The Inability To Defend Against A Threat
Have you ever been paralyzed or in shock at a threat? We thought it would be normal to react when we perceive a great danger. However, on many occasions there is an inability to defend oneself and we are unable to move any muscle.
Next, we’ll see what happens in these situations and why our muscles are paralyzed when it would be logical to use them.
Maybe you had a cat that, when it got scared or didn’t care about laps, was paralyzed. This usually happens when they are young, and it is a survival technique.
They pretend to be “dead” so that, in this way, their aggressor stops paying attention to them and abandons them. Therefore, something very similar happens to us, human beings, in certain circumstances that cause the inability to defend themselves.
The function of the amygdala in the face of threats
The amygdala is located in the brain, inside the temporal lobe. It plays a very important role in our emotional system, but it is especially responsible for warning us when we are in danger.
It doesn’t matter if the threat is internal (we are having a heart attack) or external (someone is addressing us with an aggressive attitude). In both circumstances, the amygdala is activated.
What happens next is that the amygdala sends certain nerve impulses to different brain areas to trigger certain bodily functions.
In this way, our heart rate will increase, more oxygen will reach our muscles, and we will prepare ourselves to react and defend ourselves from the possible threat, whether fleeing or attacking.
With all this discharge of sensations, I couldn’t miss the adrenaline. It actively participates in this response to flee or face the threat, causing our blood vessels to constrict and the airways to dilate.
At the same time, there are many parts of the body that are going to be inhibited right now. They are responsible for making the decisions.
Why can’t we make decisions in a dangerous situation? This is a consequence of the stress that all this activation of alarms in our body causes, making our nervous system decide to act instinctively to save our lives.
Here, reasoning can be an inconvenience, because the priority is to react quickly.
Why does the inability to defend oneself appear?
Considering all of the above, it may seem strange that this inability to defend itself in the face of a threat arises, as our body prepares to face it. However, we must consider the situation that is causing us this need for protection.
If a circumstance is triggering past trauma, or is so severe that it sends us into a state of panic, a complete disconnect in our brain can occur. That means we’re going to be blocked.
This disconnect is related to what we know as depersonalization, one of the symptoms of anxiety. Suddenly, we feel strange in our own body, the senses and emotions fall asleep and we are completely disoriented, acting automatically, as if we were robots.
We speak of a form of survival that helps us to reduce the pain and emotional suffering that the situation can cause us. In this situation, we don’t run away, we don’t react, we don’t do anything.
This type of reaction often happens in many children who are victims of abuse, or in people who have been victims of repeated abuse. In fact, dissociation can make them have doubts about what happened and even make them think they imagined it all.
The inability to defend oneself in the face of a threat should never be penalized or questioned, since, according to everything that has been explained, it is a completely normal reaction that tries, in a way, to protect us.
Depending on the situation we are facing, we may be able to react or, due to our personal history or the gravity of the problem, we may be totally paralyzed.
