Why are these symptoms "adaptive"?

 

It goes back to the nervous system and survival mechanisms. The nervous system will do what it has to,
to protect you. It has a number of creative options available and when one doesn't work, it'll try the
next one, then the one after that, and so on --continually firing signals to prepare the body to defend itself.
Because the person couldn't completely defend against the trauma, the "threat detection system" of the brain goes into overdrive trying to complete an incomplete process. To family members and friends, the traumatized person can seem moody and unpredictable as the nervous system keeps trying to find some way to finish the process of defending so it can begin to let down, rest, and rejuvenate. When the autonomic nervous system hijacks you, it's called ANS dysregulation.

At the moment we are faced with threat, a number of rapid physiological changes take place in the body. Have you ever been startled? Then perhaps you're familiar with the body-wide response that instantly happens. "Instant" is an understatement, right? Let's say you are at work one day in a fourth floor office, going about your business when all at once the fire alarm goes off. Immediately your senses sharpen. You stop what you were doing and look around, seeing smoke outside the window. You strain to hear anything that will tell you the magnitude of what's happening, and smell for signs of fire. You automatically begin moving as your thoughts race to assess the situation. Both physically and mentally, you are on heightened alert. Your heart starts pumping and your breath rate increases. Awareness and vision narrows to focus only on the threat, with all non-essential information recorded in memory for later processing . As you race to get out, your thoughts rapidly pour over the options: Do I grab my valuables? No, the smoke is too thick. Where are my co-workers? Take the elevator? No, the stairs. Could this be a terrorist attack? Scenes of September 11th flash before you. Where is the fire extinguisher? Are there sirens? Has anyone called 911? Where is my cell phone? Darn, the battery's low. What is that I smell? Etc.

In an emergency, all of this occurs in seconds. Is it adaptive? Yes. If these things didn't happen, you could have your goose cooked!

Continuing the scenario, let's say there are two possible outcomes: One, you find the stairs, run down them, and successfully flee the building to safety. And two, you encounter obstacles that prevent you from escaping, become trapped, then are rescued by firefighters.

In the first case, your survival instincts worked. All that activation of your nervous system made it possible for you to run to safety. Once you reach safety, your body goes through a process of deactivating the various systems that needed to be on high alert. You realize you are safe, that you escaped and no longer face life or death. Your heart rate and breathing slow down. Your senses aren't as acute. You're probably shaky, maybe even have jelly legs. You may feel spent and need to sit down for awhile as you try and wrap your mind around what just happened. Your thoughts slow down. You sense having been able to protect yourself. To sum it up, your nervous system amped up to keep you alive, it worked, and now it's letting down. You actively defended yourself. All these physiological events are adaptive to getting out alive.

Now let's look at the second case. Going back to the first paragraph above, defense wasn't possible. It got cut short before instincts were done saving your life. Instead of using all that nervous system activation to flee the building you became trapped, so instead of going into the next phase where deactivation of the ANS and settling occur, the nervous system knows only how to orient to danger and set off physiological alarms--even long after danger has passed. It couldn't deactivate then, so it doesn't know how to deactivate now. At the slightest reminder of the traumatic event, even an unconscious one, it's off and running: Your thoughts may tend to race. You may detect threat where others don't, and your attention narrows to focus on the perceived threat, excluding information not relevant to you but noticeable by others. You may see images of the event in your mind's eye. You may become sensitive to sights, sounds, smells, taste, and tactile sensations (touch). Your heart rate may jump, you may breathe rapidly or shallowly, you may be all tensed up and even "antsy" to move around. This is called hyperarousal . Adaptive? Yes. Why? Reread the blue paragraph above. See anything familiar? The body is going through the very same physiological changes as when threat truly exists. It doesn't matter whether it's real threat or only a reminder of the original threat, the ANS will err on the side of caution and amp you up.

When fighting, running, or crying for help (i.e. active defenses) aren't possible, the brain and nervous system are capable of some rather curious things as it keeps trying to protect you. In the second case above, let's say you were hurt during your attempt to escape when a chunk of burning debris landed on you. Your reflexes have already figured out that fighting and running aren't possible, so it does the next best thing: It kicks in passive defenses , causing the person to freeze (helpful if moving would increase danger), go numb (great if you're being eaten alive by a bear), and/or have amnesia for the event. Rather than stay highly activated, the nervous system goes the other direction, slowing things down so that the person is aware of and takes in less of the negative experience. This is called hypoarousal. So you see, even in dire circumstances your body steps up to protect you.

Physiological arousal is adaptive because it ensures survival and protection of the species. But what goes up must come down, and if arousal of the nervous system didn't get to come down at the time of trauma, it will keep trying to complete the unfinished business of defending you from harm. Or, if it went down to blunt pain, movement, and memory, it will have trouble coming back up to where it should be. At this point we call this "symptoms." The neat thing is, if we get our heads out of the way and let nature take its course*, with the help of techniques such as sensorimotor psychotherapy or EMDR the nervous system completes its unfinished business, deactivating, letting down, and settling. This means that you perceive the event being over--physically, mentally, and emotionally, and you no longer "amp up" or crash unnecessarily around reminders of the event.