An acquaintance recently turned 40 and said that her birthday present to herself is to go skydiving. I said that I don’t understand jumping out of a fully functional airplane. While I respect people’s rights to go skydiving, I confess that I don’t see even one thing appealing about it.
I asked a friend (who is a fellow child abuse survivor) her opinion about skydiving, and she had an interesting theory. She thinks that people who like to skydive, bungee jump, and other potentially dangerous activities are seeking the adrenaline rush. My response was that I can get an adrenaline rush just by going to sleep at night, so I don’t need to endanger myself to achieve that goal!
I really do have an adrenaline rush just about every night. I frequently awaken from a nightmare, and as I move from the terror of the dream to the reality that I am safe in my bedroom, I can feel the adrenaline pumping through my veins. This is one of the reasons that I struggle with insomnia – it’s hard to sleep when you feel like you just went skydiving!
It’s hard for me to understand why somebody would seek an adrenaline rush, but that is likely because I have no balance. I actually loved watching the TV show “24,” which also caused an adrenaline rush, so I guess I can relate to that degree. Then, I thought about how much I love riding rollercoasters, but that appeal was gone as long as I had vertigo since I felt like I had been “spinning” for nine days. Again, I think it all boils down to achieving a balance.
I also suspect that an adrenaline rush of your choosing (both how and when) is a very different experience from having it thrust upon you night after night for year after year. Most people probably don’t go skydiving 30 minutes before bedtime. If I could just bottle up my own adrenaline, I could probably earn a fortune!
Photo credit: Hekatekris
Blooming Lotus 
Great post. I’d be interested to hear what you think of my pet theory about “thrill-seeking”.
An adrenaline rush is a physiological state, right. So like any physiological state, one can develop associations with it. Like being too hot or too cold; most people seem to prefer one to the other. So maybe people who spent a lot of their childhoods terrified of the abuse they had experienced or were still experiencing grow to associate an adrenaline rush with being terrified, because that’s when they get one. People who aren’t abused perhaps get one when playing pretend, then later when at theme parks or watching horror films with friends, which are all positive situations. So they associate it with feeling good, feeling loved, maybe even paradoxically with feeling safe.
It seems to work that way for me, anyway. I actually find the comedown from a rush to be the worst bit, because I get a huge wave of inexplicable shame at that point. I think associations with physiological states (sexual arousal being another example of course) are incredibly strong.
Still, if others have good associations, I’m glad, and I hope your friend enjoys her birthday :D. I think I’d like the flying feeling of skydiving, but the whole possible death thing puts me off 😦
Hi, Jan.
I think you might be onto something. Since I only know my own experience, I cannot relate to adrenaline being a good thing. However, to use your example about the scary movies, my sister LOVES scary movies and laughs like a maniac through them. Perhaps she feels empowered — she is taking control over the adrenaline rush.
She was the same way with sex when she was a teen — If she was going to have sex, she was going to take control and do it on her terms, so she was sexually aggressive with boys (not against their will, but took the initiative and deflowered quite a few teenage boys). I was surprised to learn that she did not have orgasms during sex until much later, so I was perplexed by her promiscuity. She said the appeal was being in control.
– Faith
Understanding my adrenaline is an important part of my healing and it is complicated.
I have a broad definition of adrenaline. It is what causes the freeze response, the flight response and fight response. It also causes the the freeze/flight/fight response which is when I just drop.
It is what causes part of my brain to shut down and other parts to take over if I have adrenaline overload over time. The first part to shut down is numbers, then time then knowing where I am and last who I am.
My body develops adrenaline just right for the environment it developed in. The environment was the problem not my body.
It regulates my body temperature and cools my brain when there is danger. It warms it when there is not.
It is what changes which half of my brain is dominant.
I can track it when I am going to process memories. It first starts me to go all intellectual to convince myself this is best. I have a feeling of power. Then there is the shaking right before the memory comes. Then there is the escaped response as I survived which can go to a kind of euphoria. Then the hang over.
If I do not release it than the end result is extreme fatigue which some would Dx as depression. If I do not release it over time I will experience fibro, TMJ and CFS.
If I self sooth this is for me a not experiencing the adrenaline. If I go over the top and over exercise and eat really well than I function well for long periods of time as in years and decades.
It can cause flashback where my brain gets messed up and the two halves are operating almost separate and there are two realities going on that do not match. One past and one present.
My right brain and left brain experience adrenaline differently. I join them by experiencing what my body is experiencing. It is hard work.
The adrenaline hang over is very important. It is that having been run over by a truck feeling after processing trauma.
Right now I regulate adrenaline with caffeine and nicotine. It may not be the caffeine it may be some chemical in diet soda.
My memory works different when I have adrenaline in my body. I need to go to that place and give my reptilian brain a different experience and I need to stay with my body. Not a good feeling to be sure.
I can not eat when adrenaline is present it tells my body not to. During the hang over it tells me to eat a lot and a lot of carbs and sugars.
It is called POST traumatic stress. For me that is dealing with adrenaline with no where to go. In a real way I handled the trauma very well on a reptilian?primitive level. This is not to say that I did not handle the post well just I want to have different experiences.
Time is different with adrenaline. It is all about the now.
I am doing much work on the adrenaline right now and hope it is the end of the process. Course I hope that with what ever I am working on.
So Faith aren’t you sorry now about saying rambling is OK. Smile
I forgot an important part as I am working on that right now. It greatly effects sleep. Today I need to delay my nap and so my adrenaline level is up a tad. This will result in some chaos and I will have to deal with the results.
Adrenaline with out anywhere to go causes chaos for me.
Hi, Michael.
I suspect that is true for me, too. Do you ever shake after an adrenaline rush? I used to have regular episodes (that I called panic attacks) where my body would shake for 10 minutes or so. Someone told me that rabbits do that to release the adrenaline rush, so I wonder if that is what I am doing. I don’t do it much anymore (since entering therapy), but I feel the need to do it when I am flooded with adrenaline. It helps, and I sleep like a baby afterward.
– Faith
Hi, Michael.
I know you were joking, but no — I am actually quite fascinated by this. I have never heard an analysis of where adrenaline fits in with PTSD.
I suspect it is the caffeine that is helping because caffeine is the active ingredient in migraine medication. There is something about caffeine that affects our brains and helps pull them out of severe headaches like that. I, too, crave carbs and sugars when I am in that place. The sugar in the carbs probably does something similar to the caffeine.
I wonder how much our being multiple ties into the last two topics I have written about. Both of our brains seem to react very differently with adrenaline (including the crisp, clear memories). I, too, must follow a similar strategy of associating the memory, feelings, and emotions, but I never thought of this as joining the left and right brain. I also do much, much better when I am eating well, sleeping well, exercising, and building rest into my week.
You ought to write a book about your healing experience. I am in awe that you have figured all of this out without turning to healing books, etc. While I figure out some of mine, I generally build upon concepts I learn elsewhere. Your healing process is absolutely fascinating to me! :0)
– Faith
I had a feeling this morning I was on to something that I did not understand so I kept going.
I did make progress on the adrenaline thing. This was what I was so close to that I knew something was up. It was a cross over from the post on rambling that was what I was missing.
So here is the gig. I have spontaneous writing. That is writing where I may not know it was done and can pick it up and read it not knowing I wrote it. Then I have kinda spontaneous writing where I know what I am writing and am reading it as I write although I am not writing it.
There is another level of writing which I am doing right now and that might be seen as rambling. It is really spontaneous writing and that is where the rambling thoughts come from.
I thought I would share it as it might be what someone else is experiencing.
I just wore out the building on other peoples concepts. I tried that for years when I was miss Dx as bi-polar.
I feel that processing is much about information passing back and forth between the brains with the reptilian brain handling the body end of it. I think some brains that have experience trauma does the processing separately and there for has different conclusions.
Nicotine is being given to US troops now that are in combat. In my opinion this will increase the instances of PTSD although improving combat performance.
Yes I shake after an adrenalin rush. Sometimes I throw up. Say I am really angry. I will shake. I am not afraid other than I may hurt someone.
I have a brand new method. I know I am going to get wound up. I tense my body and make it shake. I try and take that anger all the way to my core. I am so tense that I can not breathe. I just go as far as I can getting that anger to my core. I do eventually sigh and the energy is release. The key is the release just happens I need to with all my being try and get that anger to my core/center. If I concentrate on the release I just mask or graze the anger.
If a bear is running and tranquilized when they come to they shake and actually start running while still unconscious. I know that feeling.
Hi Michael,
I found your post quite interesting this morning.
Quote: “My body develops adrenaline just right for the environment it developed in. The environment was the problem not my body.”
This statement is so very true. It is actually profound. I think all abuse survivors should remind ourselves that our bodies did not betray us by responding either by arousal, adrenaline, orgasms, etc. The environment was the problem, not us or our bodies. LOVE THAT!
Quote: “If I do not release it than the end result is extreme fatigue which some would Dx as depression. If I do not release it over time I will experience fibro, TMJ and CFS.”
I’ve noticed you’ve brought up fatigue a number of times as well as a couple other people. I, too, suffer from extreme fatigue. Sometimes, I feel I may suffer from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (just add it to the list…:) There are times when I feel like I need to catch up on 18 years of sleep. Of course, my T and doctors always attribute it to the depression, which I agree is probably valid. However, I also think there is more to it……..like, maybe it has to do with being in a prolonged state of anxiety, adrenaline for 18 years of my childhood?!?!?!?!
AllyValentino,
I am way our of the mainstream with my understanding of my depression, TMJ ect. I mean no disrespect to anyone.
I was Dx with depression and accepted it for 8 years. Looking back in times of distress I am susceptible to suggestion. So much so that sometimes when they bring out the hammer to test my reflexes my knee has the reflex reaction just from seeing the hammer.
When in distress I answered the questions as best I could with my intellectual brain. In a way this lead the professionals down the path of depression. (The only hammer most of them had,) Most notable by the question have you ever had thoughts of killing yourself. My honest answered was I thought everyone did. It was part of my programing as was always having a plan.
In the last 6 years I have treated myself for shock and exhaustion. The being in shock is gone and the exhaustion is gone as far as I know although I sometimes need 16 hours of sleep when doing the work of therapy.
This all started with the thought that no one cries for no reason rather there are reasons unknown. When I trace something back that has a unknown reason I find trauma is the answer. It could be that I make it so. I seem to be able to tell the difference although it can take a while.
About 5 years ago it felt like I slept for the first time. I was crying and asked my therapist how in the world to you celebrate that. She replied “I think by sleeping.”
About a year ago I decided if I was tired I was going to sleep. It was hard to sleep as much as I did as I felt like a slacker. About 6 months ago I decided that if I could sleep I would. It still amazes me. I will write my therapist that I am going to try and take a nap even though I am not tired and I sleep for 3 hours or more. This is a deep sleep. A drooling sleep often.
It was huge for us when we understood some of can be tired and others can not be. It seems impossible. It is not. It was hard to accept that I could get up at 5 and go swimming and feel totally rested then some home and sleep for 3 hours and feel less rested than I did at 5 that morning.
In a real way some of us did not know how to rest or sleep. We had to learn and are still learning.
For parts of my life I slept 6 hours a night.
Anyway the treating myself for shock and the sleeping when I can made a huge difference in my life. I could not have done it with out complex expressive therapy and complex psychotherapy. I needed to experience trauma to heal from trauma.
In my opinion when a person processes trauma it is reasonable to assume that there body will go into shock and be exhausted. It is that difficult. Honoring how hard it was on my body made a huge difference. We are talking about healing a brain that was injured.
Hey Michael, I also found your post really interesting. I connected to it and also Faith’s description of the shaking. When you talk about the reptilian brain interacting with the intellectual and different parts functioning separately from the others, I think I know what you mean! My therapist does sensorimotor therapy with me, which integrates the brains. Adrenaline shows up as traumatic energy needing to release and process through. I do TONS of uncontrollable shaking that often has an emotion/memory with it, but sometimes no memory of anything at all. Body processes coming from the reptilian brain are primitive, and intellect has little use to it.
I didn’t read every post on this topic and someone may have already mentioned it, but the book Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma by Peter Levine seems to be to be describing exactly what you’re talking about and that book kept me spellbound.
Animals release adrenaline naturally- like Faith mentioned with the rabbit. Lets say a rabbit gets caught by a predator and is in its jaws of death. It will probably have the freeze response once it’s captured, and if by some lucky chance, it suddenly gets away, it will shake and shake, until the energy is dispersed. It will not be traumatized the same way humans are because it doesn’t have the cognitive burden/gift that we do. It will remember what happened but not be tortured by it for years the same way we will as humans who have gone through trauma.
Anyway. This may not be what you were talking about exactly, but the book is all about adrenaline, trauma, and the different brain functions, if it interests you. I do the automatic writing too…enjoyed your comments.
Thanks for sharing Michael.
“In a real way some of us did not know how to rest or sleep. We had to learn and are still learning….In my opinion when a person processes trauma it is reasonable to assume that there body will go into shock and be exhausted. It is that difficult. Honoring how hard it was on my body made a huge difference. We are talking about healing a brain that was injured.”
I agree. It’s very reasonable to belive trauma creates shock. Then we carried that shock around without letting it process for 30+ years. Man, no wonder we are so tired. Then the sheer act of processing the trauma/shock is the release….the shivers, the pain….then the “hangover” as you call it. Makes sense. Thanks!
Actually i love to skydive and the freefall feels not so much like a speedy/adrenaline thing to me. More like freedom and a rather odd sense of absolute…joy? And the awareness that i can take control of that yes pure terror of leaving the plane & make it my OWN experience–that is really quite cool to me. So there it is, for what it is. I don’t do roller coasters or creepy movies or what-all. I don’t drive dangerously or jump off cliffs. I just like the control. As if to say ha ha you MF I won. Give it a try, it’s very freeing.
That’s really interesting. That’s how I always imagined sky-diving. I think it would make me feel quite strong, somehow. Still too scared right now though :D. When I’m feeling better I might do it for charity, one dealing with SA probably. I don’t do rides or horror either.
“If I go over the top and over exercise and eat really well than I function well for long periods of time as in years and decades.” This rings true for me. I went through years where my body shut down and now that I am fully processing more rememories and what they really meant or were, the energy is back adn the appetite is gone. I am anxious more now on therapuke days because i am sure this will be the day he says, we’ve talked all we can. the end. My therapist went to my home town over the weekend for a family vaca and I was spinning all weekend. lost time but also lost weight and was moving most minutes. I tried hard not to text or call or write too much so he would really have his family time but I will be glad when I know today, how and what he found there. I have felt like I’ve been there all weekend alone. dissociating and cutting seems to be shifting. I guess i don’t have enough of an understanding to stop blaming myself because i feel so ashamed and then the voices of my parents and others come in reminding me it is all my fault and then here comes the razor. At work, we have a staff person with issues over a bad breakup. Her ex is acting a lot like mine did when I left him. sneaky crazy making actions and that has stirred up all that which I thought was long gone. One ties in with the other. Challenging minutes. I don’t want to be here is pulsing. Wish it was time to buck up and talk with therapist.
It sounds like you are having a really hard time, Aggiemonday. I can see how the weekend must have been incredibly rough. If I were in your place, I too would have been in a state of distress.
I hope you can talk to your therapist soon now to talk things through. Good luck. We”re here listening if you want to share.
The support here is invaluable. Having four daughters, although grown, makes it hard to stay focused on my own work. Being a mom with them as they come to terms with our life at home before I left their dad is important. I see them learning how to find their own way in their own time and I am grateful they do not have this baggage to hinder them. Here, I am no one but me – trauma and all and it is helpful to be able to say or let words out that i can’t otherwise. This site helps invite words afraid to otherwise appear and i think that is where i am now, trying to put words to feelings that i can’t hardly hold much less speak. I am always surprised that when one rememory is baked and iced and sent out, another one slips into sight. I realize this is a long process. long.
thank you faith, and thank you others for helping so much
i used to get a big adrenaline rush through sexual activity, specifically sado-masochistic sex and sexual self-harm. the pain took me to a similar place as when i was being abused. it is all tangled up for me. pleasure, pain, fear, trust, and violation. i’d also shake and tremble after a scene, it was part of the coming down process. i’d need to be held and comforted as i calmed down and readjusted. personally, i stay away from roller coasters and sky diving as i feel i have already created enough drama in my life. thanks for this post.
Thanks for posting this, Catherine.
I was writing a reply, then decided not to and deleted it, now once again decided otherwise.
I feel too vulnerable to express myself, but I can relate to what you wrote. Thx for sharing.
Hearing a raised voice on tv can give me an adrenalin rush =)
Glad I don’t have to pay for theme park passes to get a rush!
When I was a child and a teenager, I absolutely loved thrill-seeking activities. I went white water rafting, went on the ‘scariest’ rollercoasters I could find, tried to get someone to go bungee jumping with me (and failed) and indeed joined a skydiving group at university.
However, as I moved into my 20s, I suddenly developed vertigo (not acrophobia, because I can still stand on heights if they are protected – I mean the whole dizzy, nausea that seems to come with heights etc). I was walking across a bridge in Vancouver, where I was on holiday at the time, and just stopped dead with abject fear. My partner virtually had to carry me across.
Since then, all my searches for adrenaline rushes have completely gone out the window, and I’d be terrified by any of those things I previously so fervently desired. My mental health has never been especially good, but it definitely deteriorated in my 20s, and I wonder if it’s related. Certainly, whilst I know about some of my abuse throughout my life, it was only in my 20s that I either recovered memories or became certain of others, and with that has come a new level of terror that I, like yourself, have no desire to emulate!
Very interesting post as always, Faith. Thank you for sharing.
Best wishes
Pan
Hey Faith,
I like the playfulness of this post!
I have a friend who jumped when she turned 45. She said it had to do with facing her fear and taking control… Kind of like, “if I can do that, I can do anything”….
I’m with you though. I don’t need to prove anything to myself that badly! 🙂
Peace,
mia
ok. im talkative tonite. i want to say that i learned about skydiving at about 9 or 10. i remember that. i knew i wanted to grow up and DO THAT. i have not. i dont want to anymore at all. the desire to even entertain the thought was lost when i started really remembering all the really deeply embedded pain i had,have. i suppose i lost the desire for any kind of thrill seeking about 2 years ago. it gradually just turned from.. “i will do that one day” to.. “i cant ever do that”. no part of my being wants to ride a rollercoaster , watch a scary movie, bungee jump, or parachute..etc /// my one daughter, however, after her rape.. did decide to parachute. she wasnt living with me at the time. she could not explain why at that time she wanted to jump.. but later she told me it helped to heal and control her anxiety. and she felt in control of what happened to her even in that danger. it was , i suppose, a way to control her fear. and gain back some of her stregth. /// she still loves it and wants to finish getting her hours in when she can later. / i strive foe ‘peace’/ quiet. silence./ someone commented that angry voices give me an adreniline rush. yes..that they do. i avoid too many crowds or people at a time. / i do find it interesting tho that as a kid being sadistically and repeatedly abused.. i wanted that freefall from a plane desperately. now i want not even to watch my dughter jump. so. goes on and on the continuation of my words and my thoughts and i guess..my story… malanie
I sure was on a roll yesterday. Some would call it hypo-manic. I call it adrenaline being used to do stuff in the now and not with the past.
The reptilian brain is usually seen as one brain and not asymmetrical. It is two haves.
I think much of my PTSD is from from birth having the reptilian brains experience what it knows instinctively it should not have and not what it should have. That when I became cognitive and my brain should be learning how to experience as one having to cognitively over ride my reptilian brains.
I think the reptilian brain does not use words and that is why expressive therapy works. That the reptilian brain remembers in images. The reptilian brain has a different sense of time which is by amount of light and distance. It has a different sense of direction as in that way and this way not north and south. It does not think in street names rather what must be past to get there.
It does not remember not to go to a place where there is danger in why there is danger rather it just does not want to go there.
The work of therapy is painful and is contrary to what the reptilian brain wants to do from its experiences and yet is what the reptilian brain wants to do naturally.
I think that the wok of therapy depletes the chemicals that the reptilian brain needs to do what it wants to do. In a real way for me that is in part how the work of therapy happens as the reptilian brains get worn out.
I go with the reptilian brain over time is going to win. If I tell it to eat well and get plenty of rest and the result of that is the pain of the work of therapy it is going to find a way not to do it over time until it has the experience of having the work of therapy be positive in its evaluation.
The reptilian brains do not experience time in the same way. It is much more immediate and evaluates experiences from the stand point of the immediate effects. The future does not mean much to the reptilian brain and what happened in the past is only important to how it will effect the now.
I do not find the concept that changing the cognitive brain will give the reptilian brain new experiences and therefore be healed valid. I think it is the opposite. Have the reptilian brain experience trauma differently by releasing the energy and the cognitive brains will follow. I think that leading a cognitively balanced life does not change the reptilian brain in the long run.
The reptilian brains deal with danger, protection of the body, breathing, eating, sleep, sex, body temperature, growth, rest, ect.
There are other brains. There is a fowl brain which the sky divers and those that think of sky diving are aware. There is the fish brain which those of us that like to be near or in water are aware of.
It is complicated.
We have an animal brain. A hunter and gather brain. I use the word hunter to stay away from predator as animal predators do not hunt to cause pain. The animal is social in that it is about those it is with. It does not care for say those being effected in another country or even town.
I have a plant brain. I know that when I stand in the sun and feel it. I can feel my body change the light into energy beyond just warmth.
I think that for the times spent in school we are taught to shut off most of our brain as a way to excel. This works as long as you stay in a situation where that is best. Say a bureaucrat or public school teacher.
There is the creative brain which somehow has to do with order.
To be clear I have never studied the brain or what is known about it. It is not as much as I learned as much as I did not forget.
And then there is the spirit. That pestey spirit.
Michael,
I so much enjoy your posts. I always learn something interesting. and today, “and then there is the spirit. That pestey spirit”. Exactly.
Keep voicing your thoughts, please. They offer an interesting collection of thought provoking wisps of wisdom
I also loved this comment in particular, Michael. I notice your mentions in various comments of therapy based on expression/movement and similar and that’s very validating for me. I feel like I’m just learning to use my body for the first time and often feel the sudden need to sing and dance; it feels like it’s excising… something. I don’t know. Also I’m fascinated by moving pictures, I can just stare and stare, and I’ve often thought I must look like a toddler, staring to take in as much of the world as possible. Interesting days.
And aggiemonday, I love the phrase “wisps of wisdom”, I’d like to use it in conversation! Probably few opportunities though.
“I feel like I’m just learning to use my body for the first time and often feel the sudden need to sing and dance; it feels like it’s excising… something. I don’t know. Also I’m fascinated by moving pictures, I can just stare and stare, and I’ve often thought I must look like a toddler, staring to take in as much of the world as possible. Interesting days”
I too feel like I am using my body for the first time even though I have been an avid athlete my whole life.
We have one part that seems autistic. He will stare at water and be totally content. He poked out therapist to see if she was real. He will put things in his mouth and touch things that are hot.
I to am gong to steal wisps of wisdom.
I will teach you all to encourage me. Smile
I am not understanding there is another brain I am calling the early infant brain.
Not all infants have a startled response. I have observed this.
There is a response that happens in danger. If a early infant senses danger they are silent. It is more than that the body shuts down and starts to conserve. It is not the reaction to injury it is the reaction to the danger. Think hibernation.
I have been all about balancing the right and left brain and still am.
This is what is now my understanding. The left brain as a different access to my reptilian brains. I do not think it is intrinsic rather my years of left brain schooling requires much unlearning.
When you list most “symptoms” they seem to tie into the reptilian brains.
I really thing the key is sleep and unlearning how we learned to sleep.