Five months ago I rolled out what was essentially an outline of a theory of expanding what are called trauma/threat/adrenal responses. These are the behaviors our bodies engage in when under threat; the most popularized being the four F’s: fight, flight, freeze and fawn.
What started this journey was reading a blog my kindred writer SallyCat’s PDA wrote expanding the F’s to include other behaviors she noticed in herself and her PDA child when stressed: flop, fib, and funster. Her thinking outside the box sparked a tangle of thoughts of my own; specifically I felt like I noticed themes in PDA families describing unique yet eerily similar ways PDAers reacted to stress.
This combined thoughts eventually led to a collaboration between her, me, and a few others who are passionate about exploring the relationship of trauma and neurodivergence. The mission we all share is advocating that there is much to learn from the neurodivergent in our interactions with the world. That based on our neurotype sensitivities alone we find the world traumatic and find unique ways of coping.
Mine and Sally’s contribution centers around expanding The Four F’s with me especially interesting in discovering if there is internal logic to the additions that help us understand them.
I posit that fight, flight, freeze are “direct” (obvious and clear in intention) reactions to threats, and that the others be classified as “indirect” because they take more complicated route and involve conflicting strategies between the body and mind.
The fact that PDAers are known for these complicated ways of coping with their anxiety makes it important for us to understand them as we are often misdiagnosed and prescribed improper therapies when all we really need is affirmation, support, and flexibility. My hope is by understanding these strategies better and how they work much of the fear and judgment surrounding them will dissipate.
To illustrate I’m a few examples using real stories, paraphrasing each to conceal identities. I will include the trauma response I believe fits each story as well as a brief description of why. In the coming weeks I will more thoroughly expand on the F’s and try to explain their logic.
As always feedback is welcome!
Family A
Family A is almost all PDA and have gone through a lot of recent stressors. Because of their needs they stay home almost all the time, so when PDA child number two, 8 year old boy, starts acting out in a sexually suggestive manner (pulling out his penis for shock value) the parent is concerned about abuse. Did someone touch or show their child something?
The parent’s intuition and lifestyle suggested that nothing more happened except the added stress. The child also was acting unnaturally hyper and “pranking people”, laughing loudly at inappropriate times that upset others. Trying to calm the behavior using controlling methods only further enflames it until he collapsed in tears.
The parent did due diligence and ask questions to rule out abuse, but nothing more was forthcoming and within a month of removing the stressor the child was calm and behaving how he used to.
Suggested trauma response: Funster. Aggression targeted outward toward threat (fight), outcome is to get others to flee or submit (flight/freeze)
Family B
Family B has an 11 year old PDA daughter in public school. Their daughter appears to perform well during class times though she may be more quiet than most of her peers. When she gets home though she disappears in her room for hours. The last couple years she has immersed herself in her own make-believe world and only interacts based on that reality.
At first they were worried she was suffering from delusions due to schizophrenia, but when questioned she knows what she’s engaging in is fantasy, she just can’t stop doing it.
Suggested trauma response: Fantasy. Evading confronting the threat (flight), outcome is to mentally control how it is perceived (fight/freeze)
Family C
Family C has a PDA boy who is 6 years old. One time he got so upset that he completely shut down and fainted in his mother’s arms. He eventually revived, and the fainting episodes didn’t occur at any other time to indicate there was any underlying medical condition.
Suggested trauma response: Flop. Inaction toward threat (freeze), outcome is to escape, if only mentally (flight)