Fight or Flight

“Why are you always running from something?”

If you are not happy where you are, you are not going to be happy anywhere else. The harsh truth we are all aware of yet still try to defeat every time we leave.

The fight-or-flight response is a survival instinct humans have developed in the prehistoric caveman days that has to do with our sympathetic nervous system releasing various stress hormones into our body in response to being exposed to, actual or perceived, danger. Those hormones work to get us into an alert state and prepare us to fight off the threat or run for our life.

These days, we are not exposed to many life-threatening situations in our day to day life and our brains reacting to not-so-serious things, releasing hormones and sending us into a prolonged, unnecessary fight-or-flight mode is what typically makes us stressed out.

I happen to know all this from having studied this particular topic extensively due to failing my pharmaceutical chemistry course multiple times before I finally got it right. I shall never forget looking at those textbook pictures of Neanderthals with outlined sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems over and over again.

But I don’t really want to talk about science, cavemen, and hormones right now. Rather than primal instincts, I’d like to use fighting and fleeing as a metaphor and a choice we all have when it comes to dealing with stressful situations.

I think I was in Portugal when I realized that the best way of dealing with an uncomfortable situation might be to physically remove myself from it as soon as possible.

I spent three months in that beautiful country, worked in four different places and impulsively fled every single one of them before the date I was originally supposed to leave. The first time, it was only a day or two before my planned departure, but as time went by, my patience got shorter and my tolerance for, no matter how minuscule, transgressions or disrespect towards my persona got close to zero.

I have always had the mindset of perseverance and it’s no wonder that discovering this amazing new possibility of just leaving instead of facing an uncomfortable situation took me so long.

But once I realized that when it comes to “fight or flight”, the flight is, indeed, a viable option even for me, there was no going back.

It is such an easy thing to do.

Or maybe it wasn’t in Portugal. Maybe it was even earlier than that, since the whole “me deciding to go to Portugal for an entire semester and letting my university courses run unattended until I choose to come back” was, in itself, an act of rebellion and escapism.

The point is, while until not so long ago I’ve always employed the “fight” tactic when experiencing stress, I slowly found out that while it might not be so rewarding, the “flight” option was often easier, better for my mental health and resulted in less drama for everyone involved.

But for me, it often doesn’t just mean leaving the room or removing myself from a stressful situation. It very often means running away in the literal sense. To another place, another city, another country, another continent.

Hell, I would probably move to another planet if it was possible.

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you got to keep moving.”

I’m not delusional to think the grass is greener somewhere. I’ve been to many places in the world and they all have their own set of issues and people that are either great or shitty. It’s not the place that’s appealing to me. It’s the act of moving itself.

And since the moment I discovered this wonderful thing called running away from your problems, I haven’t stopped.

Several months ago, when I was still living the regular 9-to-5 life in Prague and the world hasn’t been a pandemic playground, I was on the chat with my friend as he was moving countries in pursuit of his Master’s degree. I confided in him that I might also be making some changes to my life and moving pretty soon.

His response?

“Haha, you are amazing, always on the run!”

Followed by:

“Seems like you don’t have any responsibilities that would hold you down?”

Those few words were enough to make me feel a strange, unsettling mixture of emotions. It was hauntingly accurate. I didn’t have anything that would be important enough for me to stay. I just wasn’t sure whether “amazing” was the right word to describe it.

“Wherever you go, there you are.”

I would like to think that my tendency to always leave and try my luck elsewhere in pursuit of more fulfillment and happiness is a choice rather than a compulsion.

I don’t believe that we can accurately decide on what do you want your life to look like unless we’ve tried different things first. And I believe that life is too short to stay in situations that are not working for us for longer than absolutely necessary.

But I also realize that the saying “wherever you go, there you are” exists for a reason. We can change our environment, but the core, deep-rooted issues will always come with us no matter how far away we run. You cannot just leave them behind like an old bike or broken chairs from your last apartment.

You cannot outrun your inner problems. And so you take your invisible baggage with you wherever you go. It might, at times, seem not as heavy, as we are no longer around things and people that remind us of our past trauma. But it tends to resurface and when it does, it’s bad.

“Why are you always running from something?”

My parents belong to a group of people who don’t believe that my movement around the world is justified. They don’t disapprove, per se, but at times when everyone else is congratulating me on my next move, my parents ask me what am I running from this time.

“Do you think that this is going to finally make you happy?”

And the answer is, I don’t know, mom and dad. But I’d rather find out for myself than ponder upon that question from the so-called comfort of home.

Not everything I do is because I’m unhappy. Sometimes I’m running away from something and sometimes I’m just trying to have fun. Often both. But it’s none of anyone’s business but mine.

Right now, as we are living through a strange historical event and our freedom of movement has been restricted, my, admittedly already not so healthy, go-to coping mechanism is not very useful.

As I am currently not in my best shape when it comes to mental health, my initial reaction would be to pack up my stuff and move. After all, I am currently an unemployed backpacker, moving is what I should be doing.

But the country I am in has closed its borders. The states within the country have closed their borders. And the regions within the state I’m in have, also, closed their borders. I am trapped in a city that I can’t leave even if I tried unless it’s on a repatriation flight and I have never felt so restricted in my life.

Maybe this is a sign for me to start fighting again.

To slow down. To stop the chase for the mystical something, somewhere better for a while. To sit with myself and think about a solution to my current situation that doesn’t involve physically transporting myself to a different location.

It’s ironic. I am sitting in my room, writing about a habit I have that might be a problem while thinking simultaneously thinking about all the places I could be and all the things I could do instead. I feel slobby. I hate being idle.

But maybe this is exactly what I am supposed to do. Fight my way through a difficult time with writing being my weapon of choice.

Maybe traveling is my flight response to stress and writing is my fight one.

And if that’s the case, I shall fight my demons from my laptop until we can freely move again and it’s time for me to flee once more.