Fight or Flight Response: Part 2- Assessing Danger, Triggers, & Advocating with An Anaphylactic Allergy Focus

If you’ve dealt with a stressful fight or flight response where your body is on edge, anxious, worried, extremely alert and ready for action, or ready to deal with something dangerous, then you know you don’t choose when to feel that way, it just occurs all of a sudden sometimes. It can be disconcerting and worrisome to have your body jump into a revved up state all of a sudden.

So, how do you get control back? How do you begin to tell your body what is dangerous and what is not, How do you calm down that stress response?

How do we approach a fight or flight response, a stress response, and determine if the response is warranted or not?

If it’s not warranted, then how do we calm it down and take back control, in the moment?

Well, today we are continuing a discussion on the fight or flight response, using the focused and real life example of my managing of one of my children’s severe anaphylactic food allergies.

If you missed my first fight or flight response writing, make sure to read it here: How to Talk to Yourself During a Fight or Flight Response and Steps You Can Take. It will help lay the groundwork and backdrop for what we are looking at today.

I spoke in fight or flight response Part 1 about getting curious about what happened right before your body entered a stress response where you began to feel anxious, worried, extremely alert, with an adrenaline rush.

This is very important to do—to:

Intentionally identify your anxious and adrenaline charged moments, even if you’d rather ignore them or not actively address them.

Briefly jot down what you observe.

As you have additional responses and moments where your body goes into fight or flight mode, patterns should emerge for you as to what types of moments you have a stress response to. Similar instances that set off the response. A sight, sound, or detail can often set off or trigger the amygdala (Read more on the amygdala and emotional memory here) to put your body into a fight or flight response.

Being aware of the triggers, what “turns the switch to on” for the response is incredibly important. These triggers are intrinsically connected to a past stressful or even traumatic memory. Your body’s limbic system, specifically the amygdala, remembers the trauma and responds to triggers it deems as dangerous (based on the past experiences that were in fact dangerous).

Identifying your past memory and response to the triggers connected to it are keys to unlocking and freeing you from having that same intense rush of fight or flight response continually flood into your life at unexpected and undesired moments. Or at the very least, when it does happen, you can bring it back down to a calm state much more quickly because you have tools to help you do that.

So, like I asked at the beginning, how do you get control back? How do you begin to tell your body what is dangerous and what is not, and therefore calm down that fight or flight response?

How do we approach a fight or flight response, a stress response, and determine if the response is warranted or not? Whether there is danger present to take action against or whether our bodies are instinctively reacting to a trigger.

Taking an assessment in the moment is key.

This will help bring clarity.

I do this with my triggers connected to the severe anaphylactic food allergies for my child that we navigate and manage.

Usually the triggers I have with it come from communication with others, causing my alarm bell, my amygdala, to start going off, being revved up.

When I am triggered, I have to ask myself if there is any present danger at that moment or if what I’m sensing right then indicates a potentially future dangerous circumstance for my child, due to lack of understanding or support or due to resistance from the person I’m communicating with. It could also be that I’m instead reminded of and triggered from a past traumatic and stressful allergic event, though no present or future danger is present.

It’s important to take this assessment step when you feel your body enter into fight or flight mode– for you to:

Assess which of the 3 it is: an immediate threat, a future threat, or a trigger from a past event.

Let’s look a little closer at what this looks like.

Now, there could be an immediate danger in front of us, at a playground or public setting where I need to take immediate action to protect my child and get them away from an anaphylactic food being eaten or manage a reaction my child is beginning to display, often uncertain of what is causing the reaction.

Being watchful and determining what the next step is and determining if medication is warranted based on the symptoms presenting is important while following my child’s individualized FARE plan.

This is a time when the fight or flight system is working appropriately, when there is an actual danger present. Is a mild reaction or an emergency occurring, and what is the right next step?

The fight or flight response helps me hone in on taking action and appropriate steps in protecting and caring for my child in an emergent/urgent moment.

Thankfully, the preventative steps we take daily to mitigate allergy risk and exposure to life-threatening allergens has been protective and effective, resulting in significantly less reactions than otherwise could be.

Being alert in public is important for protecting my child and managing their severe anaphylactic food allergies. Public settings are not a fully safe environment, and so my amygdala is partially on, being alert, watchful. This is appropriate.

The amygdala helps a person in urgent and emergent situations to take appropriate action and protective steps in response to danger. It has an important role to play.

In the realm of food allergies, oftentimes, communicating with a teacher or school about my child’s care can elicit these triggers as well. Getting together socially with others or for a meeting or event where food will be or might be present can also elicit these triggers. Risk for a reaction is increased in these settings because my child’s life-threatening allergens could be present. At our home, the life-threatening allergens have been removed creating a safe and relaxed environment.

It is important to have a safe and non-stressful environment when you navigate stressful medical diagnoses. If you yourself have not created a safe and relaxed environment for yourself with whatever diagnosis, chronic condition, or stressful circumstance you manage, think about how you would go about doing that. It could be a small spot within your home or outside that evokes comfort and relaxation for you.

Your medical diagnosis you navigate may be very different from anaphylactic food allergies, but hopefully you can identify with some of the advocating pieces and the watchful, careful steps taken when there is increased risk in an environment for your loved one or for yourself.

An additional stressor in the school and social event settings is navigating the careful communication and thoughtful wording to try to not offend or upset someone else when requesting they avoid certain dangerous foods themselves to protect my child. When necessary and special accomodations must be in place. Communicating the specific and necessary medical special needs my child has to have in place can be a difficult dance.

Supportive understanding and a collaborative team approach brings a sense of calm and peace to these situations, whether social or school related.

If someone is dismissive or overly general or downplays the importance of the safety protocols in place, it will obviously ring that amygdala bell, putting me into protective mode, alert mode, danger mode…and rightly so. It may be that way for you also with the diagnosis you navigate.

This indicates more advocating or communicating will need to take place with the individual(s) or school and a risk assessment will need to be taken by me for that environment- will it be an allergy-supported and safer environment or not for my child?

A person’s decreased priority or understanding of the medical special needs may indicate a potential future danger for my child, not necessarily because of a lack of caring but because of a lack of understanding the importance of the protocols followed that keep my child alive and away from their life-threatening allergens. I may have to make the difficult decision to not participate at all in the event, not have my child be at that school, or do the activity differently where I am present as a needed caregiver to protect my child’s life.

Now, hear me on this—

There will always be inclusive places and inclusive, supportive people— It’s just that sometimes it can take awhile to find them, but they are out there.

Our family has been so deeply blessed by the people who go the extra mile and show high priority and caring on their own. Those who take the initiative to protect my child and uphold the necessary medical needs with high importance are vital support people— It is a gift from others in navigating a difficult situation and chronic life-threatening medical diagnosis.

When a person genuinely says “Thank you for this information. It’s greatly appreciated.” And then they choose to tell me of their own volition what they will be doing above and beyond to protect my anaphylactic child (and it matches with the protocols and steps we already have to use), I have assurance that they understand the importance of what is being communicated and they actively support the medical special needs. I don’t expect this response, but it is extremely appreciated. This type of active support regulates my amygdala and calms it because there is support and true understanding present.

[Any medical diagnosis can be highly stressful— Support and understanding are gifts others give that are deeply impactful.]

These supportive individuals will even actively problem-solve and identify issues in the environment that may not be safe for my child and then share their action plan to protect against those risks or issues, while asking for my input. This is a rare and wonderful individual, and I am so grateful for those in our life who are like this.

This type of interaction builds trust and a collaborative team focus.

Again, I want to point out that this helps significantly to decrease the amygdala’s fight or flight response because there is support and communication present coupled with understanding over a potentially dangerous circumstance. There is a focused plan and all players are on board and actively engaged. This brings calm.

You may not be able to identify with all that I described with regards to my anaphylactic food allergy example, but I hope you were able to follow along and step into my world for a minute with me. Walk in my shoes. Gain empathy for a different life problem that a family has.

I hope that my vulnerability and sharing of the thoughts, problem-solving, and intricacies helps to guide you as a framework or backdrop for one of your difficult life diagnoses that you deal with.

I deal with other traumatic life events and the post-traumatic stress that ensues from the traumatic events. We have dealt with emergencies for our anaphylactic child. I have called 911 and not known if my child will live or not in the moment as the ambulance comes and the seconds tick by. Praise the Lord that has only been one time to that extreme with an anaphylactic reaction, though there was a second anaphylactic reaction years later as well. It is scary. It is troubling. It is life and death.

We’ve dealt with many mild to moderate reactions, never knowing as they present if they will be anaphylactic or not. Only time shows the difference.

Your stress-charged or traumatic moment may differ in details but you can identify in the charged up nature of that fight or flight response to a trigger from a past event.

Know that you aren’t crazy. Know that your body is doing what it is designed to do- to try to protect you and help you react quickly to danger. Know that it doesn’t have to stay that way, at the same intense level forever.

There is hope. You can dial down the intensity of that response, thank goodness, through calming strategies, through amazing and wonderful body/amygdala-focused therapy techniques like EMDR, which I am a huge proponent of. Also through prayer and meditating on specific Bible verses.

Know you can begin to get control over your responses when they come out of nowhere and hijack your life.

In future writing, I will be talking about how to approach your body cues, focus in on what is going on in your body, any tension present, the clues that can help you to begin to find a way forward. A way toward more calm in your life. A way toward navigating and managing your fight or flight response when it is flipped to the “on” position, when you are anxious, revved up, and even possibly feel overwhelmed. There are steps you can take to get more control back over your life, friend. There is hope. You don’t have to be at the mercy of your responses, whenever they hit you out of nowhere.

Remember, don’t beat yourself up. Don’t talk negatively to yourself when they occur. Be empathetic and kind to yourself. Don’t be dismissive of yourself or of the fight or flight responses.

And friends, if instead, you are the caregiver or friend or close family member of someone who deals with fight or flight responses and revved up stress responses, please don’t tell them to “calm down.” This makes them feel silly and foolish. They want to calm down also.

Please instead be validating with your words.

“Are you feeling stressed or anxious? I’m sorry that’s happening. How can I come alongside and help you?”

Know that I will be talking about breathing techniques and other techniques to help in upcoming posts. If you can’t wait though, google breathing techniques or calming techniques, and read from a trusted, verified source, and try one or two of the techniques.

See if you find something that can help you or the person in your life who struggles in this way. We all deal with stress, though some of us have had our amydalas hijack our life, and we don’t want that to occur anymore. I’ve been able to find ways to help myself overcome that amygdala hijack, and you can too friend. The most significant way I found that helped me dial down the intensity of responses was through EMDR guided therapy. We’ll talk about that too. Stick around friend for more psychology-based and faith-based content to empower you to fight your life from a place of strength.

Download your own Fight or Flight Guide here: https://choosejoyinthemidst.myflodesk.com/thefightorflightguidebook . It is your companion guide to the Fight or Flight Response Series. You can take back control and decrease your stress in the moment. When you sign-up, you will also be added to my email newsletter to not miss any encouraging or empowering content!

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Be blessed today friends and be aware of your responses, identifying what you notice that’s occurring for you. It is incredibly important. And, it’s brave. It’s not easy to face your struggles head-on. You are courageous!