I had an epiphany this week.

It came to me in the wee hours, while I was lying in bed, trying to relax my tension filled body:

My nervous system doesn’t know how to get out of fight or flight on its own.

For most of my life, my autonomic nervous system has been stuck in the on position. It has been hypervigilant in keeping me safe. It’s not something I consciously thought about or was even aware of until it started to burn out. It turns out it’s not something that’s supposed to be chronically activated. Who knew?!

It was only a year and a half ago that I started learning how to move out of fight or flight and into rest and digest.

Did you know there are more nervous system responses than just fight or flight? There’s also freeze and fawn. Freeze is being still and small, in hopes the danger will pass by and not notice you. Fawn is pleasing to remove the possibility of a threat.

Fight: attack

Flight: run away

Freeze: shut down

Fawn: appease

It takes a lot of energy for fight, flight and freeze. It takes a lot less energy to nip the threat in the bud, which is why I am going to go out on a limb and say people with chronically active sympathetic nervous systems are professional fawns.

I know I am.

Not to brag or anything, but I am excellent at anticipating a person’s needs and can make sure those needs are met without them even realizing it. I can read a room and say things in such a way that support, encourage, and deescalate, whatever is needed. I will keep the metaphorical engine running as smoothly as humanly possible. Keep them laughing. Keep them smiling. Keep them happy.

I wasn’t allowing unhealthy systems to break so they could be fixed.

I was preventing people from learning from their mistakes.

I wasn’t valuing my own energy and giving it away, not leaving any for myself.

I was doing all these things compulsively to keep my reality “safe”.

The most common personality trait of chronically ill people is that they are nice to a fault.

I’ve done a lot of work in the last 18 months to turn off my sympathetic nervous system and let it recover. I took a six-week meditation class through work and incorporated what I learned into daily practice. I learned practical tools and processed my underlying trauma.

I’m proud to say that my autonomic nervous system now operates in the off position.

I still have triggers, but it isn’t as trigger happy.

My nervous system has come so far from those years of always being on, and while it’s immeasurably better, it isn’t perfect. It can’t enter parasympathetic rest on its own. When the fight or flight circuit breaker pops, I have to go to the electrical panel and manually put the switch back in place.

Now that I know that it won’t calm down on its own, I can use my tools to support my body as well as my emotions and get back to rest and digest. I don’t have to stay in trauma or get stuck in tension. I do have to put in the work, but the results are worth it.