When Instead of 'Fight or Flight,' You Do Both

You always hear of fight or flight as coping mechanisms. But what if someone uses both? One to facilitate the other? For as long as I can remember, I’ve been fighting to escape something. Mostly it’s been things I’ve put myself into. When one situation is resolved, I find something else to occupy my mind.

The first fight that comes to mind is the fight to get out of the town I grew up in. Throughout the years, there are so many reasons I wanted to leave. I hated small town life. It wasn’t that there wasn’t anything to do. I could live with that. It was more that everyone knew everyone. And I was never my own person. I was always George and Kate’s daughter (or George’s daughter or Kate’s depending on who you were talking to) or Elizabeth and Dean’s granddaughter or Cathy and Lew’s granddaughter… or Anne’s niece or Dave’s niece, or Bobby’s sister (even though I’m older… go figure). The point is, I was always in someone’s shadow, living by someone’s expectation, under some microscope. School teachers knew me before I got to their classrooms, police knew me before I ever got into trouble, businesses knew me before I ever applied for a job.

When I was 5-ish, I “ran away.” I have no idea why now, but I went all the way to the neighbor’s house across the street and hid behind her living room chair. My parents never reported me missing. Instead, they called their police friends (the chief of police was a family friend) and one of them came by and picked me up to scare me. And deliver me home.

When I was 11, I got caught riding a bike without a helmet. A police cruiser stopped me and asked my name. As soon as it was out of my mouth, he knew who I belonged to, and escorted me home and told me not to do it again. I’m sure most kids would be happy they only got a warning. I was mortified. For the record — I still ride without a helmet. Just out of spite.

Silly things like this continued throughout my time at home. As I got older, it evolved into more personal things. One of my most serious boyfriends happened to be the son of one of my mom’s friends. They were both planning our wedding before our 16th birthdays. There was a lot that went wrong in that relationship, mostly because I was never comfortable being under a microscope. We tried a lot, on and off for a few years, but we (mostly I) never quite figured it out. My anxiety always had me on edge, wondering who was watching, what I was supposed to do, what was expected, etc. I just couldn’t get out of my head.

So, as I was saying — can you do both? Fight and flee? Because I’m fairly certain in between the events I just listed and a whole lot I didn’t, I plotted out a very elaborate plan to get the hell out and away from that town and everything it represented.

So many people thought that joining the military was this noble, selfless thing I was doing, and maybe down in deep it was, but that wasn’t the main reason I did it. It was to get the fuck out.

It didn’t help matters when I got told I couldn’t do something. That only served to make me fight harder. To everyone watching, they believed it to be this great determination. I guess it was, but it wasn’t fueled by my desire to succeed, just by my desire to prove them all wrong and get out.

When it came time to actually leave for the military, the shock was evident to everyone. No one actually believed I would go through with it. Basic training was its own fight, tech school — a slightly different one.

When I got married, that too, was a fight. A fight for independence and again, to prove I was right and “they” were wrong. It worked out well for the most part, I think. Fleeing the confines of my parents and having to live, even from afar, under their rule. Their guilt trips. Fuck that.

Every time I felt confined and the need to flee, it worked out pretty well. Our lease would be up, and we could move. It was good til we bought a house. It’s funny, because buying a house was my idea. But after a few years, I started getting restless, looking for a change. We didn’t do anything to change anything until it was time to try for kids, which was in my final year of enlistment from the military.

I didn’t really have any issue with trying for kids. It was something I wanted. I pushed for it. It wasn’t until the weekend before I was to deliver Caiden that I freaked out. That’s when I started having second thoughts. But it was a bit late to have those thoughts then.

After he was born, it was a bit of an adjustment but I don’t remember any feeling of fight or flight. I was content until I wasn’t. When I went back to work, I was pissed to be there. Having already asked multiple times to be removed and feeling left down, maybe that’s when I started to pick the next fight.

I know I felt like a caged animal trying to escape. I don’t know if I was trying to escape work, my marriage, motherhood or the whole damned thing. But I was convinced I didn’t want to be part of it any longer and I was looking for my out. Picking a massive fight with Alex seemed to be my version of an acceptable way to accomplish that. If he was the one to call it quits, then I would know that he’d be OK and I could walk away. But if I just walked out, and he wasn’t OK with it, then I couldn’t accept that.

So, I picked the ultimate fight — I had an affair, was terrible at hiding it and instead of accomplishing my end goal, it backfired spectacularly. Instead of self-preservation I got self-destruction and it didn’t even get me out. Not that I’m complaining now. Just noting. Now, I’m pretty glad it didn’t work. I’d have missed so much if it had. But I do wish I would’ve realized all this sooner and done less damage to myself and to Alex.

During the time when I had the affair, I lived in constant fear. I had my own anxiety — knowing I was doing something wrong, trying to accept it, deciding what I really wanted out of the situation and trying to keep it a secret. I tried to talk to friends, but it inevitably ended up getting back to him, so I stopped. I lost everything during that year and a half. My sense of self, my friends, even my job. (For the record, I didn’t lose my job, I chose to leave my job… but whatever).

In the time since, I’ve done nothing but freeze. New tactic, I guess. I guess I didn’t trust my own judgment to know what’s best. I couldn’t be the feisty person looking for some fight to start so I could flee something bigger. The last time I did that, it backfired. So what was I to do? In the face of anything that might trigger any response, any feeling of anything, I simply froze. I couldn’t defend myself in an argument or even defend my position during a debate.

I do feel like I’m slowly coming back out of the freeze. But I feel compelled to run again. Not from my home life, but this time from the bullshit at work. I just want to drop it and start fresh. It’s different this time, though, because it’s a bit more controlled. I can stop and think it through. View it through a window, if you will. Try to get a little bit of perspective. I attribute that ability to learning to meditate better. It seems to be the only thing that has helped settle me down. Doesn’t give me the answers, but….

I’m still scared, too. Scared of doing the wrong thing, saying the wrong thing… having something I’ve said or done being misinterpreted… is this just something else to occupy my mind? Am I not capable of just being still and steady? I wonder what that would be like… to finally be calm.