It's true that fear can often paralyze us more than the situation itself. In moments of crisis, our minds tend to magnify the potential dangers, leading to a heightened state of panic. This makes me wonder, how can we train ourselves to remain calm and focused in such high-pressure moments? What strategies do you think might help in turning fear into a source of strength rather than a threat?
@@TheStoicBeacon-TGG I was just learning about this and replaying times when a crisis was occuring and what I did to get through it despite being diagnosed with panic disorder. I always found the next thing I needed to do outside of me and focused on that. And kept doing that through the whole crisis. Everytime I started to get afraid of how I was feeling I said okay to it and got right back to the task at hand. Turned out I was most calm person in the situation and was handling everything that needed to be done. The energy I had from the panic made it easy for me to get things done super quickly and if I needed strength I had plenty of energy to power it.
@TheStoicBeacon-TGG I lived 2 blocks away when The Station night club fire took 100 people. In the morning everything outside was covered in a thin layer of ash. Now, every time I enter a building, I survey the exits. I notice which direction the doors open. And I position myself if possible with a clear line of exit. To answer your question, being mentally and physically prepared helps me stay calm because I have a plan and I reverse it in my mind. Some people think this is somehow morbid. I think it's survival instinct.
Anyone who has been through military basic training wonders why instructors are yelling most the time. It's not to be heard. It's to train everyone to react in a negative situation without freezing up. It works.
@@justdiane5Right? By the time I was 10, my parents communicated with me solely in the style of "Full Metal Jacket" boot camp instructor. It wasn't pleasant, but it certainly taught me how to keep my head when everyone else is losing theirs.
It still blows my mind to this day when I was in bct and we had people who cracked during reception and shark attack and me and my battle had to sit and monitor them whilst they slept or we had to go with them to the ER as they were going to self delete. Had their belts and laces taken off them and no pens etc. day 2 in reception at fort leonardwood and we had to do self delete watch with one guy. How exactly does one mentally fall apart in reception?
this is also why I don't yell when there's an emergency, because, counterintuitively, yelling at people is less likely to get them to do what you need done. the best option for average people is to point at them and give them one calm but clear instruction, and then pick another person for the next instruction, because people can do ONE thing they've been asked to do quite effectively, even if the rest of the situation is too much to handle.
I don't know about you but when my adrenaline is really high and stuff is happening I don't consciously feel any emotion. Car crash? Nothing during the event. In a fight? I could be in a furious argument and the moment he takes a swing at my all my emotion switches off (noted by people around me, apparently it's horrifying seeing me knock someone out like I'm doing chores), calling up the insurance companies as a child when my mum had a seizure on holiday? Completely numb. Friends vein gets sliced open because someone was fucking around with a knife? I'm applying first aid before anyone else has moved.
@anonperson3972 no emotions at the time, it's like a shutter closes off all emotions. Later on when I can finally relax, usually alone, I have an emotional storm, shaking and crying myself to sleep. When I wake up, I am ready to go on with life.
I’m the way when something happens I can turn off my emotions and feelings and just get things done one task at a time just do it I also can get people to do what needed to be done. Now after it’s done I will have a breakdown mostly when I’m alone when It skinks in what just happened. Fear is a good thing it can keep you alive in some situations. It all comes down to the 3 Fs. Fight Flight Freeze.
I have suffered from PTSD for decades, undiagnosed at the time. What she is saying is just the tip of the iceberg that people with trauma have learned as a survival skill. The people that you know who are hypervigilant, are likely the ones who will operate in a functional way during a crisis.
I was waiting for her to bring up trauma survivors. I am sorry about your PTSD, I am right there with you. I have found that despite PTSD and having anxiety/panic disorder, when life threatening crises happen I seem to be the only one that knows what to do while everyone around me just sits. I don't know if we compartmentalize survival (not just our own!) in a different way in our brains or what. You'd think I'd be in the "paralyzed" club, maybe it's the "NEVER AGAIN!" mindset? It sounds crazy - for an every day regular person like me to say this and it's not a brag but I've saved lives before and been shocked that in a small group it was me of all people who knew how to keep everyone safe and asap. We can save lives, perhaps because our own have been threatened and that counts as "training" and our hypervigilance definitely helps us in these situations, too.
Lol I actually came here to say this. I survived a very adverse childhood, a toxic mix of poverty, association with a religious cult, and parents who were addicted and rotated between extremely abusive and then completely neglectful. I have ADHD and in the 80s, nobody knew girls could have it, so at school, I was just labeled weird and bullied by everyone, both students and teachers. I was thrown out of home and shunned by the cult at 16, so I couch surfed and worked 2 jobs the last 2 years of high school, then lied about my age to get my own apartment lease, and on went life from there. Adulthood has been substantially better since I am able to advocate and decide for myself, but that abuse and neglect (certain illegal pictures were taken from ages 4-12) is a ghost in my head that has caused complex ptsd. My entire life has been spent acting halfway normal, halfway crisis; because I have major trust issues and even some very everyday ordinary things are big triggers. I tend to withdraw and go my own way without asking for ir really even wanting help. When serious life events do happen, I don't shut down. I don't mill around discussing. I don't consider the opinions of other people except for maybe 2 or 3 out of 8 billion. My instincts tell me what actions are right, and I do them. Fear goes away until afterwards, when I can quiver for a week. I've been told I get scary eyes if I need to be aggressive in the situation, like the time I intimidated a drunk guy who tried to mug me and my best friend. I've been called courageous for putting out an itty bitty office wastebasket fire with an extinguisher. I didn't particularly feel brave or virtuous. I was just relieved the problem was gone. Then there's the downside of it: that my actions are completely self-centeted towards me and the people I love, my husband and kids, my friends, and that's it. In my mind at big crisis times (like the pandemic and all the toilet paper shenanigans), society can kiss my ass. I'd like to think I wouldn't turn into a pirate in a societal collapse, I'd like to think in a public safety crisis, like a natural disaster, if there were people injured or in danger, that I'd help them. That I wouldn't just be selfish and somewhat antisocial. I haven't ever had to find out. I don't want to find out. I hate trouble.
Likewise. It's a blessing to be present in those dangerous situations, to realise what is happening and to take appropriate action. It is also bliss to be helped by an unexpected guardian angel. These are the moments where humanity is at its finest, I feel. @@TheLampini
I've experienced this. I was on an airplane that was boarding for a flight. I looked out my window and saw a massive tornado coming towards us. I called the flight attendant and told her there's a tornado coming and we need to get everyone off the plane. Other passengers were asking each other what they should do. The people at the gate said we couldn't get off the plane because of FAA rules, but that doesn't make sense in the current situation. I don't know what a tornado would do to an airplane, but I'm not sitting around waiting to find out. I'm getting off the plane. I was was forceful on my need to get off the plane. Ultimately, they determined it was safer to de-board the plane and get everyone in the basement (concrete underbelly) of the airport.
Holy mother of God, that's my biggest fear: tornadoes and being out in the open with one, defenseless. I grew up and live in Texas and I've been remarkably lucky to have not experienced a tornado yet, despite the fact that the immediate surrounding area gets hit several times a year. I have recurring nightmares about tornadoes. I would've been right there with you, demanding to be let off the plane.
Same. Diff context though. I was in a serious incident as a teen with friends. We were getting mugged and they all froze. Long story short, I had to drive the car home for everyone and keep them moving to the police station etc.
“The biggest mistake I’ve seen in every disaster I’ve ever covered is that the people in charge do not trust the public. They think that the public is going to panic, misbehave and do stupid things so they don’t tell them the full truth which leads the public to do, sometimes, unwise things. That problem is bigger than most of the threats we face.” ~ Amanda Ripley There is so much said in this statement alone and it is applicable to many things today.
@@ulysses_ody hi! So as noted already by RipleyFAFOt8b, it is a quote directly out of the video. Your question has me realizing it might be best to say that in my original comment so I’ve edited it to add the speakers name. ☺️🙏🏼
like theres some truth the general public cann be stupid but i despise when people leave out information in fear of making things worse only for that to be another bad problem in the end
I witnessed this process several years ago when I was working at a restaurant. I was standing right outside of the entryway to the kitchen when suddenly the stoves burst into pretty good-sized flames (grease fire). Every employee ran out of the kitchen past me, stopped where it was relatively safe, and just froze and started watching the fire from a distance. In this group of employees was even the manager. I remember looking at all of them standing there and thinking, "Why is no one putting it out!?" Only to realize that I was doing the same thing. That thought instantly snapped me out of it, and I ran into the kitchen, grabbed a fire extinguisher, and put the fire out. I probably wouldn't have reacted had I not had previous experience in putting out my neighbor's small apartment fire a couple of years prior. My reaction also caused one other employee to react and run into the kitchen to help me, I had never spoken with him before that, so that was pretty cool. What was not cool was the company only giving me a 15-cent raise after a year of working there when I was one of only two people who saved their entire building from possibly burning to the ground. I put in my two weeks quickly after that.
During my freshman year of high school i took a CPR training course offered in the student lounge. I'm not sure why i did ( Probably because a boy I had a crush on was also taking it). But I did take it and really never thought much more about it. By my senior year my parents had gotten divorced and I had been shuffled back and forth. I ended up living with my father who had had some heart problems. One night I had come home from a date around midnight and got in bed. Within a few minutes my father stood in my doorway and said, "I don't think I'm going to make it this time." And then he just walked away and disappeared around the corner. I quit got out of bed just in time to see him collapse on the kitchen floor. I went over to him and checked for a pulse and I couldn't find one. And I looked at his eyes and they were rolled back in his head. At this time they were just starting to roll out 911 in my state, It was in some of the Chicago suburbs but not all. So the first thing I did was try calling 911... And it didn't work. I tried again because I thought maybe I had made a mistake. And it still did not work. So I went on automatic pilot and immediately started doing CPR on him. This was back when you still had to do mouth-to-mouth. I kept doing the chest compressions and breathing into his mouth and telling him he couldn't die on me. I want to say that maybe between 5 and 8 minutes later his eyes fluttered. And then he opened his eyes. I asked him if he could hear me. He mumbled something So I knew he was alive. I then called the operator and said I needed an ambulance. Skipping ahead, He ended up having a massive heart attack and needed a triple bypass. They told me if I had not been there and done CPR he would have died. For some strange reason I seem to be able to keep my head in a crisis. Some kind of automatic pilot thing just kicks in and my brain starts organizing and delegating. I'm usually the one people call or come to when things are dire. But I came from a household that was full of crisis a lot. I guess that was my way of coping...to take control.
@@wacowildcatyes. I went on to become a mental health care therapist and worked primarily with children and adolescents and their families who were considered high risk. Lots of suicidal ideation and attempts/self harm, abuse, sexual abuse. I was also a therapist at a juvenile prison. It takes a lot to rattle my cage. My mother on the other hand has a very exaggerated startled response and always has.
Your story is exactly why I think emergency training, evacuation drills, and first aid should be done with everyone. Your first emergency, you'll freeze up, unless you have some ingrained training to fall back on. After you've faced and gone through an emergency, you're more likely to go "Ok, I've seen this before, I need to act" and just get going. The first time I ever had to call emergency services, I was panicking, but once I did, I was calm, and I've been calm in almost every crisis situation since then. Getting past that first delay - just starting to act, to do something, just do *anything* - gives your brain the kick start to keep going. You can train this, but because most people don't face true crisis moments, we don't know how to start. I think people are affected by adrenaline and cortisol and all the stress hormones differently, so I don't think everyone can become cool in a crisis (past trauma affects these responses too, usually negatively). But if you're someone who can learn calm, train it, because it can save lives.
Weird. I was at a hotel when the fire alarm went off in the middle of the night. Jumped out of bed, got my husband and kids up, grabbed what we couldn't replace (work computer and medication), got us down the stairs and into our van as quick as we could. There wasn't a fire, someone had pulled the alarm, but it shocked me how many people just... Went back to sleep? My own siblings and parents in different rooms didn't even answer their phones at first? They were grumpy i was bothering them? Told me nothing seemed wrong so they weren't going anywhere? Took forever for the fire department to declare the building safe, no fire, and i still had trouble going back to sleep. I've just always been flabbergasted how everyone else reacted to a fire alarm in the middle of the night.Thank you, this explains a lot.
Some people would literally be sitting there in a cafe outside with their wife as some world war z crazy shit is happening 2 blocks away and everyone is running or worried and be like “why’s everyone freaking out? Ugh some people… another coffee please” instead of saying “honey we need to go now” no survival instincts because they’ve never had to use them. Growing up constantly safe sheltered and never dealing with any actual danger I think is damaging, pulls people into this over falsity delusion of confidence that “everything is fine it’s not the end of the world it’s probably just…” famous last words
I was at a residential choir camp last year and on the first night I woke up to beeping. Thought it was my alarm at first but I checked my phone and it was 1am and so I followed the beeping outside my room and turns out it was the fire alarm. Out of my floor of 20ish girls (we didn't have a welfare staff member on our floor) only me and one other woke up and we both looked at eachother before going to find our welfare member on the floor above except that whole floor was evacuated outside on the stairs. Turns out it was just one of the fire doors wasn't closed properly and something knocked it open but I was so out of it and so used to fire alarm drills that it never occurred to me to do anything other than to get a staff member to turn it off. I don't even think I can blame it on the sleep deprivation because it took me most of the week to realise why my floormates were panicking about not waking up to the alarm.
Sounds like you have challenges with anxiety. So do I. And I'm convinced that it will be the reason for my early demise one day due to the accumulated weight of all that stress on my internal organs over the years. It may have saved me one or two times from real dangers, but overall it's a disorder that doesn't serve me well in day-to-day life.
@@ulysses_ody Better yet, there will be a boss who says to the waiter "what are you looking at? The gentleman placed an order". I worked as a cashier for a fast food joint in a mall once upon a time. There were regular fire drills which we were notified about, so great; but one time the sauna of a gym just a floor up from the restaurant actually caught on fire. We had no idea what the situation was, whether the fire was contained or spreading, but an evacuation order had been and effect, yet boss man was like "well, we won't take any more orders, but we have to make the rest of the orders"... Like dude. Is the price of a whopper and large fries truly worth risking your life over? The life of your employees? Can't say I shed many tears once I could finally leave that place.
@@yoruichisan19 this!!! My first job was McDonald’s as a teen, there was this retired regular me and my coworkers referred to as “frappe man” that would come in and joke with us and bring us donuts sometimes but always ordered a large caramel frappe it was like his thing, there was a starbucks across the street and mcd coffee ain’t that great but eh to each their own - he’s sitting in the drive thru line about to order, when a woman up the street has a full blown seizure while driving goes pedal to the metal barrels through the intersection full speed up the hill to our parking lot goes fucking briefly airborne and rams into frappe man. (granted young and dumb she was like 21) manager took like 3 minutes to fully understand what happened and call 911 only grasping the situation when she saw it on the security cameras. Frappe man ended up not making it to the hospital (tbh he wasn’t going to make it either way the delayed response didn’t make much of a difference with the shape he was in) the woman survived but one of the cars was leaking fluid and caught on fire a bit of a crowd gathered a few of us went outside to see what happened, she gets frantic saying we’ll all be written up go back inside now and take care of the orders (fair, but there was only three people inside that had all been taken care of and it’s not like we could take anymore orders besides the literal accident being an impassible obstruction our big ass drive thru menu display was sitting on his hood and the speaker was somewhere under the car, I’m sure the people 3 ppl in line that were in front of the accident will understand the delay there’s a goddamn car fire behind them) and it took some random guy to coordinate getting everyone out of the parking lot and the 3 people in line got their food in like a minute and a half once we headed back in, which wasn’t long into her tirade but she continued to reprimand us even as we were walking back to our stations, so worried about customer orders she didn’t handle a situation that literally put those same customers at risk it was insanity 😭
I don’t know if I would call it “training” but my childhood PTSD has given me a dissociative response to fear. I can delay the fear until after I’m out of danger. It’s really useful for staying level headed in a crisis.
I'm the same. It's quite adaptive really. Fear is a warning system, once the event is going on you shouldn't be feeling emotion, just adrenaline and calculation. when my adrenaline is really high and stuff is happening I don't consciously feel any emotion. Car crash? Nothing during the event. In a fight? I could be in a furious argument and the moment he takes a swing at my all my emotion switches off (noted by people around me, apparently it's horrifying seeing me knock someone out like I'm doing chores), calling up the insurance companies as a child when my mum had a seizure on holiday? Completely numb. Friends vein gets sliced open because someone was fucking around with a knife? I'm applying first aid before anyone else has moved. But I did have a couple of times when I was a kid when I panicked and it didn't help. One time I was being choked out, panicked and then I managed to calm myself down and then with a calmer mind get the guy off and win (when your 12-13 being choked from behind by a 15-16 year old is quite scary). I think after that, my brain learned to avoid panic and dissociate from emotions.
@anonperson3972 I never thought about exactly what I am feeling during a crisis, but you hit the nail on the head, adrenaline and calculated response. Thank you,
@@anonperson3972sounds like you and me had a very similar life mate. Everything you said is spot on, though people in your life tend to view you in a bad way because of it.
That's postponement of effect, and is a very common response to mortal danger. It's not caused by PTSD but can actually create PTSD as the emotions rush in all at once.
My house caught fire, in the bathroom. My response was, this isn't happening, I'm not losing everything. I started the taps and filling buckets, jugs, anything I had, and throwing water every where, while shouting for my son to get out. The fire was by a wall but I couldn't see because of smoke. But I carried on filling and throwing water until the fire was out. That's when I looked at my hand, the taps I'd turned on, were so hot they had burnt my hands, and were blistered. I couldn't speak for more than a week because of the smoke. It's not what you should do. In fact, don't do what I did. Save yourself and family.
I had always had that fear that I would stand by and watch. Well, about three months ago, I was living with my boyfriend in our crappy apartment, when our neighbor's suite caught fire, and the building alarms failed to go off. I told him to grab our cat (he can't smell) and run with her outside. I ran down our hall and started banging on the doors of our neighbors and yelling to get out, while on the phone with 911. I and my upstairs neighbor prevented the whole place from burning down. Still really proud of that.
I’m a survivor of the Tubbs fire of 2017. My roommates and I were lucky to be awake that night (it barreled into our neighborhood at about 12:30am) and we hit every stage. Thankfully, denial lasted all of 10 minutes and deliberation was about 3 minutes. Within 15 minutes of discovering ash falling into our backyard, we were banging on our neighbor’s doors and rounding up our pets. Our house was in flames about ten minutes after evacuating (according to a neighbor). 22 people died from that fire and 6,000 buildings burned. I had coworkers who lived the same neighborhood who awoke to their homes already aflame and sadly had to abandon their pets in order to survive. Not a single cop or firefighter to warned us. Not a text message, or phone call, not a siren. NOTHING. I will never, EVER forgive the city of Santa Rosa for that. They knew the fire was coming but my neighbors died because our city sat in silence. I moved out of California five months later and I will never look back.
@ the city did recognize its outrageous mistake and there is now an emergency text alert you can sign up for. The majority of the city’s response during that fire went straight to the richest neighborhood in the city. Granted, it was on a hill surrounded by old oak trees and a lot of those big houses had crazy long driveways, so they were in the most danger. But they still could’ve sent at least one car with a loudspeaker into the more heavily populated neighborhood to warn us. It’s like the video said, the response authorities give is to “cause less panic” but it ends up with more loss of life and property. 7 years later and I still get livid thinking about it.
I’m pretty sure my ADHD is partially to blame for this. In new and unique situations I thrive. I’m very good at solving complex problems quickly if there are major consequences of not solving it. Normal life… I have no drive to do anything if it all feels the same. I freeze under normal circumstances.
From a child's perspective, here it is. I think that the older you get, the longer you deny and deliberate. In the seventh grade, a few months back, I felt an earthquake in school. It took about seven seconds, but I got under the desk, then just yanked my friend down there without warning when she didn't get under. We were the only two people down there, even though the whole class sensed the shaking. They just pretended like nothing happened. Then the announcement happened, and everyone got down there along with us. The earthquake before that was in the fifth grade, and half my class was under their desks before the announcement even came on, me along with them.
do you think part of that might be because people are too afraid to seem like they're overreacting? i sometimes find myself not doing anything in a situation where i perceive danger simply because i don't want others to think i'm being hysterical or overreacting.
@@ash1377 There is some truth to that. I also think that fear of (legal) liability in potentially doing the wrong thing and to some degree, conditioning to wait for the authorities or higher officials to give instructions play a role in this. Problem is when said authorities aren't around or misreads the situation when the totality of the issue comes into play. The recent SoCal wildfires (responders can't be everywhere in the hot zones) and a certian critical incident in Uvalde, Texas (mismanagement of response by officials) come to mind where individuals had to act on their own to save themselves or others.
Was a Wildland firefighter. Have a very calm life now, still lust after emergencies. Suddenly everything makes sense. Not existential dread. Real problems. Came across an active car accident recently, people injured -yelling, vehicles still rolling. Time stops and a cascade of problem solving flow charts and triage priorities begin flowing like a symphony . Work all the time to make life predictable and safe but seeing the chaos my first response was “ awesome, I can be helpful. let’s go! 😃”
Absolutely, I'm only new in healthcare but have done a few cardiac arrests. It's like everything clicks into place and your brain just stops and goes "okay, let's get to work"
4:28 “One of the reasons the evacuation took so long is that people who were evacuating from the upper floors would let the people coming in below them go first.” Man that made me depressed. Watching stuff from 9/11 is already extremely depressing, but man. These were good people.
@No.Good.Nickname People who were evacuating from, for example, Floor 11 would let people coming into the stairwell from Floor 10 go fully out first, is how I took that to mean.
@@LittleHobbit13 What I took it to mean: if you’re going down the stairs and you encounter people that want to enter the stairs, you let them go ahead of you.
I have really severe ADHD and in case of situations like this I become highly productive, otherwise I’m not being able to get up and force myself to brush my teeth or take a shower, can’t focus, can’t find motivation, but in a highly stressful situations I become a totally different person, I would solve world’s hunger problem and find a cancer cure if one could stress me enough
Same, I am filled with anxiety from mundane. But when someone's hurt, power goes out for a week, or there's chaos. I am collected and rational. Kinda frustrating.
My B-I-L was on 92 floor of WTC on 9/11 .. the guy he was meeting with had been there when the bomb had gone off underneath a few years earlier. The guy said “we’re leaving” when the first plane hit the other tower, they didn’t know what the sound was, and the tannoy system was telling them to stay put. They waited for the express elevator to stop on their floor, rather than take the stairs, and were able to exit the building minutes before it was attacked…. Their calm response to be under threat, and not simply complying with instructions, saved their lives
@@Aera223 years before 911 there was a bomb set off in the basement of one of the towers (to try and knock out the structure support I think) Two separate things. The guy experienced the first bombing, which helped get away years later on 911.
Thats so dumb they say to stay put. Like what are you guys supposed to do, wait to get burned or crushed? They really need to start changing policies on how to handle disasters
I am far from "fearless" but there are few things that really put a sense of fear in me. I learned that the biggest was the madness of large crowds in a panic. Years ago at an overcrowded night club, I was sitting with a girl I was dating at the time and with a friend of mine and his girl. We were all in our 20's. The table we were sitting was about 8 meters at most from the exit. Amidst the loud music and dancing, there was suddenly a sense of shifting mood. People were scramming around, shouting and heading to the exit and yelling at people as they were leaving. In hindsight, they were warning others of a fire that erupted in the back. But their voices were largely drown out by the music. Soon, the music stopped and as now visible smoke was pouring into the main hallway, the DJ announce for people to "calmly evacuate." But panic quickly sat in and people began rushing to the only one exit. It didn't help that the hallway rated officially for 500 people probably had twice as many people. Nor did it help that the exit was no more than two standard doors wide. As people funneled to the exit, a bottleneck quickly formed. Tables were overthrown or pushed. My party were quickly swept by a wave of what can only be described as a human wall of utter chaos of unbelievable and uncontrollable force that left you convinced you would have been crushed alive and if you fell and would have been trampled to death. You could not move or go to any direction other than where this solid confinement chose seemingly by its own according to move. But forced to the edge of the wall, where I narrow ledge was, I managed to get myself onto it and pull my girlfriend, watching as my friend and his girl were hopeless pulled apart from the mindless torrent of people as if dissolved in mouth of a mindless, indifferent beast. My heart was racing, and my mind was ever observant, searching for some escape. But there was nothing to do but wait for a chance for some gap, as improbably as that was to come. More smoke poured in and people, now coughing, some screaming, pushed violently but to no avail. Some frantically grabbed onto my ankles trying to pull me down, making me have to kick their hands away. At this point, most people become mindless animals, reacting to dangers in such deeply irrational ways they create almost a certainty of the death and outcomes they fear. Had people stayed calm and filed out calmly, that entire room would have been easily cleared out in under two minutes, but instead the majority of people were stuck inside for well over ten minutes, until at long last enough had finally cleared out for people to begin moving faster. By this time the fire department and police arrived making loud announcements for people to stop pushing at the back and remain claim and allow those in the front to exit. This went out for a few minutes until people seemed now more relaxed in seeing they were not dying and seeing other in front were getting out. Around this time, there was enough room for me and the young woman I was with to get down and in a minute or so there after we were out on the street. She broke down and cried and later remarked how "brave I was" but I was internally absolutely in shocked and nearly frightened to death by the terrible chaos I was witnessing and the sense of utter hopelessness there was nothing you could do against the madness of a panicked crowd. I have since been held up at gun point, nearly died in a small aircraft stall, and other arguably eventful life-and-death situations, but nothing has scared me more than this event and if I were to choose having to relive any of the worst scares experienced, it be facing that man with a gun. I'm not special. I honestly don't know had I been in the middle of that crowd how I would have reacted instead of sitting on the edge near the wall. I doubt I would be much if at all different from anyone else. Panic is like a contagion of the mind that spreads rapidly and hijacks the brain. And it is a truly frightening thing to witness and perhaps the worst "injury" as such is the indelible realization it leaves in you that you are not special but just as vulnerable in being any one of the other mindless monkeys in a crowd and when all is said and claimed, an animal still.
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 you just described exactly what it’s like to try to get onto the subway cars at 5pm in NY’s Wall Street station….😂😂😂😂😂😂 pretty much minus the smoke…..man you were very observant and ready to deal with all that, it’s good you didn’t panick it likely saved you and your girl! You got the Stuff needed for a Hero ❤
Absolutely right. The people in power do not trust the masses, hence, people panic. Information should always be honest, transparent and deliberate and aim to empower people, not disempower them into fear
I just learned that actually has a term - it’s called “elite panic” "Elite panic" is a term coined by Rutgers University researchers Caron Chess and Lee Clarke to describe the behavior of members of the elite during disaster events, typically characterized by a fear of civil disorder and the shifting of focus away from disaster relief towards implementing measures of "command and control". Pretty interesting to see it in action … hurricane Helene sort of brought it out.
I wish my employer understood this. Where I work threats of violence against the building(usually not very credible) are somewhat frequent. They never tell us when a threat has been made until after it's resolved. I'm like guys, give us a description of the person who made the threat in case they show up for christ sale lol.
When disasters happen, it's usually locals helping their neighbors that organize to provide disaster relief. Meanwhile government institutions are initially slow to act and corporations send manpower to keep people from taking essential supplies they need from stores (defending their property is more important to them than the basic needs of people)
I'm a pilot and every time I'm on a commercial flight I do this, counting the seats to the exits on both sides ahead and behind because you may not be able to see or have to crawl on the floor because of smoke so you can feel your way out - just like the Tenerife disaster.
I always try to take notice of exits, fire alarms, and extinguishers, as well as how people are generally feeling in an area (for example, are people sitting and relaxing, or is everyone on edge?)
I always count seat backs and have a habit of looking for hiding places in the grocery store, which are always changing. I take pictures of license plates in parking lots as I head out hiking and make eye contact with anyone I see on the trail, as if to say, I know what color your hair is, your jacket, your pants, everything.
A couple of years ago my wife slipped on ice and dislocated her knee. I knew immediately that it was bad, and while she was making jokes and asking for help up I was already calling the ambulance. It was -35°C and we were on the side of a street so put my mitts, hat, and undercoat beneath her to keep her body off the ice until the ambulance arrived. I kept assuring her that she'll be okay and trying to distract her for the 10 mins we were waiting. My affirmations helped keep her calm and even though I was doing the correct actions, she said I looked terrified the entire time and I was. Thankfully before this incident my wife and I were lifeguards with training in first aid and CPR. Before my training I used to freeze and avoid any situation that I didnt know how to deal with so having even a minimal amount of training really does help you become a decision-maker and action-oriented in the face of an unfamiliar and scary situation
Even if you don’t feel super confident about your abilities in crisis say with needing to administer CPR, the fact that you trained means you have run through a scenario in your head that you can tap into during crisis. So many people have never had the thought pop into their head of what to do.
Lifeguards get such extensive emergency training. The first thing they teach you is to assess a scene. I was a lifeguard since I was 14 and some of the shit I've seen! I bet you can imagine.
When my bf fell from a height and broke his spine on a small island in Cambodia, I freaked out and had a big panic attack and hysterically cried. I feel pretty ashamed about it. I let everyone around me help him and help me calm down. I knew it was a bad injury, and he fell in front of me. We were far from home and far from a good hospital. I wish I remained calm and made him feel better, but I knew how much of a shitshow it would be and got overwhelmed; and oh boy, it was. 😢
I have CPTSD and live in a wildfire region. No matter how the disorder may impair me, it is also my superpower. I’ve seen house fires as a child and evacuated from some of the largest wildfires in California history. Last time I evacuated I could see the flames from my window. Of course I was scared and stressed, but I did what I needed to do before I let those emotions overcome me. Living at an animal sanctuary, I was able to mobilize and catch a dozen feral cats and get them all in my car. I waited until we were safe to break down in tears. Everything was still there when I got back.
I honor your experience and comment. However, you can "cure" the CPTSD and keep the measured response in emergencies. Look into energy psychology, like EFT Tapping for example. ❤
I'll never forget the time at work where there was an office crisis going on (nothing catastrophic, just things going terribly wrong operationally) and I was cool and collected and laid out steps that we needed to take to address and resolve the problem. And I found out after the fact that leadership actually held that against me, because in their minds the fact that I wasn't panicking the way they were panicking meant I clearly didn't care that much about the problem and didn't appreciate the importance of how bad things were. I kept my cool and fixed their problem, yet they still had to find fault with me simply because I had "wrong" reaction by not losing my mind about it like they all did. To them: Y'all, I have massive anxiety most days doing normal things. Finally a situation where I can put that energy to good use, and you act like I'm attacking your character. Let me have this one, you jerks. (So glad I don't work there anymore.)
A friend of mine has fallen through the ice once, straight into the water. I just froze up, unable to make a decision in my head as I watched in horror. Luckily, more people were around and they helped my friend out of the water. I apologized a LOT to that friend that day.
My mother is a volunteer EMS. Our family was tubing on a river and near the landing the water is shallow in some spots and really deep in others. There was another family on the river and none of them could swim. One of the kids jumped off his tube in the deeper section not realizing how deep it was(he saw us unload and thought he was safe). The second he hit the water he started flailing and I let out a panicked scream for my mom and pointed. After that I froze as I watched her Olympic swim her way to this kid. I didn't even really process that I was the reason she was swimming to him, but there was nothing I could do at this point(I'm not a strong swimmer myself). The family thanked my mom profusely and after that she came up and hugged me, telling me I saved that boys life(she's deaf so the only reason she noticed him is because I screamed 2ft from her). It was crowded and my mother was the only one to react, even tho there were many other people much closer to the boy. Since no one was reacting, and she couldnt hear the family screaming, I was her only indicator that something was very wrong.
I've actually experienced something kind of like this too during a mall shooting, it was the strangest thing. I'm a very small woman and considered to be fairly meek and quiet. I was managing a small store at the time and heard gunshots. A man of about 6 foot five inches came running in screaming that someone had a gun, I grabbed his arm and pulled the guy into the tiny bathroom in the back of the store and told him to get down on the ground, cover his head, and shut up. Through some burst of adrenaline I pulled a shelf in front of the door and we waited it out in there. Somehow I went from a quiet shy person to a freaking bulldog, very fortunately, not a single person was hurt and we where all ok after.
As much as I was made fun of for being from the slums, one thing I’m always prepared for is a crisis. It’s actually unsettling if a place is too quiet or harmonious. I always sit facing the door of every room I’m in. A therapist I used to see told me that the survival instinct I acquired from my upbringing can either work with me or against me, and I get to decide that.
Here in my country, Brazil, there was a devastating disaster at a nightclub called "Boate Kiss." I’m from the southeast, but at the time, I was in the south with some colleagues on a weekend trip. We were there to party. By chance, we were in Florianópolis when the fire happened in Rio Grande do Sul, at the Boate Kiss. That tragedy came to be known as O Incêndio da Boate Kiss. I’ll never forget receiving a phone call early that morning. It was my mom. Her voice-her tone-is etched into my memory. I felt her despair viscerally. Her screams still haunt me today. It took me a long time to even comprehend what she was saying, but I knew that tone-it was the sound of life and death hanging in the balance. I knew it because we had already experienced a life-or-death event together when I was nine years old. During that moment, she froze. And something in me… shifted. I went into what I can only describe as “warrior mode.” It was as if my childhood dissolved in an instant. That day, I became "a man." Terrified, I did what had to be done. Scared out of my mind, I got us through it. We survived. We’re here. We’re alive. But damn… it was a life-changing, earth-shattering experience-a breakthrough in the most painful sense of the word.
My autism has actually helped me in a time of crisis. 4 years ago, my parents both got drunk one night and my father started punching holes in every wall of the apartment. The rest of the family was freaking out, but I dialed 911 and said "Hi, this is Levi [redacted], my address is [redacted], my father didn't know his limits when drinking and now he's tearing up the apartment. We require immediate assistance."
Lol as a fellow autistic I can relate to this so much. Just going into that clinical "description mode" when something terrible is happening. One time I witnessed a pretty bad fight between two teenagers when I was a kid, and when the cops got there they initially thought that I was hiding something because of how emotionless/clinical my description was. Nope, not hiding anything, just autistic lmao
something similar happens to me in moments of crisis. im also autistic and i happen to be an adrenaline junkie too (i dont know if that is too relevant but it could explain why im good in stressful situations). one day at work a few years back my collegue got a stroke and fell down a flight of stairs, i was the second guy at the scene. the first guy was panicked, frozen and was screaming for help (wich was a good thing, more people noticed because of him). i was twenty ish meters away when it happened and on my way there only seconds after the accident i was already on the phone with 112 (our emergancy nr), for what ever reason i was cool as a cucumber taking directions from them and discribing the situation calmly, whilst also directing the people on the scene so that we could help the ambulance crew get there as fast as possible (its not the easiest place to get an ambulance to the part of the complex where we were) and so that we didnt acceidentally further hurt my collegue by moving him wrong (because we neded to move him so that his airways where free) who was at this point unconcious on the floor. i will spare you the details. luckily everything went well and the ambulance came within 5 min because how close the hospital where to our workplace and my collegue got the help he needed. i always felt wierd about how calm i was and how i never got any trauma from an event that should have given me as much problem as it did my other collegues on the scene who also saw what happened. i rarely ever think about it unless im reminded by something like this vid, and i have no feelings towards the memory at all. its just something that happened, like grabing a coffee in the morning in that regard, maybe its the autism?
I have BPD, ADHD traits, suffer from bipolar disorder and chronic anxiety. Quite disorganized person.. I once found myself in a situation where I needed to react and help quickly (car accident), but my life was not in danger. It was very strange: I finally felt normal! People around me froze and I immediately called an ambulance, communicated with the victim and calmed her down, etc. Only when it was over, the ambulance had left... I started to shake. It was like my whole being was in constant danger and stress and when the situation came, my inner self and reality finally corresponded.
My mom has anxiety and yelled “FIRE!!!” Followed by incoherent mumbling along the lines of… “it’s an electrical fire there’s not enough flour or salt or anything to smother it oh my god oh my god!!!” Without moving, without calling, without breathing. I walked up and said “mom look” and dumped a small amount of salt on the stove, and it went out in less than 1 second. There were 4 kids under 10, plus me, the eldest daughter and only other adult in the house. It was about to hit the curtains and instead of trying, she named reasons why it wouldn’t work. She could have trapped them in a burning house as the kitchen was near the front door. I still look back and feel somewhat angry because what if my entire family died due to her panic. I know I shouldn’t judge, but the fact that it was our mother that was failing us makes me worried about her capacity.
Sounds like you're judging her a little too much there. Your reasoning is sound but as you said, she was panicking. Next time she'll likely handle it better. Have empathy and show her compassion, those will save you all a lot of trouble.
we sink to the level of our training. if you are worried about this, get her a basic firefighting course as a gift. I've had similar experiences and it's frustrating but also fixable
Many people are not reliable or even useful in serious situations. It’s disappointing, but once you learn this about someone you must take it into account.
@@Content_Deleted Sounds like you aren't even a part of that family and are judging a little too much for something you have no idea about. A kid had to cover for their siblings and moms life. They are allowed to feel resentment, but the best thing to do is to talk afterwards.
I'm great in a crisis! It's the only time I can put my smarts to use without distraction. Severe hyperactive ADHD = constant seeking of stimulation to satiate my starving dopamine receptors. It takes a veritable deluge of stimulation to top me up to "normal"- but on the rare occasion that this occurs, the ceaseless urge to stim/move/talk/find sources of stimulation finally abates and I feal positively serene. Crises are my safe place.
I was in the paradise fire - camp fire . My brother is a former firefighter and he was working in oroville . He called and was trying not to act panicked but I could tell it was really really bad . I was panicked. My mom was trying to dry clothes and get food together . Me and my brother were like we gotta go now . As scared as I was I helped my mom get out as fast as possible . Thank God for my brother . His ability to keep calm and direct us out really saved us . After evacuating I drove to my school but I needed to leave town and he told me the route to get out and where to rendezvous. Most traumatic day of my life. And after reading some comments .. my marine corps training may have helped my response
Why does that negative panic hit me only during exams and asking out a girl Fire? Respond swiftly and smoothly. Tornado? On my toes ready to jump to help. A test?…… shutdown anxiety, forget everything. Asking her out? Freeze, and struggle to say words.
Because your actually capable and can think under real world physical your survival is up to you type situations, would probably do great in a UN fema position, emt/combat medic/ER nurse, firefighter, police officer, etc. Most people talk a big game and freeze up, they can’t comprehend their false reality of “I’m safe” has been shattered and this really might be it
The latter has an easy and/or concrete and rehearsed solution. There's too many unknowns and uncertainties about the former situations. What also affects things is how much you believe you are capable of succeeding in the particular situation, and how important it is to your survival to make a snappy decision and act quickly and confidently.
Oml same! I think it has to do with thinking things throughs. A fire, tornado, a flood, someone getting injured, right now is not the time to become the thinker, it is the time to take action. I think exams and asking people out you have so much time then you should to think how everything could go wrong. Actual disasters you don't get the luxury of time to think how it could go wrong, only a limited time to find a solution.
I know who I become, since I've had to do it. I become cool and collected, I become good at calming others down, and I take on a "motherly" role. Not quite leading everyone to safety, but stopping panic and encouraging people to keep going. If someone gets tired, injured, has a mental breakdown I can console them. I have an enhanced ability for recall. Finally, all my trivial knowledge becomes useful. When the crisis is over I have to crash and recover for days.
I have had a few crisis situations, and my immediate reaction is autopilot fight to help. There is no anger, no scared-just heightened blank direction. I don’t ask, I don’t say, I just go and do. Unfortunately I have been through it too much and that can be my reaction to little things now to. My body trained itself, but most times it is unnecessary or even a damaging overreaction.
I have PTSD from an ex violent husband and being bullied from my job. I freeze at interpersonal conflict impacting me yet am super calm, logical and effective at problem solving, helping get others out of bad situations.
Out of my entire household, including parents and 3 siblings plus me, I've always been the last person most of my relatives would point to when asked to pick who's most likely to react in a more or less reasonable or survivalist manner during freak incidents or natural disasters. I would have always picked myself last as well back in the day, until the time when I ran into a quaking restaurant during an earthquake that hit the east coast around the year 2011, I think, to escort an elderly couple out of the back of the restaurant as well as my oldest brother... who was frozen in panic. He didn't even know what was happening when I snapped him out of it. (He has always been seen as the A type, quick thinker by most other relatives.) Then this one time a very angry female Rottweiler that was trained to guard a large property broke off of its very heavy, thick chain and aimed straight for an 11-year-old girl... every single other person (males, females, older, younger, tall, small) reacted by jolting as far away as possible. I just remember screaming "NO!" before running to try and grab her off the ground. I was like maybe 24... and she was not light, so the best I could do was basically dangle her side to side while the dog kept jumping to each of my sides... was it smart? Not for my sake... but for some reason the dog had set its sight strictly on the little girl, otherwise I would have ended up... I don't even know how many ways that could have gone wrong for me. The groundskeeper eventually showed up and managed to contain her, though. (We weren't trespassing, btw, it was a guided tour, lol). To this day my cousins that were there seem puzzled that out of all people there I was the one that got all altruistic for some off reason and was quick to act. I really don't think that little girl would have left that scenario either alive or without serious injuries... otherwise, I'm a nerdy, not really on top of things space cadet usually that can't remember to not lose his keys, lol.
Do you have any kind of anxiety? I feel like many people who are just constantly stressed out for no reason work best when we finally have a situation to put that energy to use. It feels wrong in a normal setting, but a crisis makes those nerves feel completely normal and you don't even notice them
Ah, East Coast Earthquake 2011. Never Forget. I remember when that happened, I was at work. Nobody in the office knew what was going on, and people just started panicking and shifting around the room like "what do we do, what's happening" Meanwhile, I had poked my head out the office door to see the hallway (partly because we experienced it initially as a kind of rumbling that was very like when they're dragging heavy carts down the hallway). I saw no carts and people beginning to come out of other offices. I came back in, told everyone to lock their computers and grab their stuff and immediately head for the stairwell. We quickly got out, down the stairs, and out of the building and headed for the further out areas of the parking lot (for whatever reason everyone else decided to mill around just outside the building. Like....y'all, MOVE, what if anything comes falling down, wtf???) The comedy of it in hindsight is I was only like mid-20s at the time and nobody usually gave me much thought, but suddenly there I am with a plan mom-ing the normally overconfident 50+yos in the office to safety, lol.
The closest I've come to a "disaster" was getting pulled out away from the beach in a rip tide. There was a few minutes of denial where I tried to swim straight back to shore but was unable to make any progress. I tried harder, and still I was getting further away. There was a moment of hopelessness, then I realized it was a riptide. My grandparents drilled me on swimming parallel to the beach to get out of the zone. I was very determined to get back to shore. Ended up quite close to the pier where people were fishing, which is dangerous because sharks frequent the area. I made it back to shore, and I remember being happy when a wave lifted me and threw me into the shore. I got hurt, but it was so nice to have solid ground under me. I was unable to walk and ended up crawling up and away from the water before sitting there for a minute to get my energy back. The way people die in rip tides is getting so exhausted you can't keep your head up and drowning. I felt so lucky to have survived it. I refused to go deeper than my waist the rest of my vacation.
I’ve experienced negative panic when my husband passed out at the wheel- my first instinct should have been grab the wheel right? No. I kept screaming his name and watching as we swerved through a median and into oncoming traffic- up onto a sidewalk narrowly missing a telephone pole, back into oncoming traffic and back into our original lane of travel. About that time I’d finally been able to move and was hitting him on the chest and trying to keep the car straight. It was HORRIFYING watching it happen in slow motion (not really, but it felt like it) completely unable to act. I don’t know how we didn’t hit anyone, god was truly with us on that ride.
Most who died in Grenfell Tower fire in the UK in 2017, were those who were told by firefighters to stay inside. The one who got out, survived. That building was in fire for 3 or 4 days and didn't collapse like the Twin Towers in NYC (scratching my head).
@@peterward4005how does that even make sense? Larger buildings have more mass and shouldn't collapse. Three buildings collapsed from "fires" that day, more than any other steel frame buildings ever in history. Physics took the day off, apparently.
totally agree on the closing statement, people are lot more educated these days, just let them know the truth and they can execute and handle the situations accordingly.
I'm the one launching straight into hyperventilation so everyone thinks I'm weak. The thing is though that after the initial panic I am calmer and less inclined to shy away from the hard truths than everyone else in the room. This happened when a family member got very sick. The rest of my family really got stuck in that denial mode and had trouble facing the facts while I just sped ran the whole emotional rollercoaster. So yeah, that's me. The bizarre one whose behavior nobody else in the room understands because they take a different path. I basically skipped the denial, went into "this is my life now", jumped into thinking what would happen if the worst case scenario (the family member dying) happened, decided that I would survive and that life would go on because loss is just another chapter in life. And then I got dressed, went to the hospital and tried to live in the moment, knowing these moments could be the last ones I had with this person still breathing. Meanwhile my family members really focused on the doctors and kept asking medical questions, not even going near this family member barely hanging onto life. I didn't ask a single question, I listened for a moment, got the gist and decided that I am not a surgeon, these guys know what they're doing so I'll just focus on being present. Yeah. I think my silence, lack of curiosity, the way I didn't act like everyone else in the room really had my family baffled and concerned.
I grew up in an unsafe family situation. I'm used to yelling and things being thrown. Because of this, I always look for exits and where is the safest place to stand/sit. I then always have a plan on how to get the hell out if something happens. I also have severe anxiety, so everything seems threatening, but I try to over prepare for everything.
Yeah. Negative reaction exactly what happened to me. 24 February 2022. The war started and when I woke up I started to collect my documents, call to my relatives etc., and then... I just got high temperature I lost my concentration and just fell asleep. While millions of people escaped I just slept. I woke up only the next day and I was told that my home is already occupied...
Thank you for sharing your experience! People don't think this can happen to them but your brain can malfunction and all of a sudden it sends instructions that override default settings or the sheer amount of data causes a blue screen of death
We all have archetypes inside of us.... my wife (and her father) tend to freeze up during a major crisis event (like hurricane Harvey). My archetype is the Firefighter, I think my military training has something to do with it. When all hell breaks loose, I tend to react quickly, and not think or deliberate too much. It's like "go, go, GO!". I have had many crises in my life and this reaction for me is pretty consistent. We've had a house fire, a wildfire, a major freeze event leading to 4 days without power while being well below freeezing, and four hurricanes (yes, I'm, old at 62). A lot of people just do not believe they can be impacted until it happens. I just always assume disaster WILL happen, and have been trained to move quickly. I feel blessed to be like this.
Seeing the way people act during power outages and the pandemic let me know there's no hope for humanity. I'm just thankful for my military experience because it's made me resilient during a crisis.
I have found that I dig down deep and rise to the occasion during disaster. My performance improves far beyond what would be expected and my thinking is clear. Life after may feel dull, however, even though I may miss the challenge of a disaster, I will prepare to prevent problems and want to avoid disasters. My compassion is high in such events even against my own self interest.
Same here. I'm collected, logical and fast-reacting, but also less egoistic than I probably should be. And if attacked, I become a cold-blooded predator: I don't get angry, but stay collected, and react visciously after calculating all the variables.
Personally i do this thing where time slows and i run through a bunch of calculations ultra fast in my head, and then perform them at warp speed once i am done. Like one time in london i was in a boxing match and i said "im done" but this guy i was boxing started to throw a cheap shot once i turned my back so i ran the calculations, threw my towel at him, hit him with like seven devastating blows that left him with a ruptured eardrum and walked out of the match to the utter shock of everyone watching.
A childhood full of trauma followed by an adult life full of disasters.... I've learned that my protectiveness goes into overdrive. I'm also hypervigilant.
I always thought the stories of my childhood were cool stories. Almost getting eaten by wolves. Almost getting consumed by lava. Getting lost in a pitch black multilevel maze as a child , strongly considering panic as an option, and then deciding "Panics not gonna solve this it will just tell the monster where I am" (child) and just making it my home for a while. Almost freezing to death in -35 wilderness. SOMETHING stalking me through the forest as a child and screaming an inhuman scream 3 feet away from me when I escaped (cougar, turns out). Bunch of stuff. But they are fun stories to tell people you know? People always gasp and laugh. Great at parties. And I was always so grateful to be alive afterwards, it wouldn't really register as trauma. Except for the hypervigilance that never turns off. Except for that. Dont buy into other peoples narratives. They have made them to protect their egos, not to help you. Write your own.
I learned from a fairly young age that when something life threatening or high stress happens, it’s like my brain slows down time so I can assess fast and then act. It’s definitely comforting to know I won’t be freezing
I've been in a few situations ( 62 years old now) The one thing that I learned about myself is that when it starts getting bad , I calm down and my head clears . I think I'm very fortunate in that
A single experience like this totally changed the way I operate after saving a trapped man in a fire & carrying him to safety. I am now CPR/AED/first aid/narcan trained & carry a "kit" everywhere I go. I didn't expect it then & never know when you might be able to save a life.
As someone who has lived through major fires, floods, earthquakes, auto accidents, tornados, hurricanes, and someone actively trying to kill me which I had to fight back to survive, I became hyper aware of my self preservation. To my horror, I realized that the vast majority of people do not possess a self preservation mechanism unless they had been through several extreme crisis were there life was threatened. I struggled to understand that fact until now. Thank you for all of your research!
If you’re ever the person who’s taking control give very specific instructions. Give one person an assigned task and tell them directly to do it. Like “You, in the red shirt. Yes you. Take these people through that exit…”
Yeah very true, also don’t worry about the assertiveness coming across as obnoxious “disrespectful” either, people aren’t looking for respect in these moments and will appreciate having a clear task to complete and it will break them out of the disbelief trance they’re all in; and if they don’t respond to you, just delegate to someone else, but 90% of the time they will do it for you immediately lol
I have been tested multiple times let's just say that I like my disaster personality. I actually feel more alive in those situations that I do trudging through the human zoo.
I do incredible things. Working in the ER. I was made for it when I realized how fast I can react in a crisis. Adrenaline used to make me cry but now it’s my friend.
I was in a car accident that I was a passenger in. My friend was driving, and we hit a telephone pole head-on at 40mph. I initially didn't believe what I had just went through, but I knew that we just hit the pole. I could see that the pole was no longer connected at the base and all my friend wanted to do was sit there and apologize. I immediately told him to just get out (multiple times), since I had no idea if the pole was going to fall on us or if we'd be hit by any of the power lines. Luckily we were both able to get out and I could see that we weren't in any more immediate danger. This video reminded me of my response to that scenario
Having had some crisis moments, I have noticed a trend towards springing into action before my mind can catch up in an almost semi-lucid trance. I distinctly remember a time when my mom started choking at a big family gathering, and when the choking went beyond the first 10ish seconds where you expect choking person to be able to clear their throat and her face started turning scarlet, I sprinted to her, at a speed I probably haven’t moved at in years, ready to give the heimlich. I the only thought I recall was “That’s too long to be choking” and then conscious thought just shut off for the next 10-20 seconds. I distinctly remember my other family members being confused, oblivious, or content in assuming everything would be fine. But she was important to me, and so the thought of leaving it to chance didn’t even have time to cross my mind.
Rebecca Solnit's book 'Hope in The Darkness' describes several historical disaster events where the authorities, fearing irrational violent action from the public, actually impeded the humanitarian work and in some cases killed and jailed people carrying it out.
I used to freeze when being yelled at during basic....I was never able to get over that. Neeless to say, it only called more attention to me and made my experience all the shittier.....i know all about that stultifying anxiety overload.
No one knows who they are when crisis happens until it actually happens. This is where experience really helps. The worst part of facing a crisis isn't your own reaction to it, but dealing with other's reactions. I guess that's why first responders are trained to deal with people with high emotions during the worst days of their lives. This is also why I prefer to go through life threatening situations alone, like I have twice before.
I have debilitating clinically diagnosed CPTSD and Agoraphobia with panic attacks. However, in a crisis or disaster, I suddenly become infallibly rational and composed. I thrive my best when a life/lives is/are on the line
I grew up in a bad household where I wasn’t really allowed to react to anything, I got out of that place and now I react to everything, the slightest of movements towards me made by someone whom has there hands in their pockets or not, everywhere I go I find the exits, and have a way out, easily, it’s a subconscious thing, those that grew up with abuse and violence are those that will act in dire situations.
Your childhood sounds like mine. I’m sorry you went through that. Hopefully you didn’t let your parents win by letting it mentally bring you down. I win, because it no longer affects me. I’ve found healing. I hope you have too. I agree, people like us do have a leverage. We’ve learned to watch everything going on and contemplate how to survive. I too look for exits. I look at shady people and decide to stay away or go to another isle. I don’t let anyone get within arms distance of me.
@babsbunbun I didn’t let my past turn me into that monster, I chose to rise up out of it as a good person. Sometimes you gotta let some people get close, I recently lost a family member who I was very close to, and everyone that knew him got a hug. I hate people getting that close but sometimes you gotta just deal with it for the sake of others. It sucks, I know, and I’m sorry for those trigger moments, they really suck. Stay safe and heal well- Anonymous.
@@MichaelsSon2 I’m so glad to hear you didn’t let it change you. Same here. If anything it made me extremely empathetic. Yes, I agree, I have to learn to allow people into my life… to get close. I’m sorry for your loss. I’m sure in many ways, he’s looking down from heaven helping to keep you safe along with the angels. Stay safe and may you have a happy new year. Thanks for the encouragement
I am so high anxiety that a disaster is my opportunity to be a hero!! The adrenaline rush clarifies my thoughts and I just act. That said, if the SHTF, I will rush straight into danger to hopefully save people. I only have to do it once if I do it right.
I have some experience on a micro scale. I used to work as a security supervisor at concerts and festivals. I've dealt with violent drunks, medical emergencies, and even people welding weapons. I've been in fights, been shot at, and even had to pull a weapon myself. In those moments, time seems to slow down, and I suddenly sober up (if stoned or drunk) and everything is high definition life in that moment. I believe I would be the person I always am: stubbornly helpful to others in need.
I have a high stress job. When SHTF and its all hands on deck, i naturally start picking out people to do stuff and focus on one thing so everyone doesnt panic and get bogged down. Ive been through a lot of crap in my life, and i guess it's made me good at reaponding to crisis'
I’m in the fire protection industry. Some panic, most are complacent but a cool head will cause both to come back to reality. This is why education or Repetition is vital.
I've been homeless for about 10 months after being laid off for my job. Two days after being laid off, I was told I had to leave. Since then I've been through situations I never thought I'd be in. Right now I am any room above my employer's shop, it will be the first bed I have rested in, in months. It has been extremely traumatic. Both my city as well as my state have offered no help whatsoever. Despite me paying taxes for nearly 30 years, when I needed help I was told I should leave and find another state for help. I went to one shelter, for one night. I will never go to another shelter so long as I live. I am pulling myself out of this by myself. My entire family and my friends have all turned their backs on me. I could have used the system and went to a shelter or a rehab center, but that should not be the only options. People who are addicted to drugs or alcohol have a far better chance of getting off the street than someone who is clean and has done the right thing. The entire system is trash, the United States of America is not united, hopefully it ends soon so something better can come from it.
I hope you can find your way back to housing. I know you're clean and trying to do things right but if there are more services available for addicts then maybe present yourself as one to get the help that you need. I'm sorry you're in the position you're in. Please stay strong
True! No help available. The people we trust , the system we put in place, it's smoke and mirrors. That's why there are increasing homeless. This could be YOU.
I'm the one running toward the disaster. I've jumped out of cars and ran to automobile crashes while yelling call 911, grabbed something to stop bleeding when someone's been badly cut and directed traffic away from a motorcycle accident. Been doing it since I was in 3rd grade when my mom accidentally severed an artery. She would pass-out when she saw blood so when I heard her scream, I ran inside to find her on the floor broken glass everywhere. Always remain calm. Guess I should have went to medical school. Lol
I've noticed that my "survival stragedy" is to push through it on an autopilot mode. When my house burned down with me almost in it, the first 5 days I couldn't leave autopilot. After that, the next... 6-8 months, I wasn't fully on autopilot, but I was on it multiple times a day. Even 2-3 years after it, if I get triggered (usually by glass breaking or the smell of plastic smoke), I might go to autopilot mode for at least a few hours, sometimes a few days. And trust me, although autopilot mode helps with survival, it's not a pleasant experience.
I’ve already started researching the freezing response because this evolutionary mechanism takes lives every single day. And I’m not just talking about life-threatening situations-it’s about something we face daily and often handle pathologically: chronic stress. Accurate information is vital. We must have the opportunity to override and reprogram our ancient DNA responses! We’re humans-we’re Homo sapiens sapiens! It’s heartbreaking that people die from what can only be described as a ‘disease of ignorance.’ I’m not calling us dumb or stupid; I’m saying lives are lost when disinformation rules!!!
I’ve been in healthcare for about 30 years now. I started as an EMT A. Later, while doing a medical IT stint at a local hospital that I had helped open as an RN, we had an earthquake. Within 15 sec I knew exactly what it was and yelled for eveyone to find a door frame to stand under, as I headed out of my office into the foyer of the hospital. I looked up and saw the ceiling lights swaying and I looked for falling debris to see if I could sprint outside. By that time the quake had stopped. This ability has been hard earned, but I am grateful for it.
I'm an extremely anxious person but I seem to be able to deal with threats and dangerous situations rather well because: A. "It can never happen to me" is never a thought that crosses my mind; B. I'm always scanning for threats anyway; C. If something bad does happen I am usually prepared for it in some fashion because I considered the possibility already.
My mom and husband have both told me many times that they don't understand how I can be so calm and level headed I am when something is happening that they were freaking out about. One day they woke me up to help them find the source of this smell of gasoline that was very heavy in the living room. Apparently they had been in the basement and even outside around the house for almost an hour trying to find the source and getting more panicked as they couldn't figure it out. Me walking around calmly and smelling the air to pinpoint where it was strongest had them getting mad cuz they thought I wasn't taking the situation seriously. I found, within about 15min, that it was the new curtains we had hung in the living room. Someone had spilled some gas on them and the sun shining right on them had heated them up enough to start smelling. I know whatever the situation I most likely will maintain a calmness and be rational. I've watched too many leaked videos of some of the worst things out there so nothing really surprises or scares me.
Even in a fight for my life against my husband's brother I still remained fairly calm but got extremely mad and, even though he was 3x my size and was strangling me, I ended up cracking his forehead with the corner of my cellphone and then my husband had gotten upstairs which made his brother immediately get off me and try to act like I was lying about him trying to kill me. So yeah I just have some weird calmness or extreme anger reaction in bad situations.
I grew up in the ghetto in the 80’s when there were a lot of drive by’s. I was always amazed even as a teenager how quick my friends were to react and either fight or flee. Usually a little bit of both. Those lessons have helped all through life during times of danger.
I really appreciate being autistic for this. I will pay attention to what others are doing, but if they're not hauling ass for an emergency than requires moving, I will regardless of what they're doing. I hope I can help others, but I will leave them if they won't let me help. I have done emergency response stuff at a few jobs before. I wish everyone was at least trained in school so more people could help when they're people who don't freeze.
I binge watch videos on RUclips of all different types of disasters, so I’m constantly overthinking about anything that could go wrong when I’m outside, or even at home. Looking for exits, scanning for suspicious people, aware of my surroundings, etc… I’m glad maybe that will do me some good in the long run 😅
Was reading about the “bystander effect” in a train station waiting for one train, suddenly a group of guys cought my attention, two of them were carrying the third one that was on a wheelchair, to cross the train tracks (just suburban things in Italian train stations) thought very calmly by myself “well, if anything happens for a reason…” , so I stood up and went to help. I didn’t have to move a finger, because all the people on my line, watching me moving, started to move, so the closest one went to help. I can comprehend what makes people stop, probably it’s a tought like “so it’s me? Should I really go to help?! It is really me, NOW?!” Yea it’s you , when nobody else can, it’s you
People usually find it weird that my wife and I will normally sleep during tornados and hurricanes. Most of our family think we are crazy and say things like "how can you sleep in a time like this". We have both been in the military for a very long time, and we know that when we are in a safe location, the best thing you can do is conserve your energy for the aftermath. It's all about energy conservation during times of emergency.
That reminds me of my Floridian relatives who say they sit on the porch to see tornados.... At least they used to, not anymore since recently the hurricanes have been absolutely insane down there.
I remember the Loma Prieta Earthquake in the San Francisco Bay Area. People rose to the occasion in the most unexpected ways. There was a street where, at one intersection with busted lights an expensively dressed lady in pearls got out in the middle of the road and directed traffic--and at the very next intersection a homeless lady was doing the same thing. A jail busted open and the inmates, instead of running for it, pitched in and helped dig people out of rubble; in fact crime dropped dramatically that day. When the fire department was too overstretched to keep a hose moving a chubby, wealthy matron hoisted the firehose onto her ample hip and went trotting after the firemen. Where a bridge pancaked into the other bridge below it, it crashed into a red-light district, and the first responders were prostitutes clawing away rubble with their bare hands--and they saved a lot of lives, too. At the same bridge a doctor crawled on his belly between layers of tons of concrete to get to a child who needed his crushed leg amputated in order to get him out of there. It was like the earthquake shifted a switch that reactivated people's sense of being fellow humans.
I genuinely think people are compassionate people deep down. Throughout history we just delude ourselves into thinking the enemy are not actual people, through demonizing or just not daring to think about it. We saw this in war, we see this right now in the American political scene.
A sense of crisis is an integral part of bringing people into cooperative community quickly. The late M. Scott Peck, MD documented and practiced community building as going through four phases: pseudo community, chaos, emptiness, and community. Amanda’s denial phase is the same as pseudo community, and hopefully leads into Deliberation which is where chaos resides. The decisive moment is when emptiness arrives. When enough of those in the crisis become empty, group action is miraculous. This reproducible process of community building is very uncomfortable, and thus seldom sought by organizations as they typically deny they are in crisis.
Thank you for covering this topic! It’s super important. There are people that own a firearm for home protection, but they’ve never been faced with a life or death situation, and when they are they just freeze, unable to shoot the intruder, even though they think “no big deal” before it actually happens.
I will always tell people if you want to know what kind of person you are, go work or volunteer in an emergency room. I am not even a nurse, I worked the night shift as a covid screener in the waiting room for a year until my position was no longer needed. I learned SO MUCH about myself that year. How I react to horrible sights and potentially dangerous people and situations. It's a place that can go from zero to 120 in a heartbeat and you truly don't know how you will be until you're there in it. And I got better as the year went on too. I don't regret my time there at all and I will forever be saying it's one of the best ways to get to know yourself.
"The fear of panic has killed more people than most disasters themselves"
It's true that fear can often paralyze us more than the situation itself. In moments of crisis, our minds tend to magnify the potential dangers, leading to a heightened state of panic. This makes me wonder, how can we train ourselves to remain calm and focused in such high-pressure moments? What strategies do you think might help in turning fear into a source of strength rather than a threat?
@@TheStoicBeacon-TGG I was just learning about this and replaying times when a crisis was occuring and what I did to get through it despite being diagnosed with panic disorder. I always found the next thing I needed to do outside of me and focused on that. And kept doing that through the whole crisis. Everytime I started to get afraid of how I was feeling I said okay to it and got right back to the task at hand. Turned out I was most calm person in the situation and was handling everything that needed to be done. The energy I had from the panic made it easy for me to get things done super quickly and if I needed strength I had plenty of energy to power it.
Fukushima is a great example of this
@TheStoicBeacon-TGG I lived 2 blocks away when The Station night club fire took 100 people. In the morning everything outside was covered in a thin layer of ash. Now, every time I enter a building, I survey the exits. I notice which direction the doors open. And I position myself if possible with a clear line of exit. To answer your question, being mentally and physically prepared helps me stay calm because I have a plan and I reverse it in my mind. Some people think this is somehow morbid. I think it's survival instinct.
It’s “The fear of tragedy has taken more life than any disaster.” For everyone fluent in English 😅
Anyone who has been through military basic training wonders why instructors are yelling most the time. It's not to be heard. It's to train everyone to react in a negative situation without freezing up. It works.
So I can thank my dad, my sisters, some teachers and a couple bosses for yelling at me all those years? No wonder I'm good in trouble situations!
I need this
@@justdiane5Right? By the time I was 10, my parents communicated with me solely in the style of "Full Metal Jacket" boot camp instructor. It wasn't pleasant, but it certainly taught me how to keep my head when everyone else is losing theirs.
It still blows my mind to this day when I was in bct and we had people who cracked during reception and shark attack and me and my battle had to sit and monitor them whilst they slept or we had to go with them to the ER as they were going to self delete. Had their belts and laces taken off them and no pens etc. day 2 in reception at fort leonardwood and we had to do self delete watch with one guy. How exactly does one mentally fall apart in reception?
this is also why I don't yell when there's an emergency, because, counterintuitively, yelling at people is less likely to get them to do what you need done. the best option for average people is to point at them and give them one calm but clear instruction, and then pick another person for the next instruction, because people can do ONE thing they've been asked to do quite effectively, even if the rest of the situation is too much to handle.
There are no fearless heros, just regular people doing what needs to be done even though they are scared. Just breathe and do what needs to be done.
Exactly so. Bravery is not a lack of fear in the face of scary things, it's doing the scary thing *in spite of it.*
I don't know about you but when my adrenaline is really high and stuff is happening I don't consciously feel any emotion. Car crash? Nothing during the event. In a fight? I could be in a furious argument and the moment he takes a swing at my all my emotion switches off (noted by people around me, apparently it's horrifying seeing me knock someone out like I'm doing chores), calling up the insurance companies as a child when my mum had a seizure on holiday? Completely numb. Friends vein gets sliced open because someone was fucking around with a knife? I'm applying first aid before anyone else has moved.
@anonperson3972 no emotions at the time, it's like a shutter closes off all emotions. Later on when I can finally relax, usually alone, I have an emotional storm, shaking and crying myself to sleep. When I wake up, I am ready to go on with life.
I’m the way when something happens I can turn off my emotions and feelings and just get things done one task at a time just do it I also can get people to do what needed to be done.
Now after it’s done I will have a breakdown mostly when I’m alone when
It skinks in what just happened.
Fear is a good thing it can keep you alive in some situations.
It all comes down to the
3 Fs. Fight Flight Freeze.
@@stevejordan7275 Tunnel Vision and the fear may more so often occur after the emergency is sustained or neutralized.
I have suffered from PTSD for decades, undiagnosed at the time.
What she is saying is just the tip of the iceberg that people with trauma have learned as a survival skill. The people that you know who are hypervigilant, are likely the ones who will operate in a functional way during a crisis.
I was waiting for her to bring up trauma survivors. I am sorry about your PTSD, I am right there with you. I have found that despite PTSD and having anxiety/panic disorder, when life threatening crises happen I seem to be the only one that knows what to do while everyone around me just sits. I don't know if we compartmentalize survival (not just our own!) in a different way in our brains or what. You'd think I'd be in the "paralyzed" club, maybe it's the "NEVER AGAIN!" mindset? It sounds crazy - for an every day regular person like me to say this and it's not a brag but I've saved lives before and been shocked that in a small group it was me of all people who knew how to keep everyone safe and asap. We can save lives, perhaps because our own have been threatened and that counts as "training" and our hypervigilance definitely helps us in these situations, too.
@@originallizzah same here! Strange, isn't it? Small stupid stuff can put me in a tail spin - but a real crisis? I almost feel at home! 😂
Lol I actually came here to say this. I survived a very adverse childhood, a toxic mix of poverty, association with a religious cult, and parents who were addicted and rotated between extremely abusive and then completely neglectful. I have ADHD and in the 80s, nobody knew girls could have it, so at school, I was just labeled weird and bullied by everyone, both students and teachers. I was thrown out of home and shunned by the cult at 16, so I couch surfed and worked 2 jobs the last 2 years of high school, then lied about my age to get my own apartment lease, and on went life from there. Adulthood has been substantially better since I am able to advocate and decide for myself, but that abuse and neglect (certain illegal pictures were taken from ages 4-12) is a ghost in my head that has caused complex ptsd. My entire life has been spent acting halfway normal, halfway crisis; because I have major trust issues and even some very everyday ordinary things are big triggers. I tend to withdraw and go my own way without asking for ir really even wanting help. When serious life events do happen, I don't shut down. I don't mill around discussing. I don't consider the opinions of other people except for maybe 2 or 3 out of 8 billion. My instincts tell me what actions are right, and I do them. Fear goes away until afterwards, when I can quiver for a week. I've been told I get scary eyes if I need to be aggressive in the situation, like the time I intimidated a drunk guy who tried to mug me and my best friend. I've been called courageous for putting out an itty bitty office wastebasket fire with an extinguisher. I didn't particularly feel brave or virtuous. I was just relieved the problem was gone. Then there's the downside of it: that my actions are completely self-centeted towards me and the people I love, my husband and kids, my friends, and that's it. In my mind at big crisis times (like the pandemic and all the toilet paper shenanigans), society can kiss my ass. I'd like to think I wouldn't turn into a pirate in a societal collapse, I'd like to think in a public safety crisis, like a natural disaster, if there were people injured or in danger, that I'd help them. That I wouldn't just be selfish and somewhat antisocial. I haven't ever had to find out. I don't want to find out. I hate trouble.
Likewise. It's a blessing to be present in those dangerous situations, to realise what is happening and to take appropriate action. It is also bliss to be helped by an unexpected guardian angel. These are the moments where humanity is at its finest, I feel. @@TheLampini
@@Colorcrayons heyyyy, that makes sense. It applies to me too, I guess. Lol
I've experienced this. I was on an airplane that was boarding for a flight. I looked out my window and saw a massive tornado coming towards us. I called the flight attendant and told her there's a tornado coming and we need to get everyone off the plane. Other passengers were asking each other what they should do. The people at the gate said we couldn't get off the plane because of FAA rules, but that doesn't make sense in the current situation. I don't know what a tornado would do to an airplane, but I'm not sitting around waiting to find out. I'm getting off the plane. I was was forceful on my need to get off the plane. Ultimately, they determined it was safer to de-board the plane and get everyone in the basement (concrete underbelly) of the airport.
Unbelievable how people can completely bypass their common sense for stupid rules that don’t apply to all contexts. Good for you!
OMG, I just hate the phrase "de-board" so so much. We all use it but it truly should not exist. What the heck is that crap?
Holy mother of God, that's my biggest fear: tornadoes and being out in the open with one, defenseless. I grew up and live in Texas and I've been remarkably lucky to have not experienced a tornado yet, despite the fact that the immediate surrounding area gets hit several times a year. I have recurring nightmares about tornadoes. I would've been right there with you, demanding to be let off the plane.
Same. Diff context though. I was in a serious incident as a teen with friends. We were getting mugged and they all froze. Long story short, I had to drive the car home for everyone and keep them moving to the police station etc.
Did the tornado hit the area?
“The biggest mistake I’ve seen in every disaster I’ve ever covered is that the people in charge do not trust the public. They think that the public is going to panic, misbehave and do stupid things so they don’t tell them the full truth which leads the public to do, sometimes, unwise things. That problem is bigger than most of the threats we face.”
~ Amanda Ripley
There is so much said in this statement alone and it is applicable to many things today.
Was this from a speech or something? I’d like to hear the rest whoever said this was onto something 😭
@@ulysses_ody hi! So as noted already by RipleyFAFOt8b, it is a quote directly out of the video. Your question has me realizing it might be best to say that in my original comment so I’ve edited it to add the speakers name. ☺️🙏🏼
Unfortunately this is exactly what people did during Covid.
@RipleyFAFO-t8b lol yeah man like .. wot?
like theres some truth the general public cann be stupid but i despise when people leave out information in fear of making things worse only for that to be another bad problem in the end
I witnessed this process several years ago when I was working at a restaurant. I was standing right outside of the entryway to the kitchen when suddenly the stoves burst into pretty good-sized flames (grease fire). Every employee ran out of the kitchen past me, stopped where it was relatively safe, and just froze and started watching the fire from a distance. In this group of employees was even the manager. I remember looking at all of them standing there and thinking, "Why is no one putting it out!?" Only to realize that I was doing the same thing. That thought instantly snapped me out of it, and I ran into the kitchen, grabbed a fire extinguisher, and put the fire out. I probably wouldn't have reacted had I not had previous experience in putting out my neighbor's small apartment fire a couple of years prior. My reaction also caused one other employee to react and run into the kitchen to help me, I had never spoken with him before that, so that was pretty cool. What was not cool was the company only giving me a 15-cent raise after a year of working there when I was one of only two people who saved their entire building from possibly burning to the ground. I put in my two weeks quickly after that.
Just share the name of the company on the internet and reddit justice warrior neckbeards will boycott them for you ;)
A 15 CENT RAISE? I'm glad you left 😭
What a measley amount for potentially saving lives... Glad you got out of that safely.
15 cents killed me, what greedy bastards.
No good deed for those in power gets rewarded smh
During my freshman year of high school i took a CPR training course offered in the student lounge. I'm not sure why i did ( Probably because a boy I had a crush on was also taking it). But I did take it and really never thought much more about it. By my senior year my parents had gotten divorced and I had been shuffled back and forth. I ended up living with my father who had had some heart problems. One night I had come home from a date around midnight and got in bed. Within a few minutes my father stood in my doorway and said, "I don't think I'm going to make it this time." And then he just walked away and disappeared around the corner. I quit got out of bed just in time to see him collapse on the kitchen floor. I went over to him and checked for a pulse and I couldn't find one. And I looked at his eyes and they were rolled back in his head. At this time they were just starting to roll out 911 in my state, It was in some of the Chicago suburbs but not all. So the first thing I did was try calling 911... And it didn't work. I tried again because I thought maybe I had made a mistake. And it still did not work. So I went on automatic pilot and immediately started doing CPR on him. This was back when you still had to do mouth-to-mouth. I kept doing the chest compressions and breathing into his mouth and telling him he couldn't die on me. I want to say that maybe between 5 and 8 minutes later his eyes fluttered. And then he opened his eyes. I asked him if he could hear me. He mumbled something So I knew he was alive. I then called the operator and said I needed an ambulance. Skipping ahead, He ended up having a massive heart attack and needed a triple bypass. They told me if I had not been there and done CPR he would have died. For some strange reason I seem to be able to keep my head in a crisis. Some kind of automatic pilot thing just kicks in and my brain starts organizing and delegating. I'm usually the one people call or come to when things are dire. But I came from a household that was full of crisis a lot. I guess that was my way of coping...to take control.
Its called low startle response.
@@wacowildcatyes. I went on to become a mental health care therapist and worked primarily with children and adolescents and their families who were considered high risk. Lots of suicidal ideation and attempts/self harm, abuse, sexual abuse. I was also a therapist at a juvenile prison. It takes a lot to rattle my cage. My mother on the other hand has a very exaggerated startled response and always has.
Your story is exactly why I think emergency training, evacuation drills, and first aid should be done with everyone. Your first emergency, you'll freeze up, unless you have some ingrained training to fall back on. After you've faced and gone through an emergency, you're more likely to go "Ok, I've seen this before, I need to act" and just get going.
The first time I ever had to call emergency services, I was panicking, but once I did, I was calm, and I've been calm in almost every crisis situation since then.
Getting past that first delay - just starting to act, to do something, just do *anything* - gives your brain the kick start to keep going. You can train this, but because most people don't face true crisis moments, we don't know how to start. I think people are affected by adrenaline and cortisol and all the stress hormones differently, so I don't think everyone can become cool in a crisis (past trauma affects these responses too, usually negatively). But if you're someone who can learn calm, train it, because it can save lives.
You are a 5%er now.
That is the realistic percentage of CPR/EAR recipients that survive.
Im usually good in a crisis but the idea of doing cpr scares me more than the crisis itself. I feel like I'd hurt the person, its terrifying
Weird. I was at a hotel when the fire alarm went off in the middle of the night. Jumped out of bed, got my husband and kids up, grabbed what we couldn't replace (work computer and medication), got us down the stairs and into our van as quick as we could. There wasn't a fire, someone had pulled the alarm, but it shocked me how many people just... Went back to sleep? My own siblings and parents in different rooms didn't even answer their phones at first? They were grumpy i was bothering them? Told me nothing seemed wrong so they weren't going anywhere? Took forever for the fire department to declare the building safe, no fire, and i still had trouble going back to sleep. I've just always been flabbergasted how everyone else reacted to a fire alarm in the middle of the night.Thank you, this explains a lot.
Some people would literally be sitting there in a cafe outside with their wife as some world war z crazy shit is happening 2 blocks away and everyone is running or worried and be like “why’s everyone freaking out? Ugh some people… another coffee please” instead of saying “honey we need to go now” no survival instincts because they’ve never had to use them. Growing up constantly safe sheltered and never dealing with any actual danger I think is damaging, pulls people into this over falsity delusion of confidence that “everything is fine it’s not the end of the world it’s probably just…” famous last words
I was at a residential choir camp last year and on the first night I woke up to beeping. Thought it was my alarm at first but I checked my phone and it was 1am and so I followed the beeping outside my room and turns out it was the fire alarm.
Out of my floor of 20ish girls (we didn't have a welfare staff member on our floor) only me and one other woke up and we both looked at eachother before going to find our welfare member on the floor above except that whole floor was evacuated outside on the stairs.
Turns out it was just one of the fire doors wasn't closed properly and something knocked it open but I was so out of it and so used to fire alarm drills that it never occurred to me to do anything other than to get a staff member to turn it off. I don't even think I can blame it on the sleep deprivation because it took me most of the week to realise why my floormates were panicking about not waking up to the alarm.
Sounds like you have challenges with anxiety. So do I. And I'm convinced that it will be the reason for my early demise one day due to the accumulated weight of all that stress on my internal organs over the years. It may have saved me one or two times from real dangers, but overall it's a disorder that doesn't serve me well in day-to-day life.
@@ulysses_ody Better yet, there will be a boss who says to the waiter "what are you looking at? The gentleman placed an order". I worked as a cashier for a fast food joint in a mall once upon a time. There were regular fire drills which we were notified about, so great; but one time the sauna of a gym just a floor up from the restaurant actually caught on fire. We had no idea what the situation was, whether the fire was contained or spreading, but an evacuation order had been and effect, yet boss man was like "well, we won't take any more orders, but we have to make the rest of the orders"... Like dude. Is the price of a whopper and large fries truly worth risking your life over? The life of your employees? Can't say I shed many tears once I could finally leave that place.
@@yoruichisan19 this!!! My first job was McDonald’s as a teen, there was this retired regular me and my coworkers referred to as “frappe man” that would come in and joke with us and bring us donuts sometimes but always ordered a large caramel frappe it was like his thing, there was a starbucks across the street and mcd coffee ain’t that great but eh to each their own - he’s sitting in the drive thru line about to order, when a woman up the street has a full blown seizure while driving goes pedal to the metal barrels through the intersection full speed up the hill to our parking lot goes fucking briefly airborne and rams into frappe man. (granted young and dumb she was like 21) manager took like 3 minutes to fully understand what happened and call 911 only grasping the situation when she saw it on the security cameras. Frappe man ended up not making it to the hospital (tbh he wasn’t going to make it either way the delayed response didn’t make much of a difference with the shape he was in) the woman survived but one of the cars was leaking fluid and caught on fire a bit of a crowd gathered a few of us went outside to see what happened, she gets frantic saying we’ll all be written up go back inside now and take care of the orders (fair, but there was only three people inside that had all been taken care of and it’s not like we could take anymore orders besides the literal accident being an impassible obstruction our big ass drive thru menu display was sitting on his hood and the speaker was somewhere under the car, I’m sure the people 3 ppl in line that were in front of the accident will understand the delay there’s a goddamn car fire behind them) and it took some random guy to coordinate getting everyone out of the parking lot and the 3 people in line got their food in like a minute and a half once we headed back in, which wasn’t long into her tirade but she continued to reprimand us even as we were walking back to our stations, so worried about customer orders she didn’t handle a situation that literally put those same customers at risk it was insanity 😭
I don’t know if I would call it “training” but my childhood PTSD has given me a dissociative response to fear. I can delay the fear until after I’m out of danger. It’s really useful for staying level headed in a crisis.
I'm the same. It's quite adaptive really. Fear is a warning system, once the event is going on you shouldn't be feeling emotion, just adrenaline and calculation. when my adrenaline is really high and stuff is happening I don't consciously feel any emotion. Car crash? Nothing during the event. In a fight? I could be in a furious argument and the moment he takes a swing at my all my emotion switches off (noted by people around me, apparently it's horrifying seeing me knock someone out like I'm doing chores), calling up the insurance companies as a child when my mum had a seizure on holiday? Completely numb. Friends vein gets sliced open because someone was fucking around with a knife? I'm applying first aid before anyone else has moved. But I did have a couple of times when I was a kid when I panicked and it didn't help. One time I was being choked out, panicked and then I managed to calm myself down and then with a calmer mind get the guy off and win (when your 12-13 being choked from behind by a 15-16 year old is quite scary). I think after that, my brain learned to avoid panic and dissociate from emotions.
@anonperson3972 I never thought about exactly what I am feeling during a crisis, but you hit the nail on the head, adrenaline and calculated response. Thank you,
@@anonperson3972sounds like you and me had a very similar life mate. Everything you said is spot on, though people in your life tend to view you in a bad way because of it.
I’d call it growing up middle class aka “real life”.
That's postponement of effect, and is a very common response to mortal danger. It's not caused by PTSD but can actually create PTSD as the emotions rush in all at once.
My house caught fire, in the bathroom. My response was, this isn't happening, I'm not losing everything. I started the taps and filling buckets, jugs, anything I had, and throwing water every where, while shouting for my son to get out. The fire was by a wall but I couldn't see because of smoke. But I carried on filling and throwing water until the fire was out. That's when I looked at my hand, the taps I'd turned on, were so hot they had burnt my hands, and were blistered. I couldn't speak for more than a week because of the smoke.
It's not what you should do. In fact, don't do what I did. Save yourself and family.
I had always had that fear that I would stand by and watch. Well, about three months ago, I was living with my boyfriend in our crappy apartment, when our neighbor's suite caught fire, and the building alarms failed to go off. I told him to grab our cat (he can't smell) and run with her outside. I ran down our hall and started banging on the doors of our neighbors and yelling to get out, while on the phone with 911. I and my upstairs neighbor prevented the whole place from burning down. Still really proud of that.
Well done!
Well done, human!
I’m a survivor of the Tubbs fire of 2017. My roommates and I were lucky to be awake that night (it barreled into our neighborhood at about 12:30am) and we hit every stage.
Thankfully, denial lasted all of 10 minutes and deliberation was about 3 minutes. Within 15 minutes of discovering ash falling into our backyard, we were banging on our neighbor’s doors and rounding up our pets. Our house was in flames about ten minutes after evacuating (according to a neighbor).
22 people died from that fire and 6,000 buildings burned. I had coworkers who lived the same neighborhood who awoke to their homes already aflame and sadly had to abandon their pets in order to survive.
Not a single cop or firefighter to warned us. Not a text message,
or phone call, not a siren. NOTHING. I will never, EVER forgive the city of Santa Rosa for that.
They knew the fire was coming but my neighbors died because our city sat in silence. I moved out of California five months later and I will never look back.
I can see firefighters being preoccupied with the fire but the lack of siren or phone alert is wild
@ the city did recognize its outrageous mistake and there is now an emergency text alert you can sign up for. The majority of the city’s response during that fire went straight to the richest neighborhood in the city.
Granted, it was on a hill surrounded by old oak trees and a lot of those big houses had crazy long driveways, so they were in the most danger. But they still could’ve sent at least one car with a loudspeaker into the more heavily populated neighborhood to warn us. It’s like the video said, the response authorities give is to “cause less panic” but it ends up with more loss of life and property.
7 years later and I still get livid thinking about it.
I respond well in stressful situations. It’s “normal” life I can’t feel comfortable with
I knew it couldn't be just me who felt this way.
Yeah normal life fkn sucks
Same. Patient arresting, chill. Getting up in the morning, I'm collapsing in my mind
I’m pretty sure my ADHD is partially to blame for this. In new and unique situations I thrive. I’m very good at solving complex problems quickly if there are major consequences of not solving it.
Normal life… I have no drive to do anything if it all feels the same. I freeze under normal circumstances.
I think your life has been so chaotic that it just feels normal to you now, and that calmness is uneasy because you're not familiar with it
From a child's perspective, here it is. I think that the older you get, the longer you deny and deliberate. In the seventh grade, a few months back, I felt an earthquake in school. It took about seven seconds, but I got under the desk, then just yanked my friend down there without warning when she didn't get under. We were the only two people down there, even though the whole class sensed the shaking. They just pretended like nothing happened. Then the announcement happened, and everyone got down there along with us.
The earthquake before that was in the fifth grade, and half my class was under their desks before the announcement even came on, me along with them.
do you think part of that might be because people are too afraid to seem like they're overreacting? i sometimes find myself not doing anything in a situation where i perceive danger simply because i don't want others to think i'm being hysterical or overreacting.
@@ash1377 Good point! It's never happened to me, so I never thought of that, but that might also be a part of it.
@@ash1377personally I do. I think a lot of people subconsciously want approval from others and behaving outside of expectation is a risk.
@@ash1377 There is some truth to that. I also think that fear of (legal) liability in potentially doing the wrong thing and to some degree, conditioning to wait for the authorities or higher officials to give instructions play a role in this.
Problem is when said authorities aren't around or misreads the situation when the totality of the issue comes into play. The recent SoCal wildfires (responders can't be everywhere in the hot zones) and a certian critical incident in Uvalde, Texas (mismanagement of response by officials) come to mind where individuals had to act on their own to save themselves or others.
Was a Wildland firefighter. Have a very calm life now, still lust after emergencies. Suddenly everything makes sense. Not existential dread. Real problems. Came across an active car accident recently, people injured -yelling, vehicles still rolling. Time stops and a cascade of problem solving flow charts and triage priorities begin flowing like a symphony . Work all the time to make life predictable and safe but seeing the chaos my first response was “ awesome, I can be helpful. let’s go! 😃”
Nice brotha, I'm just waiting for next fire season, I'm straight up lusting for the adrenaline again
Thank you for your service!
Sir. That is because you are a man.
Absolutely, I'm only new in healthcare but have done a few cardiac arrests. It's like everything clicks into place and your brain just stops and goes "okay, let's get to work"
Which crew?
4:28 “One of the reasons the evacuation took so long is that people who were evacuating from the upper floors would let the people coming in below them go first.”
Man that made me depressed. Watching stuff from 9/11 is already extremely depressing, but man. These were good people.
Wait, people were going UP in a burning building?
@No.Good.Nickname firefighters, EMS etc
@No.Good.Nickname People who were evacuating from, for example, Floor 11 would let people coming into the stairwell from Floor 10 go fully out first, is how I took that to mean.
@@LittleHobbit13 What I took it to mean: if you’re going down the stairs and you encounter people that want to enter the stairs, you let them go ahead of you.
@@LittleHobbit13 yes I interpreted it that same way.
I have really severe ADHD and in case of situations like this I become highly productive, otherwise I’m not being able to get up and force myself to brush my teeth or take a shower, can’t focus, can’t find motivation, but in a highly stressful situations I become a totally different person, I would solve world’s hunger problem and find a cancer cure if one could stress me enough
Wow. Same here. And yes literally 😊
Forget adhd, its bs. you lack discipline and self control
😮💨😮💨😮💨😮💨
Same, I am filled with anxiety from mundane. But when someone's hurt, power goes out for a week, or there's chaos. I am collected and rational. Kinda frustrating.
There have been studies that suggest that people with ADHD are better able to function in crisis situations.
My B-I-L was on 92 floor of WTC on 9/11 .. the guy he was meeting with had been there when the bomb had gone off underneath a few years earlier. The guy said “we’re leaving” when the first plane hit the other tower, they didn’t know what the sound was, and the tannoy system was telling them to stay put. They waited for the express elevator to stop on their floor, rather than take the stairs, and were able to exit the building minutes before it was attacked…. Their calm response to be under threat, and not simply complying with instructions, saved their lives
I thought it was 2 planes, not a plane and an explosive
@@Aera223 years before 911 there was a bomb set off in the basement of one of the towers (to try and knock out the structure support I think)
Two separate things. The guy experienced the first bombing, which helped get away years later on 911.
@WHiT3_SHAD0W ahh yes, think it was 1993, somehow missed the words "a few years later"
Thats so dumb they say to stay put. Like what are you guys supposed to do, wait to get burned or crushed? They really need to start changing policies on how to handle disasters
@@baronvonscrufflebutt I agree
I am far from "fearless" but there are few things that really put a sense of fear in me. I learned that the biggest was the madness of large crowds in a panic. Years ago at an overcrowded night club, I was sitting with a girl I was dating at the time and with a friend of mine and his girl. We were all in our 20's. The table we were sitting was about 8 meters at most from the exit. Amidst the loud music and dancing, there was suddenly a sense of shifting mood. People were scramming around, shouting and heading to the exit and yelling at people as they were leaving. In hindsight, they were warning others of a fire that erupted in the back. But their voices were largely drown out by the music. Soon, the music stopped and as now visible smoke was pouring into the main hallway, the DJ announce for people to "calmly evacuate." But panic quickly sat in and people began rushing to the only one exit. It didn't help that the hallway rated officially for 500 people probably had twice as many people. Nor did it help that the exit was no more than two standard doors wide. As people funneled to the exit, a bottleneck quickly formed. Tables were overthrown or pushed. My party were quickly swept by a wave of what can only be described as a human wall of utter chaos of unbelievable and uncontrollable force that left you convinced you would have been crushed alive and if you fell and would have been trampled to death. You could not move or go to any direction other than where this solid confinement chose seemingly by its own according to move. But forced to the edge of the wall, where I narrow ledge was, I managed to get myself onto it and pull my girlfriend, watching as my friend and his girl were hopeless pulled apart from the mindless torrent of people as if dissolved in mouth of a mindless, indifferent beast. My heart was racing, and my mind was ever observant, searching for some escape. But there was nothing to do but wait for a chance for some gap, as improbably as that was to come. More smoke poured in and people, now coughing, some screaming, pushed violently but to no avail. Some frantically grabbed onto my ankles trying to pull me down, making me have to kick their hands away. At this point, most people become mindless animals, reacting to dangers in such deeply irrational ways they create almost a certainty of the death and outcomes they fear. Had people stayed calm and filed out calmly, that entire room would have been easily cleared out in under two minutes, but instead the majority of people were stuck inside for well over ten minutes, until at long last enough had finally cleared out for people to begin moving faster. By this time the fire department and police arrived making loud announcements for people to stop pushing at the back and remain claim and allow those in the front to exit. This went out for a few minutes until people seemed now more relaxed in seeing they were not dying and seeing other in front were getting out. Around this time, there was enough room for me and the young woman I was with to get down and in a minute or so there after we were out on the street. She broke down and cried and later remarked how "brave I was" but I was internally absolutely in shocked and nearly frightened to death by the terrible chaos I was witnessing and the sense of utter hopelessness there was nothing you could do against the madness of a panicked crowd. I have since been held up at gun point, nearly died in a small aircraft stall, and other arguably eventful life-and-death situations, but nothing has scared me more than this event and if I were to choose having to relive any of the worst scares experienced, it be facing that man with a gun. I'm not special. I honestly don't know had I been in the middle of that crowd how I would have reacted instead of sitting on the edge near the wall. I doubt I would be much if at all different from anyone else. Panic is like a contagion of the mind that spreads rapidly and hijacks the brain. And it is a truly frightening thing to witness and perhaps the worst "injury" as such is the indelible realization it leaves in you that you are not special but just as vulnerable in being any one of the other mindless monkeys in a crowd and when all is said and claimed, an animal still.
Wow! What an horrific experience! I'm so happy you made it out ok! 😮
True
Humans stampede the same as all the frightened groups of large animals 😊
Many human stampedes often cause more deaths than the actual disaster itself
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 you just described exactly what it’s like to try to get onto the subway cars at 5pm in NY’s Wall Street station….😂😂😂😂😂😂 pretty much minus the smoke…..man you were very observant and ready to deal with all that, it’s good you didn’t panick it likely saved you and your girl! You got the Stuff needed for a Hero ❤
please use spaces
Absolutely right. The people in power do not trust the masses, hence, people panic. Information should always be honest, transparent and deliberate and aim to empower people, not disempower them into fear
Accountability terrifies so many leaders when accountability, true accountability, is how leadership is grown.
I just learned that actually has a term - it’s called “elite panic”
"Elite panic" is a term coined by Rutgers University researchers Caron Chess and Lee Clarke to describe the behavior of members of the elite during disaster events, typically characterized by a fear of civil disorder and the shifting of focus away from disaster relief towards implementing measures of "command and control".
Pretty interesting to see it in action … hurricane Helene sort of brought it out.
@@kenamoe86That's because they are rulers, not leaders.
I wish my employer understood this. Where I work threats of violence against the building(usually not very credible) are somewhat frequent. They never tell us when a threat has been made until after it's resolved. I'm like guys, give us a description of the person who made the threat in case they show up for christ sale lol.
When disasters happen, it's usually locals helping their neighbors that organize to provide disaster relief. Meanwhile government institutions are initially slow to act and corporations send manpower to keep people from taking essential supplies they need from stores (defending their property is more important to them than the basic needs of people)
I have gotten into the habit of knowing where the exits are everywhere I go. Theaters, planes ect....
I'm a pilot and every time I'm on a commercial flight I do this, counting the seats to the exits on both sides ahead and behind because you may not be able to see or have to crawl on the floor because of smoke so you can feel your way out - just like the Tenerife disaster.
I always try to take notice of exits, fire alarms, and extinguishers, as well as how people are generally feeling in an area (for example, are people sitting and relaxing, or is everyone on edge?)
I always count seat backs and have a habit of looking for hiding places in the grocery store, which are always changing. I take pictures of license plates in parking lots as I head out hiking and make eye contact with anyone I see on the trail, as if to say, I know what color your hair is, your jacket, your pants, everything.
I used to do this. I got of the habit. But, in both cases, I have no idea why.
First day at work and this is the very first thing I do
A couple of years ago my wife slipped on ice and dislocated her knee. I knew immediately that it was bad, and while she was making jokes and asking for help up I was already calling the ambulance. It was -35°C and we were on the side of a street so put my mitts, hat, and undercoat beneath her to keep her body off the ice until the ambulance arrived. I kept assuring her that she'll be okay and trying to distract her for the 10 mins we were waiting. My affirmations helped keep her calm and even though I was doing the correct actions, she said I looked terrified the entire time and I was. Thankfully before this incident my wife and I were lifeguards with training in first aid and CPR. Before my training I used to freeze and avoid any situation that I didnt know how to deal with so having even a minimal amount of training really does help you become a decision-maker and action-oriented in the face of an unfamiliar and scary situation
Training makes a life and death difference.
Even if you don’t feel super confident about your abilities in crisis say with needing to administer CPR, the fact that you trained means you have run through a scenario in your head that you can tap into during crisis. So many people have never had the thought pop into their head of what to do.
Lifeguards get such extensive emergency training. The first thing they teach you is to assess a scene. I was a lifeguard since I was 14 and some of the shit I've seen! I bet you can imagine.
When my bf fell from a height and broke his spine on a small island in Cambodia, I freaked out and had a big panic attack and hysterically cried. I feel pretty ashamed about it. I let everyone around me help him and help me calm down. I knew it was a bad injury, and he fell in front of me. We were far from home and far from a good hospital. I wish I remained calm and made him feel better, but I knew how much of a shitshow it would be and got overwhelmed; and oh boy, it was. 😢
I have CPTSD and live in a wildfire region. No matter how the disorder may impair me, it is also my superpower. I’ve seen house fires as a child and evacuated from some of the largest wildfires in California history.
Last time I evacuated I could see the flames from my window. Of course I was scared and stressed, but I did what I needed to do before I let those emotions overcome me. Living at an animal sanctuary, I was able to mobilize and catch a dozen feral cats and get them all in my car. I waited until we were safe to break down in tears. Everything was still there when I got back.
Dude after a certain point just move wtf
I honor your experience and comment. However, you can "cure" the CPTSD and keep the measured response in emergencies. Look into energy psychology, like EFT Tapping for example. ❤
Are you a doctor? No? Don't prescribe people treatments.
You know how much money that costs?
I'm so glad you were able to protect yourself and those kitties.
I'll never forget the time at work where there was an office crisis going on (nothing catastrophic, just things going terribly wrong operationally) and I was cool and collected and laid out steps that we needed to take to address and resolve the problem. And I found out after the fact that leadership actually held that against me, because in their minds the fact that I wasn't panicking the way they were panicking meant I clearly didn't care that much about the problem and didn't appreciate the importance of how bad things were.
I kept my cool and fixed their problem, yet they still had to find fault with me simply because I had "wrong" reaction by not losing my mind about it like they all did. To them: Y'all, I have massive anxiety most days doing normal things. Finally a situation where I can put that energy to good use, and you act like I'm attacking your character. Let me have this one, you jerks. (So glad I don't work there anymore.)
they probably came up with that "explanation" because they felt bad about themselves panicking, while you managed to resolve the problem.
A friend of mine has fallen through the ice once, straight into the water. I just froze up, unable to make a decision in my head as I watched in horror. Luckily, more people were around and they helped my friend out of the water. I apologized a LOT to that friend that day.
I hope you were able to forgive yourself
it’s alright bro, just make sure YOU are ready next time and take action
My mother is a volunteer EMS. Our family was tubing on a river and near the landing the water is shallow in some spots and really deep in others. There was another family on the river and none of them could swim. One of the kids jumped off his tube in the deeper section not realizing how deep it was(he saw us unload and thought he was safe). The second he hit the water he started flailing and I let out a panicked scream for my mom and pointed. After that I froze as I watched her Olympic swim her way to this kid. I didn't even really process that I was the reason she was swimming to him, but there was nothing I could do at this point(I'm not a strong swimmer myself). The family thanked my mom profusely and after that she came up and hugged me, telling me I saved that boys life(she's deaf so the only reason she noticed him is because I screamed 2ft from her). It was crowded and my mother was the only one to react, even tho there were many other people much closer to the boy. Since no one was reacting, and she couldnt hear the family screaming, I was her only indicator that something was very wrong.
Great story. Great teamwork
Incredible! God bless you both!
That story is so amazing I shed a tear
I've actually experienced something kind of like this too during a mall shooting, it was the strangest thing. I'm a very small woman and considered to be fairly meek and quiet. I was managing a small store at the time and heard gunshots. A man of about 6 foot five inches came running in screaming that someone had a gun, I grabbed his arm and pulled the guy into the tiny bathroom in the back of the store and told him to get down on the ground, cover his head, and shut up. Through some burst of adrenaline I pulled a shelf in front of the door and we waited it out in there. Somehow I went from a quiet shy person to a freaking bulldog, very fortunately, not a single person was hurt and we where all ok after.
I'm coming to you when the zombie apocalypse hits, great instincts haha.
As much as I was made fun of for being from the slums, one thing I’m always prepared for is a crisis. It’s actually unsettling if a place is too quiet or harmonious. I always sit facing the door of every room I’m in. A therapist I used to see told me that the survival instinct I acquired from my upbringing can either work with me or against me, and I get to decide that.
Well done, on choosing your life. Sorry if that's presumptuous. Autistic, and I'm happy to see someone rising above their cards by choice. Go high!
Here in my country, Brazil, there was a devastating disaster at a nightclub called "Boate Kiss." I’m from the southeast, but at the time, I was in the south with some colleagues on a weekend trip. We were there to party. By chance, we were in Florianópolis when the fire happened in Rio Grande do Sul, at the Boate Kiss. That tragedy came to be known as O Incêndio da Boate Kiss.
I’ll never forget receiving a phone call early that morning. It was my mom. Her voice-her tone-is etched into my memory. I felt her despair viscerally. Her screams still haunt me today. It took me a long time to even comprehend what she was saying, but I knew that tone-it was the sound of life and death hanging in the balance.
I knew it because we had already experienced a life-or-death event together when I was nine years old. During that moment, she froze. And something in me… shifted. I went into what I can only describe as “warrior mode.” It was as if my childhood dissolved in an instant. That day, I became "a man."
Terrified, I did what had to be done. Scared out of my mind, I got us through it. We survived. We’re here. We’re alive.
But damn… it was a life-changing, earth-shattering experience-a breakthrough in the most painful sense of the word.
Okay
Does being an apathetic asshole genuinely make you feel better?
Thank goodness you and your mom were okay. Thank you for sharing your story.
My autism has actually helped me in a time of crisis. 4 years ago, my parents both got drunk one night and my father started punching holes in every wall of the apartment. The rest of the family was freaking out, but I dialed 911 and said "Hi, this is Levi [redacted], my address is [redacted], my father didn't know his limits when drinking and now he's tearing up the apartment. We require immediate assistance."
Lol as a fellow autistic I can relate to this so much. Just going into that clinical "description mode" when something terrible is happening. One time I witnessed a pretty bad fight between two teenagers when I was a kid, and when the cops got there they initially thought that I was hiding something because of how emotionless/clinical my description was.
Nope, not hiding anything, just autistic lmao
@@rrl9786As someone who is not autistic, I think that the ability to be clear and to the point in a crisis is very useful.
@@rrl9786 It happens to me too, and I'm not autistic.
I do the same I become a cold scientist and calmly consider all the nasty possibilities like a psychopath with no emotion.
something similar happens to me in moments of crisis. im also autistic and i happen to be an adrenaline junkie too (i dont know if that is too relevant but it could explain why im good in stressful situations). one day at work a few years back my collegue got a stroke and fell down a flight of stairs, i was the second guy at the scene. the first guy was panicked, frozen and was screaming for help (wich was a good thing, more people noticed because of him). i was twenty ish meters away when it happened and on my way there only seconds after the accident i was already on the phone with 112 (our emergancy nr), for what ever reason i was cool as a cucumber taking directions from them and discribing the situation calmly, whilst also directing the people on the scene so that we could help the ambulance crew get there as fast as possible (its not the easiest place to get an ambulance to the part of the complex where we were) and so that we didnt acceidentally further hurt my collegue by moving him wrong (because we neded to move him so that his airways where free) who was at this point unconcious on the floor. i will spare you the details. luckily everything went well and the ambulance came within 5 min because how close the hospital where to our workplace and my collegue got the help he needed.
i always felt wierd about how calm i was and how i never got any trauma from an event that should have given me as much problem as it did my other collegues on the scene who also saw what happened. i rarely ever think about it unless im reminded by something like this vid, and i have no feelings towards the memory at all. its just something that happened, like grabing a coffee in the morning in that regard, maybe its the autism?
I have BPD, ADHD traits, suffer from bipolar disorder and chronic anxiety. Quite disorganized person.. I once found myself in a situation where I needed to react and help quickly (car accident), but my life was not in danger. It was very strange: I finally felt normal! People around me froze and I immediately called an ambulance, communicated with the victim and calmed her down, etc. Only when it was over, the ambulance had left... I started to shake. It was like my whole being was in constant danger and stress and when the situation came, my inner self and reality finally corresponded.
I feel this. Most control ever felt
My mom has anxiety and yelled “FIRE!!!” Followed by incoherent mumbling along the lines of… “it’s an electrical fire there’s not enough flour or salt or anything to smother it oh my god oh my god!!!” Without moving, without calling, without breathing. I walked up and said “mom look” and dumped a small amount of salt on the stove, and it went out in less than 1 second. There were 4 kids under 10, plus me, the eldest daughter and only other adult in the house. It was about to hit the curtains and instead of trying, she named reasons why it wouldn’t work. She could have trapped them in a burning house as the kitchen was near the front door. I still look back and feel somewhat angry because what if my entire family died due to her panic. I know I shouldn’t judge, but the fact that it was our mother that was failing us makes me worried about her capacity.
Sounds like you're judging her a little too much there. Your reasoning is sound but as you said, she was panicking. Next time she'll likely handle it better. Have empathy and show her compassion, those will save you all a lot of trouble.
we sink to the level of our training. if you are worried about this, get her a basic firefighting course as a gift. I've had similar experiences and it's frustrating but also fixable
Many people are not reliable or even useful in serious situations. It’s disappointing, but once you learn this about someone you must take it into account.
Sorry to be that guy, but: Not every woman, but *always* a woman.
@@Content_Deleted Sounds like you aren't even a part of that family and are judging a little too much for something you have no idea about. A kid had to cover for their siblings and moms life. They are allowed to feel resentment, but the best thing to do is to talk afterwards.
I'm great in a crisis! It's the only time I can put my smarts to use without distraction. Severe hyperactive ADHD = constant seeking of stimulation to satiate my starving dopamine receptors. It takes a veritable deluge of stimulation to top me up to "normal"- but on the rare occasion that this occurs, the ceaseless urge to stim/move/talk/find sources of stimulation finally abates and I feal positively serene.
Crises are my safe place.
You are very eloquent
Serenity. That's exactly what it is, isn't it? Everything just snaps into perfect focus and you're scared, but calm. Serene. (I have adhd too)
@@Evergreen_Trees_are_cool serenity is certainly not associated with the feeling of fear, rather the opposite
Wow maybe ADHD people were made by evolution to deal with crises, like being a warrior or field medic or firefighter or something
I was in the paradise fire - camp fire . My brother is a former firefighter and he was working in oroville . He called and was trying not to act panicked but I could tell it was really really bad . I was panicked. My mom was trying to dry clothes and get food together . Me and my brother were like we gotta go now . As scared as I was I helped my mom get out as fast as possible . Thank God for my brother . His ability to keep calm and direct us out really saved us . After evacuating I drove to my school but I needed to leave town and he told me the route to get out and where to rendezvous. Most traumatic day of my life. And after reading some comments .. my marine corps training may have helped my response
0:15 I know for a fact that I will
1: freeze
2: asses the situation
3: run/self preservation and attempt to remove myself from the situation
Freezing can last minutes without your being aware of that. Don't freeze. Just quickly take action
Why does that negative panic hit me only during exams and asking out a girl
Fire? Respond swiftly and smoothly. Tornado? On my toes ready to jump to help. A test?…… shutdown anxiety, forget everything. Asking her out? Freeze, and struggle to say words.
Because your actually capable and can think under real world physical your survival is up to you type situations, would probably do great in a UN fema position, emt/combat medic/ER nurse, firefighter, police officer, etc. Most people talk a big game and freeze up, they can’t comprehend their false reality of “I’m safe” has been shattered and this really might be it
The latter has an easy and/or concrete and rehearsed solution. There's too many unknowns and uncertainties about the former situations. What also affects things is how much you believe you are capable of succeeding in the particular situation, and how important it is to your survival to make a snappy decision and act quickly and confidently.
Oml same! I think it has to do with thinking things throughs. A fire, tornado, a flood, someone getting injured, right now is not the time to become the thinker, it is the time to take action. I think exams and asking people out you have so much time then you should to think how everything could go wrong. Actual disasters you don't get the luxury of time to think how it could go wrong, only a limited time to find a solution.
My brain shuts down when I see a big spider. 😅 but other stressful situations so far I've handled somewhat ok.
I know who I become, since I've had to do it. I become cool and collected, I become good at calming others down, and I take on a "motherly" role. Not quite leading everyone to safety, but stopping panic and encouraging people to keep going. If someone gets tired, injured, has a mental breakdown I can console them. I have an enhanced ability for recall. Finally, all my trivial knowledge becomes useful.
When the crisis is over I have to crash and recover for days.
I have had a few crisis situations, and my immediate reaction is autopilot fight to help. There is no anger, no scared-just heightened blank direction. I don’t ask, I don’t say, I just go and do. Unfortunately I have been through it too much and that can be my reaction to little things now to. My body trained itself, but most times it is unnecessary or even a damaging overreaction.
me too, but it’s better safe than sorry even if feels like an overreaction when we look back in hindsight
I have PTSD from an ex violent husband and being bullied from my job. I freeze at interpersonal conflict impacting me yet am super calm, logical and effective at problem solving, helping get others out of bad situations.
Out of my entire household, including parents and 3 siblings plus me, I've always been the last person most of my relatives would point to when asked to pick who's most likely to react in a more or less reasonable or survivalist manner during freak incidents or natural disasters. I would have always picked myself last as well back in the day, until the time when I ran into a quaking restaurant during an earthquake that hit the east coast around the year 2011, I think, to escort an elderly couple out of the back of the restaurant as well as my oldest brother... who was frozen in panic. He didn't even know what was happening when I snapped him out of it. (He has always been seen as the A type, quick thinker by most other relatives.)
Then this one time a very angry female Rottweiler that was trained to guard a large property broke off of its very heavy, thick chain and aimed straight for an 11-year-old girl... every single other person (males, females, older, younger, tall, small) reacted by jolting as far away as possible. I just remember screaming "NO!" before running to try and grab her off the ground. I was like maybe 24... and she was not light, so the best I could do was basically dangle her side to side while the dog kept jumping to each of my sides... was it smart? Not for my sake... but for some reason the dog had set its sight strictly on the little girl, otherwise I would have ended up... I don't even know how many ways that could have gone wrong for me. The groundskeeper eventually showed up and managed to contain her, though. (We weren't trespassing, btw, it was a guided tour, lol).
To this day my cousins that were there seem puzzled that out of all people there I was the one that got all altruistic for some off reason and was quick to act. I really don't think that little girl would have left that scenario either alive or without serious injuries... otherwise, I'm a nerdy, not really on top of things space cadet usually that can't remember to not lose his keys, lol.
Same here. You wouldn't guess it would be me, because I panic over things like dough sticking to my fingers while kneading bread lol
Do you have any kind of anxiety? I feel like many people who are just constantly stressed out for no reason work best when we finally have a situation to put that energy to use. It feels wrong in a normal setting, but a crisis makes those nerves feel completely normal and you don't even notice them
Ah, East Coast Earthquake 2011. Never Forget.
I remember when that happened, I was at work. Nobody in the office knew what was going on, and people just started panicking and shifting around the room like "what do we do, what's happening" Meanwhile, I had poked my head out the office door to see the hallway (partly because we experienced it initially as a kind of rumbling that was very like when they're dragging heavy carts down the hallway). I saw no carts and people beginning to come out of other offices. I came back in, told everyone to lock their computers and grab their stuff and immediately head for the stairwell. We quickly got out, down the stairs, and out of the building and headed for the further out areas of the parking lot (for whatever reason everyone else decided to mill around just outside the building. Like....y'all, MOVE, what if anything comes falling down, wtf???) The comedy of it in hindsight is I was only like mid-20s at the time and nobody usually gave me much thought, but suddenly there I am with a plan mom-ing the normally overconfident 50+yos in the office to safety, lol.
Hero dont announce they are heros. Your cousins were to in the signalling to recognize one who does not feel the need to signal.
The closest I've come to a "disaster" was getting pulled out away from the beach in a rip tide. There was a few minutes of denial where I tried to swim straight back to shore but was unable to make any progress. I tried harder, and still I was getting further away. There was a moment of hopelessness, then I realized it was a riptide. My grandparents drilled me on swimming parallel to the beach to get out of the zone. I was very determined to get back to shore. Ended up quite close to the pier where people were fishing, which is dangerous because sharks frequent the area. I made it back to shore, and I remember being happy when a wave lifted me and threw me into the shore. I got hurt, but it was so nice to have solid ground under me. I was unable to walk and ended up crawling up and away from the water before sitting there for a minute to get my energy back. The way people die in rip tides is getting so exhausted you can't keep your head up and drowning. I felt so lucky to have survived it. I refused to go deeper than my waist the rest of my vacation.
"Evolve on purpose". I like that.
I’ve experienced negative panic when my husband passed out at the wheel- my first instinct should have been grab the wheel right? No. I kept screaming his name and watching as we swerved through a median and into oncoming traffic- up onto a sidewalk narrowly missing a telephone pole, back into oncoming traffic and back into our original lane of travel. About that time I’d finally been able to move and was hitting him on the chest and trying to keep the car straight. It was HORRIFYING watching it happen in slow motion (not really, but it felt like it) completely unable to act. I don’t know how we didn’t hit anyone, god was truly with us on that ride.
Most who died in Grenfell Tower fire in the UK in 2017, were those who were told by firefighters to stay inside. The one who got out, survived. That building was in fire for 3 or 4 days and didn't collapse like the Twin Towers in NYC (scratching my head).
Somehow that one still screams cover-up too.😢
They were not built the same and grenfell is no where near as big as the trade centre.
@@peterward4005how does that even make sense? Larger buildings have more mass and shouldn't collapse. Three buildings collapsed from "fires" that day, more than any other steel frame buildings ever in history. Physics took the day off, apparently.
Idk man, I think having an airliner slam through it might have had something to do with that
Wait they kept people inside a burning building for 3 or 4 DAYS?
totally agree on the closing statement, people are lot more educated these days, just let them know the truth and they can execute and handle the situations accordingly.
I'm the one launching straight into hyperventilation so everyone thinks I'm weak. The thing is though that after the initial panic I am calmer and less inclined to shy away from the hard truths than everyone else in the room. This happened when a family member got very sick.
The rest of my family really got stuck in that denial mode and had trouble facing the facts while I just sped ran the whole emotional rollercoaster. So yeah, that's me. The bizarre one whose behavior nobody else in the room understands because they take a different path.
I basically skipped the denial, went into "this is my life now", jumped into thinking what would happen if the worst case scenario (the family member dying) happened, decided that I would survive and that life would go on because loss is just another chapter in life. And then I got dressed, went to the hospital and tried to live in the moment, knowing these moments could be the last ones I had with this person still breathing.
Meanwhile my family members really focused on the doctors and kept asking medical questions, not even going near this family member barely hanging onto life. I didn't ask a single question, I listened for a moment, got the gist and decided that I am not a surgeon, these guys know what they're doing so I'll just focus on being present.
Yeah. I think my silence, lack of curiosity, the way I didn't act like everyone else in the room really had my family baffled and concerned.
I grew up in an unsafe family situation. I'm used to yelling and things being thrown. Because of this, I always look for exits and where is the safest place to stand/sit. I then always have a plan on how to get the hell out if something happens.
I also have severe anxiety, so everything seems threatening, but I try to over prepare for everything.
One of my favorite sayings is, ‘faking courage IS courage’.
Yeah. Negative reaction exactly what happened to me. 24 February 2022. The war started and when I woke up I started to collect my documents, call to my relatives etc., and then... I just got high temperature I lost my concentration and just fell asleep. While millions of people escaped I just slept. I woke up only the next day and I was told that my home is already occupied...
Thank you for sharing your experience! People don't think this can happen to them but your brain can malfunction and all of a sudden it sends instructions that override default settings or the sheer amount of data causes a blue screen of death
The war started in 2014
We all have archetypes inside of us.... my wife (and her father) tend to freeze up during a major crisis event (like hurricane Harvey). My archetype is the Firefighter, I think my military training has something to do with it. When all hell breaks loose, I tend to react quickly, and not think or deliberate too much. It's like "go, go, GO!". I have had many crises in my life and this reaction for me is pretty consistent. We've had a house fire, a wildfire, a major freeze event leading to 4 days without power while being well below freeezing, and four hurricanes (yes, I'm, old at 62). A lot of people just do not believe they can be impacted until it happens. I just always assume disaster WILL happen, and have been trained to move quickly. I feel blessed to be like this.
62 is not old boss man, maybe in the 17th century 😊
Seeing the way people act during power outages and the pandemic let me know there's no hope for humanity. I'm just thankful for my military experience because it's made me resilient during a crisis.
I have found that I dig down deep and rise to the occasion during disaster. My performance improves far beyond what would be expected and my thinking is clear. Life after may feel dull, however, even though I may miss the challenge of a disaster, I will prepare to prevent problems and want to avoid disasters. My compassion is high in such events even against my own self interest.
Same here. I'm collected, logical and fast-reacting, but also less egoistic than I probably should be. And if attacked, I become a cold-blooded predator: I don't get angry, but stay collected, and react visciously after calculating all the variables.
Personally i do this thing where time slows and i run through a bunch of calculations ultra fast in my head, and then perform them at warp speed once i am done. Like one time in london i was in a boxing match and i said "im done" but this guy i was boxing started to throw a cheap shot once i turned my back so i ran the calculations, threw my towel at him, hit him with like seven devastating blows that left him with a ruptured eardrum and walked out of the match to the utter shock of everyone watching.
A childhood full of trauma followed by an adult life full of disasters.... I've learned that my protectiveness goes into overdrive. I'm also hypervigilant.
I always thought the stories of my childhood were cool stories. Almost getting eaten by wolves. Almost getting consumed by lava. Getting lost in a pitch black multilevel maze as a child , strongly considering panic as an option, and then deciding "Panics not gonna solve this it will just tell the monster where I am" (child) and just making it my home for a while. Almost freezing to death in -35 wilderness. SOMETHING stalking me through the forest as a child and screaming an inhuman scream 3 feet away from me when I escaped (cougar, turns out). Bunch of stuff.
But they are fun stories to tell people you know? People always gasp and laugh. Great at parties. And I was always so grateful to be alive afterwards, it wouldn't really register as trauma.
Except for the hypervigilance that never turns off. Except for that.
Dont buy into other peoples narratives. They have made them to protect their egos, not to help you. Write your own.
I learned from a fairly young age that when something life threatening or high stress happens, it’s like my brain slows down time so I can assess fast and then act. It’s definitely comforting to know I won’t be freezing
I've been in a few situations ( 62 years old now) The one thing that I learned about myself is that when it starts getting bad , I calm down and my head clears .
I think I'm very fortunate in that
A single experience like this totally changed the way I operate after saving a trapped man in a fire & carrying him to safety. I am now CPR/AED/first aid/narcan trained & carry a "kit" everywhere I go. I didn't expect it then & never know when you might be able to save a life.
As someone who has lived through major fires, floods, earthquakes, auto accidents, tornados, hurricanes, and someone actively trying to kill me which I had to fight back to survive, I became hyper aware of my self preservation. To my horror, I realized that the vast majority of people do not possess a self preservation mechanism unless they had been through several extreme crisis were there life was threatened. I struggled to understand that fact until now. Thank you for all of your research!
If you’re ever the person who’s taking control give very specific instructions. Give one person an assigned task and tell them directly to do it. Like “You, in the red shirt. Yes you. Take these people through that exit…”
Yeah very true, also don’t worry about the assertiveness coming across as obnoxious “disrespectful” either, people aren’t looking for respect in these moments and will appreciate having a clear task to complete and it will break them out of the disbelief trance they’re all in; and if they don’t respond to you, just delegate to someone else, but 90% of the time they will do it for you immediately lol
I have been tested multiple times let's just say that I like my disaster personality. I actually feel more alive in those situations that I do trudging through the human zoo.
Adrenaline feells good, like it should, every day, every night, stay with me and stay alive. Oh yeah all right DYNAMITE.
@@HighSpeedNoDrag Yeah, that's why men have higher insurance rates.
I do incredible things. Working in the ER. I was made for it when I realized how fast I can react in a crisis. Adrenaline used to make me cry but now it’s my friend.
I was in a car accident that I was a passenger in. My friend was driving, and we hit a telephone pole head-on at 40mph. I initially didn't believe what I had just went through, but I knew that we just hit the pole. I could see that the pole was no longer connected at the base and all my friend wanted to do was sit there and apologize. I immediately told him to just get out (multiple times), since I had no idea if the pole was going to fall on us or if we'd be hit by any of the power lines. Luckily we were both able to get out and I could see that we weren't in any more immediate danger. This video reminded me of my response to that scenario
Having had some crisis moments, I have noticed a trend towards springing into action before my mind can catch up in an almost semi-lucid trance.
I distinctly remember a time when my mom started choking at a big family gathering, and when the choking went beyond the first 10ish seconds where you expect choking person to be able to clear their throat and her face started turning scarlet, I sprinted to her, at a speed I probably haven’t moved at in years, ready to give the heimlich. I the only thought I recall was “That’s too long to be choking” and then conscious thought just shut off for the next 10-20 seconds.
I distinctly remember my other family members being confused, oblivious, or content in assuming everything would be fine. But she was important to me, and so the thought of leaving it to chance didn’t even have time to cross my mind.
Rebecca Solnit's book 'Hope in The Darkness' describes several historical disaster events where the authorities, fearing irrational violent action from the public, actually impeded the humanitarian work and in some cases killed and jailed people carrying it out.
Oh wow, you made me regret not trying to convince my coworkers to get me that book for Christmas! I will have to look into that.
This is correct, I become a totally different person during a crisis. I act well, very brave, logical and calm. Not like my usual behavior.
I used to freeze when being yelled at during basic....I was never able to get over that. Neeless to say, it only called more attention to me and made my experience all the shittier.....i know all about that stultifying anxiety overload.
No one knows who they are when crisis happens until it actually happens. This is where experience really helps. The worst part of facing a crisis isn't your own reaction to it, but dealing with other's reactions. I guess that's why first responders are trained to deal with people with high emotions during the worst days of their lives. This is also why I prefer to go through life threatening situations alone, like I have twice before.
I have debilitating clinically diagnosed CPTSD and Agoraphobia with panic attacks. However, in a crisis or disaster, I suddenly become infallibly rational and composed. I thrive my best when a life/lives is/are on the line
I grew up in a bad household where I wasn’t really allowed to react to anything, I got out of that place and now I react to everything, the slightest of movements towards me made by someone whom has there hands in their pockets or not, everywhere I go I find the exits, and have a way out, easily, it’s a subconscious thing, those that grew up with abuse and violence are those that will act in dire situations.
Your childhood sounds like mine. I’m sorry you went through that. Hopefully you didn’t let your parents win by letting it mentally bring you down. I win, because it no longer affects me. I’ve found healing. I hope you have too. I agree, people like us do have a leverage. We’ve learned to watch everything going on and contemplate how to survive. I too look for exits. I look at shady people and decide to stay away or go to another isle. I don’t let anyone get within arms distance of me.
@babsbunbun I didn’t let my past turn me into that monster, I chose to rise up out of it as a good person. Sometimes you gotta let some people get close, I recently lost a family member who I was very close to, and everyone that knew him got a hug. I hate people getting that close but sometimes you gotta just deal with it for the sake of others. It sucks, I know, and I’m sorry for those trigger moments, they really suck.
Stay safe and heal well-
Anonymous.
@@MichaelsSon2 I’m so glad to hear you didn’t let it change you. Same here. If anything it made me extremely empathetic. Yes, I agree, I have to learn to allow people into my life… to get close. I’m sorry for your loss. I’m sure in many ways, he’s looking down from heaven helping to keep you safe along with the angels. Stay safe and may you have a happy new year. Thanks for the encouragement
@ have a great new years man, it’s a tough process to be able to let people close but you eventually learn to only let the right ones close.
I am so high anxiety that a disaster is my opportunity to be a hero!! The adrenaline rush clarifies my thoughts and I just act. That said, if the SHTF, I will rush straight into danger to hopefully save people. I only have to do it once if I do it right.
I have some experience on a micro scale. I used to work as a security supervisor at concerts and festivals. I've dealt with violent drunks, medical emergencies, and even people welding weapons. I've been in fights, been shot at, and even had to pull a weapon myself. In those moments, time seems to slow down, and I suddenly sober up (if stoned or drunk) and everything is high definition life in that moment.
I believe I would be the person I always am: stubbornly helpful to others in need.
I was not drunk at work 😂 I meant in my social life
I have a high stress job. When SHTF and its all hands on deck, i naturally start picking out people to do stuff and focus on one thing so everyone doesnt panic and get bogged down. Ive been through a lot of crap in my life, and i guess it's made me good at reaponding to crisis'
"The fear of panic has killed more people than most disasters themselves."
8:21 Deny, delay, you say? 🤔
Indeed ....
LUIGIII!!!!
@@TheFenrirulfr Who's bought a green Luigi hat yet to show their support for our country's hero?
I’m in the fire protection industry. Some panic, most are complacent but a cool head will cause both to come back to reality. This is why education or Repetition is vital.
I've been homeless for about 10 months after being laid off for my job. Two days after being laid off, I was told I had to leave.
Since then I've been through situations I never thought I'd be in. Right now I am any room above my employer's shop, it will be the first bed I have rested in, in months.
It has been extremely traumatic. Both my city as well as my state have offered no help whatsoever. Despite me paying taxes for nearly 30 years, when I needed help I was told I should leave and find another state for help.
I went to one shelter, for one night. I will never go to another shelter so long as I live. I am pulling myself out of this by myself. My entire family and my friends have all turned their backs on me.
I could have used the system and went to a shelter or a rehab center, but that should not be the only options. People who are addicted to drugs or alcohol have a far better chance of getting off the street than someone who is clean and has done the right thing. The entire system is trash, the United States of America is not united, hopefully it ends soon so something better can come from it.
I hope you can find your way back to housing. I know you're clean and trying to do things right but if there are more services available for addicts then maybe present yourself as one to get the help that you need. I'm sorry you're in the position you're in. Please stay strong
True! No help available. The people we trust , the system we put in place, it's smoke and mirrors. That's why there are increasing homeless.
This could be YOU.
So sorry
Ask not what your country can do for you. Best of luck.
@Zugh3 7.5 years, 82nd Airborne. How about you? Don't presume.
I'm the one running toward the disaster. I've jumped out of cars and ran to automobile crashes while yelling call 911, grabbed something to stop bleeding when someone's been badly cut and directed traffic away from a motorcycle accident. Been doing it since I was in 3rd grade when my mom accidentally severed an artery. She would pass-out when she saw blood so when I heard her scream, I ran inside to find her on the floor broken glass everywhere. Always remain calm. Guess I should have went to medical school. Lol
I've noticed that my "survival stragedy" is to push through it on an autopilot mode.
When my house burned down with me almost in it, the first 5 days I couldn't leave autopilot. After that, the next... 6-8 months, I wasn't fully on autopilot, but I was on it multiple times a day.
Even 2-3 years after it, if I get triggered (usually by glass breaking or the smell of plastic smoke), I might go to autopilot mode for at least a few hours, sometimes a few days.
And trust me, although autopilot mode helps with survival, it's not a pleasant experience.
I’ve already started researching the freezing response because this evolutionary mechanism takes lives every single day. And I’m not just talking about life-threatening situations-it’s about something we face daily and often handle pathologically: chronic stress. Accurate information is vital. We must have the opportunity to override and reprogram our ancient DNA responses! We’re humans-we’re Homo sapiens sapiens! It’s heartbreaking that people die from what can only be described as a ‘disease of ignorance.’ I’m not calling us dumb or stupid; I’m saying lives are lost when disinformation rules!!!
Thanks
4:50 delay deny
Defend
Depose
I’ve been in healthcare for about 30 years now. I started as an EMT A.
Later, while doing a medical IT stint at a local hospital that I had helped open as an RN, we had an earthquake. Within 15 sec I knew exactly what it was and yelled for eveyone to find a door frame to stand under, as I headed out of my office into the foyer of the hospital. I looked up and saw the ceiling lights swaying and I looked for falling debris to see if I could sprint outside. By that time the quake had stopped.
This ability has been hard earned, but I am grateful for it.
I'm an extremely anxious person but I seem to be able to deal with threats and dangerous situations rather well because:
A. "It can never happen to me" is never a thought that crosses my mind;
B. I'm always scanning for threats anyway;
C. If something bad does happen I am usually prepared for it in some fashion because I considered the possibility already.
I was just discussing this very thing with a fellow frontline worker today
Despite that I have chronic anxiety, I shine in emergencies
Right On and what you must do dictates and over rides mental obstables.
My mom and husband have both told me many times that they don't understand how I can be so calm and level headed I am when something is happening that they were freaking out about.
One day they woke me up to help them find the source of this smell of gasoline that was very heavy in the living room. Apparently they had been in the basement and even outside around the house for almost an hour trying to find the source and getting more panicked as they couldn't figure it out. Me walking around calmly and smelling the air to pinpoint where it was strongest had them getting mad cuz they thought I wasn't taking the situation seriously. I found, within about 15min, that it was the new curtains we had hung in the living room. Someone had spilled some gas on them and the sun shining right on them had heated them up enough to start smelling.
I know whatever the situation I most likely will maintain a calmness and be rational. I've watched too many leaked videos of some of the worst things out there so nothing really surprises or scares me.
Even in a fight for my life against my husband's brother I still remained fairly calm but got extremely mad and, even though he was 3x my size and was strangling me, I ended up cracking his forehead with the corner of my cellphone and then my husband had gotten upstairs which made his brother immediately get off me and try to act like I was lying about him trying to kill me. So yeah I just have some weird calmness or extreme anger reaction in bad situations.
I grew up in the ghetto in the 80’s when there were a lot of drive by’s. I was always amazed even as a teenager how quick my friends were to react and either fight or flee. Usually a little bit of both. Those lessons have helped all through life during times of danger.
I really appreciate being autistic for this.
I will pay attention to what others are doing, but if they're not hauling ass for an emergency than requires moving, I will regardless of what they're doing.
I hope I can help others, but I will leave them if they won't let me help.
I have done emergency response stuff at a few jobs before. I wish everyone was at least trained in school so more people could help when they're people who don't freeze.
I binge watch videos on RUclips of all different types of disasters, so I’m constantly overthinking about anything that could go wrong when I’m outside, or even at home. Looking for exits, scanning for suspicious people, aware of my surroundings, etc… I’m glad maybe that will do me some good in the long run 😅
Was reading about the “bystander effect” in a train station waiting for one train, suddenly a group of guys cought my attention, two of them were carrying the third one that was on a wheelchair, to cross the train tracks (just suburban things in Italian train stations) thought very calmly by myself “well, if anything happens for a reason…” , so I stood up and went to help. I didn’t have to move a finger, because all the people on my line, watching me moving, started to move, so the closest one went to help. I can comprehend what makes people stop, probably it’s a tought like “so it’s me? Should I really go to help?! It is really me, NOW?!” Yea it’s you , when nobody else can, it’s you
7:41 Dwight was right all along
“Today smoking is gonna save lives” 😂
I fold at the slightest inconvenience, but when I’ve been in serious situations, I become extremely calm and focused
People usually find it weird that my wife and I will normally sleep during tornados and hurricanes. Most of our family think we are crazy and say things like "how can you sleep in a time like this". We have both been in the military for a very long time, and we know that when we are in a safe location, the best thing you can do is conserve your energy for the aftermath. It's all about energy conservation during times of emergency.
That reminds me of my Floridian relatives who say they sit on the porch to see tornados.... At least they used to, not anymore since recently the hurricanes have been absolutely insane down there.
@Myth-Enjoyer fun fact, is she's from Florida lol
I remember the Loma Prieta Earthquake in the San Francisco Bay Area. People rose to the occasion in the most unexpected ways. There was a street where, at one intersection with busted lights an expensively dressed lady in pearls got out in the middle of the road and directed traffic--and at the very next intersection a homeless lady was doing the same thing. A jail busted open and the inmates, instead of running for it, pitched in and helped dig people out of rubble; in fact crime dropped dramatically that day. When the fire department was too overstretched to keep a hose moving a chubby, wealthy matron hoisted the firehose onto her ample hip and went trotting after the firemen. Where a bridge pancaked into the other bridge below it, it crashed into a red-light district, and the first responders were prostitutes clawing away rubble with their bare hands--and they saved a lot of lives, too. At the same bridge a doctor crawled on his belly between layers of tons of concrete to get to a child who needed his crushed leg amputated in order to get him out of there. It was like the earthquake shifted a switch that reactivated people's sense of being fellow humans.
I genuinely think people are compassionate people deep down. Throughout history we just delude ourselves into thinking the enemy are not actual people, through demonizing or just not daring to think about it. We saw this in war, we see this right now in the American political scene.
man, why do i end up liking soundtracks which are unattainable. like the one at the bg here (6:08)
A sense of crisis is an integral part of bringing people into cooperative community quickly. The late M. Scott Peck, MD documented and practiced community building as going through four phases: pseudo community, chaos, emptiness, and community. Amanda’s denial phase is the same as pseudo community, and hopefully leads into Deliberation which is where chaos resides. The decisive moment is when emptiness arrives. When enough of those in the crisis become empty, group action is miraculous.
This reproducible process of community building is very uncomfortable, and thus seldom sought by organizations as they typically deny they are in crisis.
Thank you for covering this topic! It’s super important. There are people that own a firearm for home protection, but they’ve never been faced with a life or death situation, and when they are they just freeze, unable to shoot the intruder, even though they think “no big deal” before it actually happens.
I know how react in those situations, I've already been in those scenarios.
I'm calm and concentrated, I saved people.
From "coward" to Medal of Honor, and everything in between. Great video to share.
Thank you for reminding me to look for security exits before my flight to Tenerife next week.❤
I will always tell people if you want to know what kind of person you are, go work or volunteer in an emergency room. I am not even a nurse, I worked the night shift as a covid screener in the waiting room for a year until my position was no longer needed. I learned SO MUCH about myself that year. How I react to horrible sights and potentially dangerous people and situations. It's a place that can go from zero to 120 in a heartbeat and you truly don't know how you will be until you're there in it. And I got better as the year went on too. I don't regret my time there at all and I will forever be saying it's one of the best ways to get to know yourself.