Survival Mode Theory

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Hi everybody,

I've been thinking about why there seem to be such a difference in thinking between autistics and non-autistics. The more rational orientated in contrast to the more emotion orientated and vica versa.

My theory goes that being autistic you are more orientated on thinking in terms of survival because of experiencing and/or percieving the rest of the world as dangers - perceptual overstimulation from birth on.

Coping behaviour like stimming and having special interest are there to escape the painful experiences in the world and/or process information.

While being in this Survival Mode 24/7 from your forming years the influence on the brain is must be very pervasive. Aless there my knowledge is lacking in the medical area, I hope you people can contribute in this.

Priorities under survival circumstances in contrast to safe living circumstances aren't the same, so I guess the biggest mutual misunderstanding comes in that most non-autistic people nowadays aren't familiar with the survival circumstances from own experience - it might also not feel that great to be around, but that is up for debate.

I've been pondering this theory for some time now, I think it needs some more input and rephrasing but I think I caught the essence of my theory - to survive in contrast to to live.

I am interested in what you guys and girls think about this and might be able to contribute.

Cheerfully,
Wallourdes

Survival mode equals the flight or fight response that is designed for humans to accommodate the random dangers in life. Stress chemicals are released, to increase necessary bodily functions and curb the ones that are not necessary to combat danger. The problem is that when life is perceived as danger too much of the time, the body's system that controls the flight or fight response can go haywire leaving a person in long term survival mode to deal with large and small issues. This process can eventually lead to heart disease, digestive problems, depression, obesity, memory impairments, and worsening of skin problems.

We are born with two instinctual fears: noise and falling. All other dangers are learned. It can be detrimental to expose a child to continuous noise from a loud TV, Stereo, etc.

Stimming and special interests, repetitive activities, structure, can work to decrease anxiety because they are something we can control to take us to a safe place.

The only way to combat survival mode is to manage stress and perceived danger. This is particularly hard when the human animal is socially threatened at home, work or school. I think this is one of the biggest reasons that people in general, living with constant social mental or physical abuse can go into survival mode early on and stay there most of their life.

When a person is in long term survival mode a highly stimulating environment can be an additional stressor on physical and mental health. The goal is to reach a state of balance and come out of survival mode; it is almost impossible with a highly stimulating environment.

During short term fight or flight responses emotions like anger are often enhanced that lead to irrational decisions. During long term survival mode some emotion may be shut off to enable survival.

I wouldn't be surprised if survival mode in Autistic people contributes strongly to blunted emotions, issues with executive function (memory impairment), sensory defensiveness (senses are heightened in survival mode), anxiety, depression, and mood swings, imbalance in neurochemicals and hormones, etc.

Social abuse and exposure to high levels of noise are two studied causes for the fight or flight response that can eventually lead to long term survival mode.

I've got nothing very useful to say, except, great posts. Thanks.

Oh, maybe I do have something to say. This might be why I've found relaxation techniques, sensory deprivation and meditation to be such an integral part of my autism 'therapy'. Recommended.

I can definitely relate. I have always been high-strung and jumpy. At work, i feel like i go into "survival mode". as a convenience store assistant manager, i am always dealing with sensory input coming from ten different places at once, plus my own mind going over the tasks that need to be done. wait on people-make coffee-turn on gas pump-answer phone(ugh.)this thing beeping-that thing beeping-the other thing beeping-stock the coolers-check in the vendors-change overflowing trash bin-call police on shoplifter-call police on gas drive-off-gotta pee but there are 10 people in line-someone spilled gas- go put down spill absorbent, but there are still ten people in line and the phone is still ringing.

i am in survival mode every day from 7am to 3pm. at home silence is sacred, the computer fan is too loud.

Sensory defensiveness may be a good indication that someone NT or Autistic is experiencing long term survival mode because of the heightened senses associated with the fight or flight response.

The first time I experienced the uncomfortable feeling of never being able to relax or "long term survival mode", I did not understand what was happening to me. I found that if I went outside on the patio on a dark night I would feel a sense of cushioning in my nerves, or the relaxation that I often felt before I entered long term survival mode.

I wish I had understood the relationship of quietening the mind and nerves and stress relief required to reach the homeostasis that is necessary for well being, much earlier in my life. Additional stress even if considered positive, like an exciting video game or TV show, may add more fuel to the fire if you are in long term survival mode. I thought exercise would always be enough to get rid of stress chemicals, but even intense exercise can be counterproductive when the body is weakened from long term survival mode.

Sensory defensiveness may be a physiological warning, telling us to seek the sensory deprivation and quietude of mind, that may be necessary for physiological balance and ultimately survival.

That makes sense. You might have something there.

An autistic person could be very helpful during the time of the caveman. His/her ability to detect subtle changes in the environment could help detect predators or prey. This would significantly benefit the clan.

Ive always thought of survival mode in a different light. That in order to keep up with a nonautistic-oriented world, many autistic people often have to dip into energy reserves that normally people only dip into in survival-related circumstances (to do things they normally couldn't). And that long-term this can lead to various levels of burnout.

I agree, circumstances in life, such as social situations, that may come natural to some people require a greater conscious effort among people on the Autism Spectrum. The fight or flight response may be invoked because of the mental stress involved in the circumstance. Stress takes a cumulative toll on the mind and body. The probability of burnout and mental illness related issues seems more likely among people on the Autism Spectrum because of these factors.

As near as I can tell, this theory states that sensory issues are caused by hypervigilance which is caused by sensory issues. I'm sorry, what?

Besides, one thing this doesn't account for is the tendency of autistic people to still be autistic when not under stress.

Sorry it's another long one. And I'm way too tired to bold the relevant parts like I normally try to do. So take it or leave it, your choice. I'm sorry I couldn't make it more accessible. 

I don't mean that a fight or flight response is necessarily triggered. And for most people I have talked to about this, social stuff is a very small part of a much larger picture, and in some ways less demanding than the other stuff we are dealing with.  And stress is part of it, but... okay maybe I'd better just try this all again, because I can't tell at all whether we are discussing the same thing in two different ways or two totally different things. 

So.  I'm mostly talking about basic parts of everyday life. Or at least they're basic for most people (more on that in a minute).  Stuff like. 

Getting up
Going to the bathroom
Making sure not to go to the bathroom anywhere but the bathroom
Washing hands
Showering/Bathing
Drying off
Preparing meals
Eating meals
Cleaning up after meals
Cleaning up around the home
Taking the trash/recycling out

And that's just the beginning of a long list of similar stuff around the home. 

Then you also generally have to leave your home regularly. Even if you don't work you have to shop and do miscellaneous appointments and errands. If you work or go to school you have to do an equally long list of things there. Then you have to repeat these things every day. 

Anyway I said before that many of these things are considered really basic by most people. The problem is of course that for autistic people they usually aren't. 

Jim Sinclair explains this faster than I can:

"Simple, basic skills such as recognizing people and things presuppose even simpler, more basic skills such as knowing how to attach meaning to visual stimuli.  Understanding speech requires knowing how to process sounds--which first requires recognizing sounds as things that can be processed, and recognizing processing as a way to extract order from chaos.  Producing speech (or producing any other kind of motor behavior) requires keeping track of all the body parts involved, and coordinating all their movements.  Producing any behavior in response to any perception requires monitoring and coordinating all the inputs and outputs at once, and doing it fast enough to keep up with changing inputs that may call for changing outputs.  Do you have to remember to plug in your eyes in order to make sense of what you're seeing?  Do you have to find your legs before you can walk?  Autistic children may be born not knowing how to eat.  Are these normally skills that must be acquired through learning?"

So what Jim describes is far more truly basic than what most people think of as basic. Jim and I share in common both very extreme processing issues and a movement disorder. (It's through Jim that I learned enough to get diagnosed with it after a friend of xyrs saw me freezing in place at a conference.) The way I think of it is that nonautistic people think they are starting out at a skill level of one when from my perspective they start out at a skill level of at least six and possibly very much higher. 

So then there's all this stuff nondisabled people don't even think about. Understanding language. Understanding that language exists. Recognizing objects. Finding and moving body parts. Finding words. And of course all of these things are required for nondisabled people's idea of basic tasks. And all of these things come down to those super-basic skills Jim describes.  So those things are sort of intermediate-basic. 

In addition to what Jim described, there are lots of factors that make things situationally more difficult. For instance, most autistic people with that kind of processing issue find the world outside their home (or their room as the case may be) to create more chaos than before because familiarity allows a person to not have to juggle quite as much information. More chaos means more energy is required to extract enough order to be able to avoid being functionally deafblind. 

It also increases the likelihood of information overload shutdown, all of which make things even more difficult if not downright impossible. To be clear, since there are many different definitions on this site:  When I talk about overload here, I'm talking about an experience that is not necessarily emotional or painful. Those can exist, but I have experienced at times an extremely pure form of this overload. Where there is no anxiety, no pain, but simply things become increasingly difficult to do or understand, and eventually the whole world goes pixelated in every sense, and I can't find my body or move it, and I can't think, and I'm just aware (without any meaningful sensory input) except when even awareness fizzles out. Sure, it's usually stressful and painful, but I've learned that even without those things it's plenty possible and plenty bad. (Which is why I don't buy that all overload is just a form of anxiety, but that's a whole unrelated topic.)

So for someone like me, I've described this "basic" stuff as, like most people including some autistic people, learn "basic" skills like climbing a hill. When they get skilled at things, they walk up the hill. Their feet are always on firm ground. They don't have to climb the hill every time they want to do the skill. Whereas for me and some autistic people not only do I start at a lower elevation (super-basic), but I'm climbing a cliff up to those supposedly basic skills. This means I can't stay up there. Every time I want to do that kind of skill, I have to in some ways start at the beginning. No, I don't have to learn all over again exactly. But I do have to put together the skill from basic building blocks of perception and movement in order to carry out the skill. 

So all this means that it's difficult to do practically anything except a tiny number of skills that just click for the person for unknown reasons. That means that it's tiring. Even without bringing stress into the picture. And that means the person is going to be running on lower levels of energy than usual. 

And basically most people seem to have energy reserves that are only tapped into in survival situations. Because they need to be able to carry on even when they're dog-tired and would otherwise collapse. And I think for autistic people who find the so-called basics of daily life difficult, we end up taking energy out of those reserves in order to just carry on a little longer past when we would otherwise collapse from exertion. It may also help us carry out tasks that are beyond our normal abilities at moments where we have to do that thing in order to survive. 

The trouble with digging into those energy reserves is they're supposed to be for emergencies. It's like a person in chronic poverty may end up depleting their emergency savings. This happens both bit by bit, and in larger chunks when some moderate but necessary financial need comes up. 

Anyway if you read through all that, the reason I think we may be talking about different things. 
Is that the way I'm talking about this, it doesn't require stress. It doesn't require a fight-flight response being triggered by anything. It only requires more energy than the person has to give, over a long period of time. Of course those things can be involved but they're far from necessary for what I was describing to happen. Just like anxiety and pain aren't necessary for overload. 

As far as social stuff goes, I do find it difficult and draining like any autistic person. But it's not as difficult for me as all those little "basic" tasks are.  And nowhere near as all-encompassing. I'm lucky in a way that I burned out young or I'd be in serious danger of my life right now from lack of services. 

But even with help in all these little things I still end up with plenty of trouble doing the things I'm still doing.  Language is a huge strain because it's like... there's some really wide gulfs that have to be crossed in order to understand it or use it. 

Oddly enough my super-long posts come partly from a problem with language rather than from skill at it. Language is a method of compressing information. Because I have trouble with many of the more abstract concepts, I find myself having to write out more direct descriptions of whatever I'm observing. And those take up a lot of space. I hate doing it sometimes where a summary will do. But summaries require finding short ways of saying long things. Tolkien got it right when he made the Ents long-winded in comparison to the people who taught them language. Language was not natural to the Ents and so every name for a thing was the story of it. So despite language itself being a strain, compressing it is even more a strain, which I learned the hard way through lots of meltdowns with no success.

i think this is a more accurate hypothesis than "survival mode" in general.

The sensory issues are already there (Hypersensitivity might apply here (link)), which in turn causes a panic reaction ergo hypervigilance, making the sensory issues much worse.

I was talking about the forming ages of a person (up until +/- twenty-five years) where the survival tendency has it's pervasive effects on the brain and the body.
In short being formed to be mainly a survivor instead of being mainly a person of comfort.

Last edited by Wallourdes on 14 Jan 2011, 3:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.

All humans are subject to the fight or flight response and may be subject to long term survival mode, given enough real or perceived danger or excitement. Some people are very resilient, like the people that do several tours of combat duty and come back okay. Others are not as mentally or physically resilient and suffer from combat fatigue, PTSD, all related to the stress response.

It stands to reason that Autistic people, many of whom are born with sensory, communication and cognitive issues may be less resilient to stress because their inherent issues make life harder to deal with. Harder equals more stress. The physiological result of hypervigilence is increased stress hormones which cause an individuals pupils to dilate for greater visual acuteness, and in general all of the other senses are heightened. This is not to say that hypervigilence, the fight or flight response, or long term survival mode (where the body loses it's ability to reach an equilibrium) has anything to do with the cause of Autism. But, since it heightens everyones senses, can cause memory, communication, mood, and cognitive problems it may be worse on Autistic people that are born with some of these issues.

The way I was explaining it is applicable to anyone, NT or Autistic. It is a common issue for people in an abusive relationship, prostitution, combat, or any other situation where a person cannot escape real or perceived danger or excitement for a long period of time.

If a person can never relax, cannot remember relaxing, or doesn't even know what relaxing means, chances are they have been in survival mode a very long time and can't remember what it was like to have homeostatsis.

(*bump*)

I'm actually a very laid-back, relaxed person. However, some of my thoughts don't make any sense in context. Some of how my brain works seems totally crazy unless you transplant the thought processes into someone in a war. Someone in a war alone with no one to trust, with reason to believe anyone could betray them.

Then the things I think fit. The ways I behave fit. But I'm not stressed; I'm not jumpy or on edge. I just sort of naturally think that way.