This got me thinking. There have been quite a few times where my survival instincts have proven stronger than anything else my body can do.

A really good example is from back in December when I got my tattoo. I went in knowing that I would probably faint. I don’t exactly handle needles well (I fainted after a TB test, earning myself 8 stiches in the back of the head a few years back). But my reaction to the tattoo was something I can’t explain except to say that my body went into survival mode. Now, there is no way I can truly describe what happened exactly as it happened, since it had to be relayed to me by my mom after the fact, but presuming that she was telling me the truth, there are some interesting discrepancies in what happened. In my experience of events, I was doing fine. I was laughing with my artist, and bravely compared the feeling to a bunch of bee stings (accurate description of getting a tattoo). Though I didn’t mention the fact that as a child I had fainted upon getting stung by bees and wasps (the comparison is accurate). Before I knew it, I was fighting my way out of the heavy weirdness that is being unconscious. Apparently I had announced as I fainted that I was about to pass out (don’t remember that). But that’s where the strange detail comes in. When somebody faints/passes out/goes unconscious (whichever term you prefer), how it’s supposed to go is that every muscle relaxes (which is why it is life-threatening to be unconscious, because things such as your tongue suffocating you can happen due to the muscle stuff). But according to my mom, first my unconscious body kicked out into the air with both feet (narrowly avoiding my artist), second was a kick into the floor, pushing the chair several feet from the artist, and third I hugged my arms to my body and started flailing. None of that is supposed to be able to have happened. The only thing I can say is that I think that my conscious mind fled in order to allow in a part of me that would do whatever it needed to get me away from a threat (which is what my body thought the tattoo needle was, of course). In that way, my three-part freak-out can be viewed instead as a trifold escape plan. First: lash out at the threatening party (in this case, my tattoo artist). Second: get away from said threat. Third: protect the ‘injured’ limb (my tattoo is on my wrist, so the arms-to-chest movement was probably defensive). Makes sense, huh?

Another interesting example of my survival instincts kicking in comes just months after the tattoo. I decided I was going to experience a frat party with a friend. Probably not a smart decision for someone who can get quite a bit tipsy from just drinking a single beer. I knew the dangers. But I decided I needed to try it anyway. And so I did. I pregamed, even. And that’s where I think my survival instincts came into play, I believe. I had 5 shots with my friend and her friends before even going to the party. That’s just a bit more than would normally get me tipsy. I know that it’s something that everybody says when they’re drunk, but I felt completely sober. I was watching the behavior of all the people around me, and I was able to soberly judge that they really shouldn’t be drinking any more. But, y’know drunk people, they weren’t about to listen to the fact that they were way past their limit. So we struck out for the party, slipping along icy sidewalks and down hills (March in New England really is still Winter). The ice just made everybody look even more drunk than they were. At the party, I had even more to drink (two Solo cups of cheap beer, so probably not too much alcohol, but it should’ve been enough to put me beyond my limit in normal circumstances). There was dancing and people and I tried to just let myself have drunken fun. But I was too sober. I watched as the person I came with passed into the area of drunkeness where she was no longer safe (at just one and a half more shots than me) and I felt completely sober. I even knew that she was at the point where memory of the night was going. So I got her out of there (I know that drunk people never believe the “you’re too drunk” reasoning, so I told her that I needed to leave, which I knew would work). I shouldn’t have been sober enough at that point to be able to make that call, but I was. Somehow, I think that my body wouldn’t allow me to feel the drunkeness because it felt unsafe. Because I can be so much more drunk on less when I’m in a safe environment. But I just wasn’t.

It’s sometimes a bit weird to me that my body is so concerned with keeping me alive. As someone who has had a few too many suicidal urges, it’s hard to believe that there is part of me that will actually take over when I’m not safe. Unless it’s being a lot more subtle when dealing with me when I’m not in a healthy state of mind, I’m not sure how these two different parts of me coexist. I mean, I’ve never gotten past planning, so I guess there’s some part of me that is working to survive even in those times. I wonder what would happen if I ever actually tried to follow through with those plans. Would the survival instinct portion of myself kick in and bring me to safety? Would the internal struggle be too much? Would I even actually be able to hurt myself? Or would the willful way in which I would be throwing myself at death be too much for the survival instinct to take control?