– Having survived without sensing it –
Preliminary remark: The specific treatment of victims of crime or political arbitrariness is expressly not the subject of this short series of articles. My aim here is to gain a deeper understanding of victimhood as an inner state with its physical, emotional and systemic dynamics. In my opinion, these dynamics seem to influence large areas of our attitudes to life and our quality of life.
Being a Victim Part II: Paralysis as a Lifesaver
Victim mode, the precursor to victim state, is part of a pre-programmed emergency response that dramatically increases our chances of survival in life-threatening situations. Victim mode kicks in automatically when we are faced with an existential threat and our two basic reflexes – fight or flight – are not possible. (I base this on what Peter A. Levine has discovered in his work with trauma. His views are intertwined with what I have learned from constellation work. The fight impulse comes from the oldest part of our brain in evolutionary terms, the ‘reptilian brain’. It is responsible for survival. The fight impulse contains the same aggression as the external threat, often a killing impulse. It simply says: ‘It’s you or me! When a fight seems hopeless, the impulse turns in the opposite direction with the same force, aggression or killing energy. You flee. So the flight impulse is a ‘reversed’ fight impulse. It also means ‘you or me’, only here it is not a matter of defeat but of escape.
If neither succeeds, the rising panic triggers the last survival mode our reptilian brain has in store for us: paralysis or fainting. Not you, because I won’t! Aggression that is ready to kill cannot lead to fight or flight. With the help of panic, however, it finds a way out – inwards. It collapses, analogous to the play dead reflex in mammals. This collapse saves lives by causing immediate unconsciousness. It causes virtually all perception of the life-threatening situation to disappear. This includes internal and external perceptions (sensations), emotions and all related thoughts.
This paralysis mechanism freezes precisely those segments of existence that are affected by a devastating threatening experience. It does not react to mere facts, but to the subjective experience of these facts. What exactly collapses in terms of physical sensations, emotions and thoughts, including memories, and is sent to the inner freezer by the paralysis mechanism, depends not least on the stage of life (embryo, child, adolescent, adult) and how often or how intensely we have been exposed to the threatening experience. In severe cases the whole existence can be affected. The crystallisation core of this inner block is the aggression mobilised by the pure survival instinct of the reptilian brain, which is ready to kill. In the powerlessness of the victim, therefore, we still contain the death instinct that could not be released in fight or flight at the time.
The dynamic that makes us victims also ensures that we can continue to live despite experiences that are actually unbearable, by sinking the events into our unconscious body memory or soul through collapse. This dynamic comes at a price: the almost complete shutdown of perception can prevent us from truly registering the end of the threat and then allowing the excess survival energy to flow away. However, if this release is successful (and it is surprisingly often successful, as resilience research shows), one can leave victim mode and return to a relaxed everyday mode. If it is not successful, if you cannot recognise that you have survived, then the victim mode we are discussing here becomes victim state.
When we are in victim state, we involuntarily come into contact with the fight-or-flight impulse from the past, which is still ready to kill as soon as our victim status is questioned or otherwise touched. Metaphorically speaking, the original survival impulse is trapped inside us like a ‘genie in a bottle’. When we approach this ‘genie’, we react like a wounded animal; as soon as it is released, it wants to kill (as in the corresponding fairy tale).
Perhaps this is why many people are afraid of victims, do not dare to look at them and fall into iconisation or pity. It takes courage to look, and perhaps a little experience with the key to one’s own prison door. People in victim status can only be meaningfully supported through therapy or counselling if they can be made to understand that you are not their enemy – and that the threat is over. Figuratively speaking: If they pick up the anchor to the present that has been thrown to them through the bars. If not, nothing works except patience and acceptance of what is happening. One simply stays there in love, without intervening and without turning away inwardly. In my view, this is the core of any therapeutic, counselling or pastoral alliance, and therefore the core of constellation work.
