Tag Archives: retraumatization

Fawn in grass, Source http://www.forestwander.com/fawn-in-grass-2/, Author ForestWander, (CC BY-SA 3.0 United States)

“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11: 28).

Sometime in my late teens my pain and anger finally surfaced, and I lost my faith.

Throughout college, I declared to anyone within earshot that I was an atheist and existentialist.  Rather than bow before a God Who — as I saw it — would allow good people to suffer, I preferred to deny God’s existence.

Perfectionism and Procrastination

The evil in which my father had engaged produced a variety of scars on my psyche.  Perfectionism and its companion procrastination were among these.

Writing errors had to be liberally covered over by correction fluid, expunged.  Fasting was the ideal; a mouth full of food, and I was committed to bingeing.  If I so much as awoke later than planned, the day was marred.

It seemed far easier for me to be “perfect” than to be normal.  I had no idea what it was to be normal.   And if I could achieve perfection, perhaps my father would love me again.

Perfectionism is defined in Father-Daughter Incest by Judith Lewis Herman as behavior involving the setting of standards “high beyond reach or reason [1A].”  According to Lewis Herman, perfectionists strain “unremittingly toward impossible goals”; measure themselves “entirely in terms of productivity and accomplishment [1B].”

Perfectionism hinges on the belief that making mistakes is the same as failure.  Standards can be set so high they “actually interfere with performance [1C].”  The perfectionist dare not “risk being average,” yet filters out positive comments [1D].  “The underlying belief of the perfectionist is that high standards will keep chaos at bay [1E].”

For incest survivors, a corollary of the belief is that lowering standards — even once, even briefly — is equivalent to the irretrievable loss of innocence.  My first panicked thought on being involved in an auto accident was that my record was now no longer spotless.

Related to perfectionism is paralysis:  better to do nothing than fail.  There is, however, another component to paralysis.

Fight or Flight Response

Most people today are familiar with the fight-or-flight response to danger.  The so-called “acute stress response” was first described by American psychologist, Walter Cannon, in 1929.  According to this theory, animals react to threats either by fleeing or facing them.

The response is automatic, with the sympathetic nervous system triggering the release of specific chemicals to prepare the body for either activity.  Stress results when we can pursue neither course of action in response to threat.

Freeze Response

More recently, psychology has begun to recognize the existence of a freeze response [2].  Think of a fawn frozen in tall grass at the approach of a predator.  The stimulus is overwhelming.  Yet neither fight, nor flight is an available option.  The fawn’s best chance of survival is, in effect, to disappear.

In humans, the freeze response is now believed the tie-in to dissociation.  The predator is so nearby his stench fills your nostrils.  The blood pounds in your ears.  Your heart threatens to explode.  Yet you cannot move, and cannot defend yourself.

Tragically, trauma in humans (especially the young) can have a permanent impact on the nervous system.  We do not possess the capacity to “unfreeze” readily when the danger has passed, so carry the trauma forward.

Situations that mimic key aspects of the traumatic event reproduce the response, and we are once again immobilized with dread.  In the context of molestation, sexual intercourse need not take place for permanent damage to be done. Continue reading →