Recovering From A Fight

It is very hard to put into words, and describe, how it feels to be violently victimized, whether an actual physical assault occurs, or whether a threat of violence/intimidation is used. Often those who have experienced some form of assault, will go into a form of denial, because they find that their experience(s) contradict their previously held world view, concerning violence and personal safety. It is extremely common for survivors of violent attacks, to change their narratives of what happened, in order to protect themselves from a complete psychic breakdown, where they must live perpetually on edge, in a state of constant vulnerability and risk. Sometimes, people will look to take control of the event(s) they have suffered by explaining to themselves that it was down to their actions and behaviors that they were responsible for the attack(s) they endured. This “idea” may get reinforced by people around them who want to reassure their own illusions concerning their personal safety, and that they would never be targeted or experience a violent assault, because they wouldn’t make the same “mistakes” that victims of violence have/do. In this article I want to look at some of the immediate effects of experiencing violence, that occur in the aftermath of an attack, and in the next, look at some of the longer-term effects of being violently victimized. It should be noted that these can occur, even when an individual was ”successful” in defending themselves and fighting off an attacker(s). There is always a cost to being involved in a violent encounter.

I have written about the Sympathetic (SNS) and Parasympathetic (PNS) nervous systems before (an article on the way they work/interact can be accessed by clicking here). Basically, your SNS is your “fight or flight” system, and your PNS is your “Rest and Digest”, or “Eat and Sleep” system. Your SNS is about action, and your PNS about recovery. The SNS is very quick to activate, because if there is a threat or danger present you will want to be in the best physical/physiological state to deal with it. Your PNS is much slower to complete its tasks e.g., bring heart rate down, decrease blood pressure, release bile for digestion, contract the bladder etc. Everyone’s time rates for this recovery, and to be returned to “normal” vary, however it is not uncommon to remain in a somewhat heightened and aroused state, for a couple of days, as the PNS works at bring your body back to stasis, and into its previously relaxed state; especially if the SNS is getting stimulated because you are over-sensitive to responding to stimuli that may “resemble” threats but aren’t i.e., you are jumping at proverbial shadows. It’s all well and good to consciously/rationally recognize that you are now safe, after a violent incident, however it takes much longer for your fear system to return to a less vigilant state i.e., after experiencing a recent danger, it is more likely to be triggered, than when the body has returned to its previous and normally relaxed state. This means it is normal, in the days after you have experienced violence, to still be in a heightened emotional state, even though you are no longer in danger. Part of this comes from the fact that if you were unable to anticipate the attack – you didn’t recognize or were unable to recognize – some of the events that may have preceded the assault, you have no assurance that you will be able to recognize any future violent events before they develop.

You will also be in a state where you are trying to make sense of events and remember what actually happened. Whilst there is little evidence of Tachypsychia (“time slowing down”, or as William James described it as, “time stretching out when events conspire to slow it down” (1988)), occurring during a physical assault, the phenomena does seem to occur when we recall our experiences of such events e.g., we may remember a physical confrontation that lasted five to ten seconds, being a much longer and extremely detailed affair etc. The reason for this is that our brains abhor a vacuum, and will “create” details and additional events, in order to have a complete story of what occurred. In the moment it is likely that we were only cognitively processing a few significant actions and behaviors and weren’t actually recognizing and/or understanding everything that was going on around us. However, this doesn’t stop our minds from creating and adding details in order to make our overall memory of the event complete. In fact, we go through a process where we retrieve and recall a memory, reference it, and then memorize/encode it again. Each time we do this it is likely that we add to it, change it, and forget items in it. If this process is repeated enough times we can create a memory, that barely reflects what happens but makes sense to us. This phenomenon is often observed when siblings, now adults, recount a common experience from childhood, and disagree on major and important “facts” concerning it. As we try and make sense of a violent event, we will try to make sense of it from our perspectives and knowledge concerning violence, our need to avoid further psychic trauma, and to try and take some form of meaning from it. It is likely that we will keep going through this process until we come up with a “narrative” that meets our psychological and emotional needs. Until we come up with a version that we are “happy” with, it is unlikely that memories of an incident won’t invade our thoughts.

We should not be surprised that it takes a relatively long time to reach a psychological, emotional, and physical stasis, after we have been involved in a physically violent encounter. It will likely – depending on the degree of trauma experienced – take several days before we stop jumping at the proverbial shadows. We should also recognize that these acute symptoms may stay with us for a longer time, and this is what will be looked at in the next article on long-term, and post-traumatic stress disorder.