xenoqueer:

I’ll run through the others very quickly too.

Fight is when the adrenaline surge helps you kick the shit out of whatever is threatening you. In an “animal attack” sense, it means beating up a wolf or whatever. In a modern interpersonal sense, it tends to mean “screaming at your boss until you get fired.” That said, even a confrontation as simple as saying “no” to an abuser is a type of fight response. Anything where you set and defend boundaries is fighting, in this context.

Flight is when the adrenaline surge helps you run away. Whether this means outrunning a wolf, or finding an excuse to leave the room and lock yourself in the bathroom where your angry parent can’t reach you.

Freeze is when you become immobilized by fear. If you’ve ever been so scared that your entire body locked up and you couldn’t even scream, that’s the freeze response. In an animal context, many predators have movement-prioritizing sight, and may overlook you if you seem like just another pattern of light through trees. In an interpersonal context, freeze tends not to be overly useful, though some abusers will stop attacking someone who doesn’t fight back. In either case, if a confrontation gets physical, highly contracted muscles are harder to hit, and provide some degree of pain reduction.

Flop is the opposite of freeze. Rather than overwhelming muscle contraction holding you still, it involves overwhelming muscle relaxation. Fainting, playing dead, etc are all “flop” responses. The stereotype of urinating due to fear is because of involuntary muscle relaxation, and is also a flop response.

Friend is actually one of the first things human beings learn to do when faced with a threat. It’s the thing babies tend to do when they scream for an adult to help them. It involves trying to get the attacker “on your side,” whether by using baby talk and some treats at that wolf, or agreeing with everything your aggressive partner says in the hopes of satisfying them and getting them to leave you alone. Begging for mercy, becoming extremely submissive and agreeable, laughing at everything your abuser says is if it is brilliant and hilarious rather than a real threat, complimenting them, doing everything they say. These are “friend” behaviours. 

Because “friend” is the first thing we as human beings learn, and because we are such social creatures who rely on befriending each other constantly, it is most people’s go to response to human-centered fear. Our brains are built from day one to see compromise and collective action as the “right” solutions to problems. 

This, unfortunately, also makes it very, very, very easy for abusers to train their victims into being extremely obedient, and into doing things that the victims would not normally do. 

The prevalence of this kind of fear response is why cults operate the way they operate. It’s why people in abusive situations are rarely able to leave them until they get outside impetus. It’s why people love shitheel cops who can and would kill them without a second glance. It’s why brown nosers and teachers’ pets exist. 

Human beings are built to make friends, so much so that we rely on that skill in most confrontations. 

And that makes us easily exploited by anyone who doesn’t see us are friends, but rather, as fodder.