Surviving and Thriving with Asperger's. Part 2-- Emotional Capacity. Defense mode. What is defense mode?

I remember that when I was diagnosed with Asperger's at age 12, I went up to a few teachers and basically told them either, you're fat, or you suck at teaching. I wasn't doing this to be mean. In fact, I thought, I was being helpful. I was just so deep in defense mode that I was unaware of the impact of my actions.

So let's talk about defense mode. What is it? How do you get into it? And how do you know you're in it?

Simply put, defense mode is a state in which your fight or flight system is engaged almost 24/7. You are constantly defensive, hence the name. You're constantly looking for threats. And you're constantly exhausted because all your energy is spent protecting yourself against these threats, whether they are real or imaginary.

Defense mode has a large biological component, a large psychological component, and a large emotional component. In the biological sense, defense mode is a deep state of fight or flight. In other words, you're really, really scared.

Because people with Asperger's tend to be so easily overwhelmed by the sensations of the world, both internal and external, our brains start to perceive the outside world in general as a threat. If sensations as a whole are overwhelming and the world creates sensation, then it makes sense that you'd be scared and defensive against the world. Our defense mechanism against the world of overwhelming sensation is simply to disconnect, to create our own realities and live in there because after all, it's much safer.

So the trick is we still need sensation in the world. It just needs to be controlled sensation. That's why, for example, loud music can be overwhelming. Unless you are in full control of it, then loud music can be exhilarating. And you might listen to the same song 15 times in a row.

The long-term problem is that when you are in defense mode, you can never truly feel safe because you only authentically feel safe when you can connect with other people and they can reassure you. But if you are in a state in which your social engagement systems-- your facial expressions, awareness of other emotions, knowing what to say-- aren't working properly, then it is really hard to connect with other people.

So for a lot of people with Asperger's, they crave connection more than anything on the planet, but the neurology of their body is working against them and makes it near impossible for that to happen. Instead of being calm, receptive to new experiences, and able to process whatever the day throws at you, in defense mode, you are always in this semi-fearful, alert, hyperactive, nervous, vigilant state.

When you are in defense mode, you try to control every single action in order to feel safe because the only way you can feel safe is to know what to expect. If you don't know what to expect, then the uncomfortable feelings that you've spent your whole life trying to avoid appear again. When I was in defense mode the most, during my teenage years, it was a giant struggle for my parents to get me to do anything I didn't want to do. Internally, I was so terrified of any sensation in my body because I was wound so tight that I shut down at anything new or different. So I spent the majority of the time just playing on the computer and waiting for something to change.

As I transitioned to young adulthood, the majority of the time, I just didn't have the emotional capacity to handle everything I needed to do in a given day. So by necessity, I had to ignore certain things because I just didn't have the energy. Things like making dinner or doing all my schoolwork. I wanted to do them. I just didn't have the available emotional capacity to handle doing them.

Life became a depressed, anxious struggle. In my head, I was thinking, I'm scared of what's going to happen because I don't trust in my own ability to handle it. And I don't feel any connection. If you stay in defense mode long enough, then the co-morbidities start to come up, as well. Things like panic attacks, severe crippling anxiety or deep depression, and a lack of motivation.

So that's defense mode in a nutshell. If you'd like to understand the science, I highly suggest you read In An Unspoken Voice by Dr. Peter Levine and Reframe Your Thinking Around Autism by Holly Bridges. Both revolutionized my understanding of myself, and I hope they do for you, too.

What it feels like to be in defense mode. When I was deep in defense mode, it felt like I was constantly overwhelmed. It felt like I was constantly being attacked. Every single little thing, whether or not it actually had a logical, rational basis for being threatening, changed and colored my entire perspective.

So for example, a pen could be threatening in defense mode. Not because somebody is throwing it at you, but just because it is there and seeing it triggers you in some way. In defense mode, I often felt the need to control and keep everything exactly as it was because I was so overwhelmed, that anything new just added to the overwhelm and shut me down even further.

So I was in a constant state of fear and shut down, withdrawing further and further away from the world. I got depressed, I got anxious, and it made it hard to accomplish basic functions in the world. When I was deep in defense mode, it literally shut down parts of me that I needed to function in everyday life. Things like focusing, executive function, digestion, social skills, et cetera. So I felt like I was broken.

Then on top of that, I started to question, what that meant for me as a person. Am I a good person? Do I have worth?

It's really hard to learn social skills, executive functioning skills, or really, any other life skills until you get out of defense mode. And until you get out of defense mode, it will be almost useless to try and learn because you will not be in a receptive state. It's like throwing sand into the ocean. You're not going to build an island any time soon from doing that.

So defense mode is caused by constant overwhelm from four main sources. First, we have overwhelm in terms of your feelings and your sensations. That means the five senses, but also, the internal sensations that your body produces, as well as your reactions and responses to those sensations.

Then, there's overwhelm from the environment, both the physical built space and the expectations that the space holds. For example, you might not be overwhelmed by the physical architecture of a school building, but the expectations that building contains can be incredibly overwhelming.

Then, there's overwhelm from relationships or a lack thereof. And finally, there's overwhelm from the body and mind, the lack of sleep, poor diet, et cetera.

So if you reduce overwhelm in those four areas, you get out of defense mode. This is not an additive process. It's a subtractive one. You don't learn to add new things, and then once you add enough things, you get out of defense mode. You subtract things. You learn to stop fighting. You learn to allow more. You learn to reduce stress. And you learn to take better care of yourself.

It's the difference between doing surface treatments and treating root causes. If you get to the actual root of an issue and resolve it, everything upstream changes, versus if all you deal with is its surface treatments, then you may never change the root cause and the problem will always remain there.

Another example would be painting a rusty bicycle gold and calling it beautiful. No, it's still a rusty bicycle. You just painted it gold. As opposed to working to get off all that rust and making it shine like new and then painting it gold. This does require work, but the thing is, painting the rusty bicycle gold is only fooling yourself. It doesn't actually get you the result that you want. When you do the work to scrub off all that rust and refurbish the bike, then, and only then, does it actually start to work and shine like new with no underlying issues.

So how do you get yourself out of defense mode? The first thing is to set your expectations properly. This is a skill. And like any skill, you're going to suck at first. The sooner you accept this and embrace the suck, the faster you can get out of defense mode.

Just like playing piano for the first time, where no actual music comes out, there probably won't be any getting out of defense mode the first time you try it. Don't give up. This is what is supposed to happen. Remember, this is a skill. Embrace the suck. After practicing for a few weeks, you'll start to feel what is, in my opinion, the most heavenly feeling on Earth, relaxation.

With that being said, here's the basic idea behind getting out of defense mode. You are really, really stressed so we need to do things that are really, really relaxing and things that remove the stress you already have. In other words, we need to do self-care, relaxation, and emotional processing, removing stress you already have. There's more on that in the stress and self-care section.

Going back into defense mode. Don't let the simpleness of this process fool you. This doesn't need to be complicated. As we say often at AE, getting out of defense mode is about doing one thing 10,000 times, not doing 10,000 different things.

The thing is, there is no true out for defense mode. At least, not permanently. This is not a bad thing. It just means you are alive, because the only way to experience zero stress and thus, zero defense mode is to be dead, and that would be bad.

All we need to do is keep in mind that in the process of getting out of defense mode, you're going to get out, and then you're going to go back in. At first, you'll be in defense mode most of the time. But then, you'll finally feel like you've gotten your head above water and can relax. Then, you'll start to feel defense mode creep back up on you. The trick is fighting that feeling of going back into defense mode is just going to cause defense mode to happen more often.

Remember, defense mode is about being stressed. So the trick to getting out is to relax and do self-care. Not go to war with yourself. Over time, the ratio of in, out of defense mode changes. I'd say that I am out of defense mode 80% of the time these days. That doesn't concern me at all because I know that when I go back into defense mode, it's just an indicator that I am really stressed, and I need to take a break.

When I take that break and take time to relax, calm down, and soothe myself, I get out again and can continue on with my life. Depending on how deep you are in defense mode, it may take a little while to feel relaxed the first time. For me, it took a while, so be patient and go slow.

Think about it like this. Imagine, you have no idea how the process of exercise works. The whole concept is completely unknown to you, and you are really weak. So I come along and I say, hey, I have a method to increase your strength, so I teach you how to do push-ups. They are really hard and painful, but you trust that somehow, this is going to make things better.

The next day, you wake up and are extremely sore and extremely pissed off that not only did it not work, it made things worse. Obviously, if you know the science of exercise, you know that it did work. But the way it works is completely different than you first thought.

Defense mode works in similar ways. Getting out of defense mode is not linear. It's not something where you can expect to gain 5% capacity each week. It's an exponential experience/ The more you do it, the more results you get.

There's nothing to be ashamed of here. Defense mode is literally, an injury. A nervous system that is so hypervigilant and overworked, that it stops working properly. It is a perfectly normal response to an abnormal situation.