins are dry and muscly, and I like to hold them and feel them wrap around my arm in the sanctuary of pet stores, zoos, and experts who assure me they are not poisonous.  

 

 

I do not, however, like to be startled. I'd react worse to a scurrying mouse than a stationary snake... unless that snake startled me, like today. Needless to say, I ran halfway to the house before my conscious thought broke through and I realized I was running. My flight instinct completely took over. I have never had that happen before...ever. And let me tell you, it was a trip. When I came back to being me and I had lost those four or five seconds of conscious control and just reacted without thought at all, I was a little freaked out. I guess it's good to know that I've got sharp instincts, even if they take over a bit.

 

Anyway, once I settled down and rational thought took over, I knew that if I hadn't scared it off, I needed a picture to show my husband. I grabbed my phone and went to the camera, then crept back down so as not to startle the snake. I shouldn't have worried; that snake hadn't moved a bit. After a few pictures, I moved my chair back a few feet and sat down to eat my breakfast, albeit one eye stayed on the snake the whole time.

 

So that leads me to the idea of instincts and how overwhelming they can be. I've had kids scared or hurt or angry before and I've tried to talk them down, assure them that they were safe and should calm down. I've always thought that rational thought could supersede even primal instincts. I even accused a kid once of overreacting intentionally when a mouse ran across the floor and he ran screaming from the room. Before today, I believed that he couldn't possibly have been scared enough my a little mouse that he would do that. I owe that kid an apology. I have never been so completely and irrationally caught up in my instincts before, and I now understand that sometimes it's not a matter of self-control; it's a matter of recovering from whatever embarrassing or awkward behavior your instincts caused you to perform.