WTF is Possible?
Part Two: the Present and What We Want
Me and you— alive at the same time!
The odds are so slim, and yet :D
Content advisory: brain damage, breathing, colonialism, child neglect, climate destruction, death, emotional violence, HOPE, housing insecurity, land theft, psychiatry, state violence. Probably something else.
Be careful with yourself. You’re worth the care.
Some questions:
What do the ultra-wealthy consume if scorched Earth no longer cradles nutrients for ghosts of grazing livestock?
Who do they dominate if our climate eliminates the working class? Will they do actual labor, or roll over and perish?
We know the answer.
How many times can a chlorine tablet effectively sterilize recycled urine before dehydration reunites borrowed atoms with the cosmos?1 Leaving behind riches to machines that take no value in riches.
The powers-that-be (PTB) herd us towards their vision of our future: a world where life is severed completely from the Earth that births, blossoms, and regenerates us. In their vision, all that continues must serve the unquenchable thirst of capital through boundless extraction— feeding unextinguishable greed under pretense of nourishment. Or satisfaction. I don’t entirely understand the desired outcome.
But I know what they run from.
Today’s dominators run from death! A vicious and futile resistance to mediocrity. They chase power over others thinking it’ll save them from the end.
Nothing does.
This is where we find ourselves. The world we inherit tears at the seams under the weight of a paradigm burden of domination. PTB prefer we loiter in aimless confusion— that is, when we’re not selling hours of our lives to afford basic necessities. What do we do?
“We see little indication that Love informs decisions, strengthens our understanding of community, or keeps us together… This bleak picture in no way alters the nature of our longing. We still hope that Love will prevail.”
(hooks, 2001, p. xxvi).
We, the common people, turn towards each other. We get real. We emulate the brave.
Existence
Our silence around death isolates and betrays us. I mention it only out of necessity.
“Death is the boundary that we need to measure the precious texture of our lives” (Oldster, 2015).
The great equalizer: it comes to collect us all.
Let’s take care to recognize how wealth and other imposed social hierarchies directly impact end-of-life experiences. People surviving off minimum wage are much less likely/able to leave a shift to kiss a loved one goodbye. Pay rent or the lord of your land calls the state; they’ll have you on the street by the end of the month.
Worrying about housing security, especially when grieving, is bullshit. It doesn’t need to be this way! But I digress…
In reality, we will all die. Not if, but when? And how?
Speaking plainly about it can hurt and feel scary. I’m sorry for that— not that I mentioned it, but I’m sorry about the pain. It’s a difficult truth to hold without sliding into paralysis or impulsive action.
We gotta talk about it anyway.2
Our lack of preparation doesn’t aid us when it happens— to our loved ones and their loved ones. To us. How do we respond if we have no scripts, so few models? And if we know we’re going to die, perhaps we can be mindful of what’s worth dying for.
When we face or even think of facing risk and danger (end-of-life being the ultimate one) our brains prepare to overcome it before we’re even aware of our own fear— whatever we can do to prolong existence, our body does it.
Quick reactions come in clutch when outrunning lions or in any scenario where a moment of consideration may seal your fate. It makes evolutionary sense. Our instincts are key to how our species survives.
Instinct is less opportune when strategizing and organizing for collective power. The problem-solving part of our brain (prefrontal cortex) loses a majority of its functioning when the body notices danger. And the body notices danger many moments before awareness reaches the mind.
The prefrontal cortex also houses our values and creative thinking, both of which we need for the challenges we all face today. Instinctive action is less than ideal for long-term strategy. A panicked brain holds little room for imagination.
“What we cannot imagine cannot come into being”
(hooks, 2001, p. 14).
“But I’m always panicked.” Oh my brother, I get you. Some relief? I got you there, too.
Circumstances withstanding, people can alter and expand our capacity to be present-enough in times of danger… not through any kind of intellectualism, as much as thought may tempt us. We move into the fullness of consciousness’ powers by demonstrating safety: behaving in ways that show the body we are safe-enough to be present.
We use action to show the body we’re safe-enough? Sounds backwards, I know.
And how the f*ck do we do that if our conscious mind is offline?
Expansion
Hell yeah, let’s go— “Window of Tolerance” (WoT). Thank you, Dr. Daniel Siegel.
Quick background on that excellent prefrontal cortex of yours… it’s the latest update to the human brain and it has some of our sickest capabilities. Through the prefrontal cortex, we’re capable of critical thinking skills, creativity, values, etc. We play, imagine, weigh options, measure truth…
HowEVER, if we’re in fight, flight, freeze, or fawn (4F)— blood flow is driven to other parts of the brain, rendering the gifts of the prefrontal cortex inaccessible. We can survive, technically, without access to its functions. Our bodies prioritize survival before all things.
Imagine a window.3 The window represents the amount of stress a human can endure while staying present-enough to access functions of the prefrontal cortex. On one side of the window’s bounds, we slip into hyperarousal. This manifests as fight or flight:
a. Fight: “when a person suddenly responds aggressively to something threatening”. (Walker, 2014, p.13) I try grabbing your slushie out of your hand and you shove away my outstretched arm.
b. Flight: “when a person responds to a perceived threat by fleeing, or symbolically, by launching into hyperactivity”4 (Walker, 2014, p.13). You evade my reach and take off in the opposite direction, getting lost in a crowd of people with your slushie intact.
In the other direction, we drop into hypoarousal. This appears as freeze or fawn:
c. Freeze: “when a person, realizing [or believing] resistance is futile, gives up, numbs out into dissociation and/or collapses as if accepting the inevitability of being hurt” (Walker, 2014, p.13). You’re completely still when I snatch that slushie. Nothing escalates. When you come back to baseline, you may venture for a new slushie.
d. Fawn: “when a person responds to threat by trying to be pleasing or helpful in order to appease and forestall an attacker” (Walker, 2014, p.13). When I reach to take your drink, you smile and tease me for being a brat. Your charm diffuses and distracts me from my slushie-stealing mission.
Everyone possesses their own capacity for stress, so an alarming event may elevate one person to 4F and not another. Sometimes going into a 4F response is necessary and appropriate. Being chill and non-responsive to danger doesn’t result in a long life! That’s easy to see in the outrunning-a-lion scenario.
Whether or not a 4F response is appropriate to the circumstances at hand, however, is not an issue of morality.
Many trauma-survivors report these spikes and drops occurring more often than we find helpful. This is because the bounds of the WoT get smaller after we survive traumatic experiences. If this is true for you, please know it’s not a personal failing. It’s evidence that you survived something unbearable.5
The size of someone’s window can increase under conditions of safe-enough experience over time, and/but we can’t increase our ability to function under stress when we’re in 4F. The window of tolerance only widens when someone is within it.
Who are you to give this kind of advice? Fair.
This essay isn’t about my survival story, but I hope a little information here may give someone hope for how vastly the mind can heal.
“I want to broaden the perspectives. And I can’t see how I can do that without using my own experiences. Am I exposing myself when I do? Yes… So be it.”
- Katrina Lundgren
I tell you the widening of the window is possible because I’ve lived it.6 I still do.
Dude, I was not a well-socialized infant. I was raised by a dog until age 2. After that, my experience of direct, ongoing interpersonal trauma (that started in utero) continued until I was 25.
Accordingly, I’ve had Complex PTSD (cPTSD) for as long as I’ve been in the world. I caught all these diagnoses before turning 21: anxiety (various kinds), major depression, BPD, bipolar, OCD… classic combo for cPTSD survivors.
*long sigh*
I’ll reserve my vicious criticism of the psychiatric complex for another time. But I now understand those symptoms and “diagnoses” for what they always were: evidence of everything it took to survive immense violence—plus an added bonus of unrecognized autism.7
As an adult, I couldn’t leave my house, write a paper, make a phone call, or disagree with someone without crashing in my room until the next sunrise. The flashbacks, dissociation, and fatigue were too much. Shit, I couldn’t even read after middle-school. I could technically, but not really.
CPTSD is disabling; it’s physical, visible brain damage. I’m disabled and always will be—likely more so, as I age (and/or if I get Covid). That brain damage matters no matter where I am in recovery.
AND, so does brain plasticity. How different my life looks now.8
Now I can recognize and attune to my needs and emotions. I regularly say “no” to things that don’t align with my values and priorities. I exist in a healthy, thickly connected network of loved ones. I may have firm energetic limits and need a lot of help, but I don’t have daily meltdowns or flashbacks anymore. I don’t even identify as “socially anxious” or depressed…
It’s not perfect, but I go outside. I read. I don’t want to die.
My old friend Suki says I’m still underselling the changes. I shouldn’t be alive, nevermind okay. They’re right.
I’m not only alive. I’m more stable than any psychiatrist told me would be possible.
I’m so fucking stable now that a part of me worries you won’t believe how terrible things were, and how long it was that bad! So I say this part more for myself than y’all (forgive me): I can only share what I know to be true. The rest is out of my hands.
The purpose of this sharing isn’t to say “If I can do it, so can you.” It’s not so simple. We can only make the choices that are available to us.
But I hope experiences of safety, however relative, come your way and stay awhile. I hope you can expand your window, too. Maybe we can work on it, all of us, together?
Every bit makes a difference for the world.
Woof, woof.
Good time to remind everyone that I’m not a doctor? I’m not a doctor—but this is my life’s work. I’m a wh*re in active trauma recovery. I’m a student and teacher of parts work and somatic healing.
One of the first physiological changes indicating an active 4F state is that the breath drops in depth and speed. Very helpful when hiding from the previously mentioned lion. Cutting our body’s oxygen levels for an extended period keeps us in 4F, though— less helpful outside of an acute emergency.
And recall, gentle reader, that we move towards our WoT by demonstrating to our body that we’re safe-enough to expand into fuller consciousness. It’s within that WoT that we’re able to expand the window.
So, if it feels possible and is safe-enough, I invite you to breathe out three times. It would be especially cool if that breath was deep enough to noticeably move your belly.
If you can’t or don’t want to do that, it’s very okay! It’s morally neutral! You know what you need better than I do.
Perhaps this next tool suits you better? Take it or leave it.
Turn your head to the left as far as is comfortable-enough, and softly focus on the wall (after reading these steps through, fellow autistics). While moving your neck gently to the right, slowly scan your surroundings… not narrowing that focus on anything in particular. Look at the ceiling, walls, and floor. Take in whatever life is around you. Notice your environment as softly as you’re able until your head has turned a full 180* (or less, depending on your body’s ability!).
Maybe drop your shoulders a little. Then come back to us.
Does it feel any different? A little? The same?
We’re glad you took the time for yourself, and we missed you.
Bit of a tangent but my mind won’t let me move on (call that Autism Speaks).9
I’m delighted to share my preferred framework of capacity: the Wheel of Tolerance. I extend deep, humble gratitude to Katrina Lundgren for granting permission to include her model.
For some people, especially those living with dissociative brains like Katrina and myself, the experiences offered by the WoT are limited— even claustrophobic. It’s possible, even likely (!), to be in shades of multiple 4F states at once.10 Perhaps you know what I mean.
I’m late to class again but my feet are glued to the carpet (freeze). I watch the numbers on the clock change as my inner critic berates me. She reminds me that a lazy airhead who can’t appropriately prioritize her time won’t graduate college (fight, turned inwards).
Or, another example.
My mom insists that I’m a shitty excuse for a daughter (fight) while tearfully expressing remorse for last night’s drunken threats (fawn).11 Little do I know, the issue she’s taken with me is merely a distraction from another conflict with her husband (flight, distracting from the intensity of her feelings).
Lundgren explains that withstanding extended survival states acclimates people to existence in 4F. In some cases, the extreme states of arousal become so normal that people adapt intentionally, even outside their bodily capacity for tolerable stress. This, in her experience, makes it “very possible to be absolutely terrified and act” with purpose. She mindfully acknowledges that responses are contextual; “you will learn what works and what does not.”
I believe her truth and simultaneously— this is rarely true for me. A 4F Alice is particularly prone to freezing and dissociating. I can stare at walls for many hours without noticing time pass at all. This 4F response rarely benefits my circumstances but I can’t snap out of it through sheer will; I’ve certainly tried. I go to trauma therapy and I’m recovering, but for me it isn’t typically mind-over-matter.
And you! What about you? Do you panic? How? And can you channel that energy with intention?
Belonging
We can pause! It is worth pausing. Fear alone has not killed us yet. We pass through its halls again and again and against the odds, here you are reading this (thanks for that, by the way).
Like most feelings, fear is our body’s way of alerting us of a change that may need addressing. Positive, negative, or neutral— a change of any kind triggers fear. At times, that change is a potential threat! Escaping fear entirely, then, it’s possible or even desirable. Some attention is crucial.
We may meet fear again when reflecting on the promise of death but this reunion doesn’t necessarily invite death any closer. I hope that’s relieving to remember.
The one thing THEY can’t accomplish with money— the ultra-wealthy bypass taxes, but not the end. All things must end! They may dip into outer space or retreat into buried bunkers but their delays are just that: delays. We all live on credit until the universe comes to collect its due, ready to convert our life into the next living thing.
PTB despise this the most; fools pursue control through tyranny. They refuse to relinquish dominance because their spiritual constitution is weak. Their atrocities are a pathetic ruse to veil powerlessness.
“It’s dog-eat-dog. Humans are vindictive and violent. The world is something to conquer and craft to the liking of the powerful.”
Lies that uphold the paradigm burden of dominance. They rely on its message to provide a false shield of inevitability.
“If I didn’t dominate them, someone else would” or “they would dominate me”!
They tell us this is the only way.
They tell us we can’t live without oil, without prisons, without borders. They tell us that someone (them) must have power and control over the rest for the wellbeing of us all. We are too selfish, violent, reckless. Too lazy.
They don’t know Love and they won’t risk acknowledging Love’s fervent persistence.12 Imagine all they must relinquish to accept its truth. What it must mean for them to comprehend that the induction of scarcity, the murders, were unnecessary.
“Authoritarian regimes can only stay in existence so long as they control what people want… When there is no desire [or hope] for change, their authority is complete.”
(Burgis, 2020, p. 196).
We don’t need to feed into their message any longer, dear reader.
The culture of dominance isn’t the human way unless we believe their propaganda about what it means to be human. Their ideal human, what they try to persuade us is at our every core, is the dominator. The colonizer, the white-body supremacist (coined by Menakem)— Loveless.
Fuck the idea that it’s in our common nature to eviscerate life, to eviscerate land, to bulldoze and level its terrain, to eliminate the biodiversity our planet cultivated over eons. To hate and oppress one another.
It’s true that people in survival mode, outside the WoT, can be selfish, violent, reckless— especially if their capacity for stress is narrow as so many of us experience under capitalism. Working-class and poor people are prevented from accessing the richness of their prefrontal cortex.
This is not merely a matter of personal, individual responsibility.
PTB have full awareness of how our brains function. They faithfully retract taxes from the working class and provide us with nothing a government must: reliable and healthy food, clean water, safe-enough shelter, medicine, land that is tended to by those who love it, a future.
We get none of this. Not from them. We keep our heads down and focus on attaining a semblance of stability with whatever energy and wages remain, if any. We stay surviving. They keep us in lock step and we’re easier to dominate.
This is systemic. This is by design.
They prevent us from having the space to question or practice what we’re truly capable of providing one another and the Earth to which we belong. We can’t think of what is possible because they don’t give us the time. We can’t question the necessity of war or homelessness; we’re too terrified to be next.
Interceding their parasitic agenda is the challenge of our lives, but it is simple.
We’re no longer focusing on solving problems of the system within the system. This is different than the future-building formula they encourage; Luke Burgis calls this departure “transcendent desire”—desire that “does not limit itself to the immediate nature of reality but pushes beyond it to find something more meaningful.”
We don’t allow the apparent boundaries of reality define what the world will be. Collaborating on the possibilities of our transcendent desire is our birthright.
We don’t do it alone. Don’t even entertain the thought. Together we must imagine a new world, talk about it, begin to live in it. We must commit to showing up imperfectly. When we fail—which, again, we must!—we repair and recommit.
We act as if we belong to the Earth and we belong to each other. Because we do.
See also: The Wheel of Tolerance.
References:
Burgis, L. (2020). Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life, St. Martin’s Press.
hooks, b. (2001). all about love: new visions, HarperCollins.
Marich, J. (2023). Dissociation Made Simple: A Stigma-Free Guide to Embracing Your Dissociative Mind and Navigating Daily Life. North Atlantic Books.
Menakem, R. (2017). My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending our Hearts and Bodies, Central Recovery Press.
Oldster, K. J. (2015). Dead Toad Scrolls, Booklocker.com.
Walker, Pete. (2014). Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving, Pete Walker.
I’ve been advised that you can’t actually make urine safe to drink this way. Distilling can work to a point. I’m leaving it here. Feels even creepier now.
If you have the energetic capacity! Do not overdo it. You can always come back.
Mine is more of a skylight.
Distraction, or hyperactivity, can also be a flight pattern.
We’re so glad you survived! Not everyone does!
My life and capacity changed immensely in just the last few years.
ADHD too, but I’m nearly certain that’s cPTSD for me. Another time.
Thank you, Somatic Internal Family Systems. Thank you, my trauma therapist (Lauren, also critical of psychiatry).
Feel free to skip to the next section if 4F management theory doesn’t intrigue you. Or stay!!! :D
If this feels untrue to you, take what aligns and leave the rest, but remember— a core feature of the human mind is expansiveness, variety.
I’m not alone in suspecting many people caught in fight/fawn cycles receive misdiagnoses of BPD, my younger self included.
I don’t suggest we spend our limited time and energy on rescuing them. I share this to emphasize how we shouldn’t spend the resource of attention bargaining or pleading with our oppressors.
my trying to read the instructions thru my peripherals like 👀
You get it.