"noxxims;15031508" wrote:
Thanks, that's what I've been doing so far.
Also, regarding the book you mentioned in an earlier post, it sounds really interesting. I had a course on the biological basis of behaviour in school last year and stress was a really important topic. Basically when we get stressed, the brain releases a hormone that gives the body energy to respond as it would need to in a fight or flight situation (sympathetic nervous system) so we really do become addicted to this feeling as if it were a drug.
As we know, too much stress has a negative impact on the body because while this fight or flight mechanism is helpful in the short term, constant activation puts strain on the heart, stomach, etc.
There's a TED Talks with Katy McGonigal "How to make stress your friend" that talks about the adaptive and maladaptive effects of stress.
@noxxims That sounds like a great video! I'll check it out. I hadn't realized that people can become addicted to the bio-chemicals and hormones associated with stress. It makes sense, though, because we can become addicted to all sorts of bio-chemicals and hormones.
This author (Doreen Virtue) also mentions two additional responses to stress (in addition to flight and fight) which are freeze (deer-in-headlight) and fawn (people-pleasing).
I watched a video she made about "how to deal with difficult relationships" in which she says studies indicate that those who've responded to trauma with the fight response tend towards narcissism; those who've responded with flight tend towards OCD; those who've responded with freeze tend towards dissociation, and those who've responded with fawn tend towards co-dependency (hyper-awareness of others' moods and the attempt to change or "fix" them).
For me, just becoming aware of all of this helps tremendously. And I think, with my writing, I'll be able to integrate this knowledge to create rounder pictures of my characters and their responses and interactions.
I'm always amazed at the Sim animations and coding of responses/behaviors, for we can often see these types of responses in our Sims.
In my legacy, I had a Sim who grew up with a verbally abusive aunt at home: and she responded with both freeze and fawn. When she was a young adult, her romantic choices were all verbally abusive men. This all happened autonomously: I played the "tough love" super-ego and prevented her from pursuing those unhealthy romantic attachments, but it was all very curious to me. I could've used this info when writing up the chapters dealing with these events!
