I can’t control what I do in flight, fight, freeze mode

For those with flight, fight or freeze mode triggered by intense emotions, it’s important to ground yourself back into your body. I have found that the sooner I was able to ground myself, the sooner I could engage my mind with rational thoughts again.

When I was in that state, I just couldn’t see any other way out other than lashing out or being disconnected and completely unaware of myself and I’d yo-yo between the two. Being in flight, fight or freeze mode gives the control to borderline instead of to you.

You’re in the driving seat

Imagine your body is like the body of a car. You’re driving along and bam! You’re hit by an emotion. You’re still in the driving seat and you can either hit the breaks and hope to stop the worst in time or drive straight into it.

DBT also recommends to hit the breaks and take time out. When I was first coming to terms with what I thought was depression, I wanted to finally be able to deal with my emotions, not to keep hiding from them anymore. To feel them and to be true to them. What I didn’t recognise, is that everyone copes with their emotions in different ways and you don’t have to feel all the emotion all at once. You can take it in little bite sizes. Whenever it does get too much, distract or calm yourself. If this is an approach you wish to try, you’ll need to recognise in your body when you’re getting too anxious, tense or apprehensive. For instance, I noticed when I was angry or jealous I tend to have a burning sensation in my throat.

How does your body react?

What do you feel in your body when you’re anxious, sad, angry or frustrated? When you next experience a strong emotion, try to figure out where you are tense in your body and what effects it is having on your body? If you're like me, finding it hard to identify what emotions I am experiencing, being able to pair it up with a body reaction helped me to explore and observe those emotions more safely.

Calm Breathing

Calm deep breathing can help to stop emotions like anxiety, fear, anger and frustration in their tracks. One of the best ways of doing this is box breathing, where you breath in slowly for a count of 4-8. You hold it for a count of 4-8, breathe out to a count of 4-8 and again hold it to a count of 4-8. You can do work up to breathing with a count of 8, or if it’s not comfortable for you, stick to the count that works best for you.

How to ground yourself

You can do this alongside any breathing techniques. Ideally you want to become fully aware of your body and the space around you. You can do this by making a conscious effort to engage in as many senses as you can. Sight, sound, smell and texture, can all play a part in grounding us and helping us to feel safe. You could have a candle, a small stuffed toy or an interesting object which you could hold. Just focusing on experiencing that object in your hand, may be enough to bring you back into your body. You may wish to keep this familiar object in your bag or somewhere prominent in your bedroom so it is close at hand at all times. You may also find listening to calming grounding music or meditations to be helpful.

There are a few things which DBT recommends in other situations which can have a surprising effect on our bodies such as smiling. Believe it or not forcing yourself to smile, can trick your body into thinking you’re calm. Open hands, such as keeping your hands open for a period of time forces your body into thinking it must be relaxed and everything is safe. Both of these have helped me and they were so easy to practise that I thought it was too easy not to try it out. If your body gets hot, temperature changes, such as splashing cold water on your face, can help trick your body into thinking its not and stop your body from reinforcing the emotional effects.

Try these with smaller, less vulnerable opportunities to give yourself more practise. If these don’t work for you, try something else.

The first few times you try it with a big overwhelming emotion you may feel that the opportunity has the potential to go either way. For me it was really hard, but it is doable. You can choose to ignore the best option and dig yourself further into the emotion until you feel that it controls you. Or you can choose to stop, step back.

Practise takes time and patience. As always, be gentle with yourself.