Why You’re Stuck In Survival Mode

The 5 F's: Fight, Flight, Freeze, Fawn, Fantasy.

I'M stuck in survival mode all time. I'm nervous all the time. A lot of times I feel anxious. Alcohol solves everything, next day anxiety hits me even harder. I have depressions and had a severe burn-out. I can't stand loud noices, violence on television, problems.

I know a person who was suffering from being stuck in survival mode. She was constantly anxious, panic attacks, gaining weight. Nobody had a working solution, until accidentally they found a tumor in her adrenal gland during a CAT scan. It was dumping cortisol and making her stressed. And even then, the recommendation was to keep to tumor in. So she found a surgeon in Florida, who was an adrenal expert. Based on his advice they removed the tumor and all the horror of excess stress and panic attacks went away. Apparently this was Cushing's syndrome, even if nobody diagnosed it. If you're suffering from high levels of anxiety, there might be a physiological cause, that you can't treat with meditation, therapy etc. Check your adrenals, please! ♥

Best to all of you who are still stuck in survival mode. There is hope... After 24 years of therapy, a deep spiritual practice, and restorative relationships, I can say now that I am truly happy, joyous & free!

So true, I had to explain to someone that I had stress induced ibs and they said I’m so sorry you have been stressed. I realised I am always stressed and others aren’t

Trying to pay the bills. But literally freeze and cant open the post box.

Gosh I feel like I’m stuck in survival mode all the time!! Every small tasks feels like a marathon, I can’t remember anything, noises from tv or people talking makes me panic and irritable! I can’t relax ever, I will find things to clean or something to organize. But even then I start cleaning and I get so overwhelmed I can’t even complete it! I dissociate all the time and have such a hard time keeping up with work! Where to even start to heal?

That really is a huge adult problem. Because you can have everything you need, be blessed with loved ones, and have opportunities knocking, and just feel stuck. So don’t be so hard on yourself. That’s what I take from the video. 💯👈🏻

I’m stuck in survival mode - freeze. I can’t do anything when I have an attack. I have ALL the symptoms, anxiety, depression, stress, ptsd, can’t concentrate, I fall apart and cry and can’t stop. I can’t live like this. It’s been two and a half years since I lost Leesa. 😢 That’s when it all started. I’ve never been like this before in my life. I have trouble falling asleep, sleeping and waking up. I hate this. I just want to be normal again. I’m so lost. I can’t function.😢

Narcissist in the workplace will always accuse others of being narcissists when the narcissist is exposed.

Oh God, I have been in survival mode for 18 years straight ever since Mom died. She didn't have a will or anything. She became the city's property because we lived in poverty. I couldn't even have a funeral for her. She was only 44 and I was 17. The city took her body and I never saw her again.

Yesterday I was cleaning up a little (cleaning up can be overwhelming for me sometimes) and bumped into the fridge with a plate. Without thinking I hit the fridge with the plate and smashed it. Then I calmly swept it up and thought “that’s not a normal response.” I didn’t even feel angry. Usually I’ll feel angry and 8/10 times I’ll stop myself before doing something reckless (that usual involves throwing or breaking my own things). I don’t even know wtf that was.

I think it's worth acknowledging that sometimes we can accurately anticipate what's coming. If the person who asked the fourth question is informed on current events, societal trends, and history, I'd argue the feeling that something bad is coming is entirely warranted. I know that "fortune telling" is a cognitive distortion, but pattern recognition is a genuine skill that some people are quite good at. "History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes."

I've been in & out of survival mode most of my life. I lost my only sibling at a young age & fell into survival mode to get through school without giving my parents anything extra to worry about. Being around close friends helps pull me back to reality, but then I married someone who has a lot of emotional needs. I suspect his survival mode has thrown me right back to my childhood survival mode. I have been the one to forget a grocery list/chop an onion incorrectly/not reply to a question fast enough, and have a volley of cutting insults screamed at me. I am not able to see my friends nearly as often as I would like, so I find myself hearing my mother's voice from my childhood reminding me to "just get through the day", so that is what I do.

To get myself out of survival mode, I joined a theater group. That said, I was in survival mode going in, flight to be exact. But by the end of my first day, I felt secure with everyone. I even told the director and the assistant director that I have PTSD the second week.

I loved these explanations Katie. ❤

I related to 3 of the signs. This was very helpful. It was comforting to see that there is nothing wrong with me. I can now go about dealing with the real/ underlying issues. The first step to correcting a problem is to see it. The body and mind are amazing instruments. Fear can be crippling both literally and figuratively. Thank you for this video.

I have become so depressed from "survival" mode - I don't care anymore

Thank you Kati, your video absolutely nailed the way I’m existing right now.

I work In healthcare. I’ve noticed the patient population , even In the last few years, has become a lot sicker. While nutrition, genetics, lifestyle, environmental factors and other aspects of life play a role in our health. I whole heartedly believe stress is the number one reason for our health declining. I experience every example you mentionEd daily. I’m sorry to say I’ve been in therapy for over a decade and it just doesn’t help, if anything in more recent years it’s been unbearable. I feel that there is nothing I can do to fix any of this. I dot. Have help. Everyone else around me is in survival mode too. It’s great I can recognize it but medication is a bandaid and all the alternatives feel like temporary fixes that lead to more stress and anxiety and a perpetual spiral of threats.