Brain Chemistry, Running Away, & Boundaries

Have you ever just wanted to run away so bad that you were ready to abandon your responsibilities, who you thought you were, or everything you have ever built?

If so, you’re not alone. Brains do that sometimes. In some ways it can be very protective and productive if you can maintain a grasp on reality. It can help put the thoughts to bed if you wear them out. Other times, stuff just does get so hard sometimes that people can’t handle it. And we all know someone who has done it. It is a very human thing to snap under pressure in this way.

So perhaps we should stop and consider that space should be made to do this safely and without permanently abandoning everyone and everything when it gets to be too much. It would be a form of respite care. So today we will cover why it happens, what can be done instead or how to do it, and what kind of systems we can build to mitigate the very real harm that can come from it.

Brain Chemistry

Brain chemistry is the seemingly magical happenings that occur which result in the sum of electrical connectivity that is your thoughts and therefore actions. It is complicated and can be derailed by a billion little things. In the context of trauma though, the biggest thing that gets in the way is when it shorts out.

In a traumatic moment, the chemicals available to you are heightened, but sometimes when there is no good route of escape and the brain turns to using the chemicals for pain prevention or dissociation, a sort of storm happens because there is no good place for everything to go. Imagine you’re (the chemicals) running down the road (the channels in the brain) and all of a sudden you are hit with a lightning bolt. Can’t really do anything productive will all the energy, now can you? So it creates little storms in the brain that don’t go away without intervention.

The pathways in your brain and the supply of chemicals that run through them will stay heightened until you do the work. It’s not fair, but it is what evolution managed to provide us. You have to sort of starve the pathways by working to manually relax your body, keeping yourself understimulated and releasing in order to return the channels back to normal. You have to avoid triggers for a bit, then you have to slowly confront triggers and use your new recover skills to get back to calm. Sometimes that is not possible where you are though.

silhouette of person with a suitcase against green fields and open sky

Running Away

When you have these storms, it often seems like the best response to things that would otherwise be no big deal is to fight, flee, fawn, freeze, or scream fuck you. This is heavily tied up in the healing mechanism that is the corrective emotional experience that we have discussed before. CEEs give the brain an opportunity to go back to that moment and try again to find a weak spot in the storm to burrow out and discharge the excess energy. We do it for a reason, you just need to be aware enough not to hurt innocents in the process. So, as it were, running away is a good method of dealing with things, if you are aware.

Your brain wants to heal whether you are aware of how it functions or not. We all know someone who went through something messed up and then became sort of difficult to handle or deal with. They get described as too in their own head, or seeing things that aren’t there. Yes, and yes. They are stuck and their brain will create the reality it needs to escape and regain stasis. If you know that, you can help in much more productive ways, or if it is your brain doing it, you can help people understand that you have something you need to act out so they can help or excuse themselves.

Boundaries

Boundaries are a funny thing because some want to be so rigid with them. They are complex and dynamic. They shouldn’t require that much attention if people would respect basic human decency and autonomy. But that is apparently a complex request.

Some boundaries are meant to be broken when you have trauma, but only under very specific conditions. Like you not wanting to be touched, but when the dam of emotional blockage finally breaks and a friend embraces you without asking because they know. Some boundaries are unreasonable and you need to come to realize that to grow and stop putting the responsibility on others. Like when try to control who other people are because you are uncomfortable with something that is really not your place to change. Some boundaries exist as a warning sign to let you know that someone may not be for you and to check for understanding in more detail. Like someone who jokes a lot about violence but after discussion you realize they are just coping with their own traumas and are not themselves violent. Some are red flags that mean the other is patently unsafe and you need to run. Like when someone claims a person as their partner and then attempts to mold them into who they want them to be rather than helping them grow into the best version of themselves.

How It All Interacts

The complexity of all of that alone is enough but it doesn’t happen that way in real life. All of these factors push and pull on each other and are highly dependent on your ability to change the circumstances of your life and the community support you have.

Your own disposition and the tools you have to handle yourself when your brain chemistry becomes a lot will play a large role in how you respond. Whether or not you daydream and cope, take a break, run away and start over, or just build boundaries and find a way to make it work. The base goals are to get to safety and do as little damage to the people and things you value along the way. Another good goal is prioritizing your safety over the want to lash out at those who hurt you because when abused people leave is the most dangerous time. There is a lot to consider that the brain doesn’t necessarily have the capacity to remember in these states, but it is worth trying to put in your mind before you get there just in case.

My Story

My brain chemistry is complex. I am AuDHD, I have preverbal and regular traumatic events causing CPTSD (now in remission), and multiple near-death experiences. I never knew what a calm and healthy environment or relationship looked like until grad school. It was an uphill battle but one I was determined to win for the sake of my daughter. She was not going to go through what I had to.

Running was not an option, but running was the only option. I had a kid, a mortgage, was years into a Ph.D. program, and I had enough knowledge to know I wouldn’t bury any of my problems without them coming up to bite me at the worst possible times.

Eventually, I had to run away. But I didn’t run away. I purposely left and set boundaries with everyone who was hurtful. I never intended to stay gone. I am going back home soon. But back then, no one else in the environment was willing to do the work to stop their abusive behaviors or respect my boundaries, so I left to get it out of my body. And over the years I have been gone, it has slowly worked. Bit by bit. I have put myself back together in ways I once thought would not be possible to become more than who I ever thought I could be.

It turns out that in the absence of the people who filled my head with hate and restriction, I actually adore myself and my body. My child is easier to handle and is happier without them. There was good reason to do this work. We are happier and healthier.

Building healthy and real boundaries is the only real option in this situation to get your feet back on the ground. Whether the boundary is an ocean, court orders, a cussing out, simple talks, or consequences, part of this journey is learning the balance as it changes of what you need at different states from different people in order to get your body back to where it feels safe enough to choose boundaries based on what you want, not out of fear, hate, or anger.

Building Systems to Help Those in Need

First, this information should be widely available, so that when people go through it, the sensation of not knowing or feeling bad doesn’t consume them. Self-hate almost universally makes things worse, especially when you are actually the victim. We need to support those around us in normalizing these feelings and help them process and make the changes they need before it gets out of control.

Next is realizing that not everyone has the grace and benefit of community and support. Even if someone looks like they have community, that doesn’t mean the community has a healthy outlook. Many communities have a hive mind and will ridicule those who express discontent and try to set boundaries. In those cases, people lose everything. So what we need to do is make sure there are systemic solutions that can intervene when people become overwhelmed.

On the light side, this could look like cash to pay a trusted person for respite care for children, a hotel room and a train ticket, therapy, etc. For the times when it gets more out of hand, it can include resources to help people restructure their life and escape from dangerous people. It can include time where bills are met so the person can go calmly put themselves back together.

As always, it is worth remembering that prevention is always the most effective solution. Once things escalate, the consequences compound and the resources needed to solve the problem grow exponentially. We don’t want to be a society that causes problems, we want to lift each other up. Those who have been through it can light the way. That is healing for them as well.

light coming through dense forest on to a road

Through my experience living this, I have learned a lot, but the biggest takeaway was that none of this needed to happen. I did not deserve the pain inflicted by the people who hurt me. My child did not deserve it. We would have healed faster with support. We could have happily lived our whole lives without learning these lessons. It did not need to happen. Now that it has though, we have to make something of it to process.

The building of these systems is not only worth aspiring to, but it is worth doing the hard work. We would all be better off.