"Don't panic" - being birdbrained?

I was looking out of the kitchen window this morning at the wonderful variety of birdlife in the garden. Recently, the antics of fledglings have been amusing. The young, fluffy birds, seem oblivious to the possible dangers that a human being may present. They carry on feeding, look around as if to say, "where's everyone gone?" and then decide to fly away too. They soon learn.


With the small birds come predators and greedy large birds. There is a small, purpose built cage on the shed roof. This enables the smaller birds to feed safely and keeps the predators out. The thrush is also quite able to pop in and out picking up currants. The other currant lover, the blackbird, looks inside longily and is sometimes tempted inside. But more often than not, it then can't get out immediately. It panics, flies around attempting all sorts of ways of getting out, until a couple of minutes later, one of these attempts is successful. No blackbird has ever been trapped for long.


As I looked at one of the blackbirds getting flustered this morning, I was reminded how human beings can also panic and not see what may be obvious. I mentioned in a previous blog how emotional arousal can make us stupid. In various forms, it will come up again in many future blogs too.


My mind went back to two incidents:


1. In 2005,  a colleague, Sue Hanisch and I were in Australia. Together with colleagues, Michal Grevis and Fiona Edmunds, we ran workshops in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland. We had a great time and I don't think I have ever laughed so much in my life.


One evening, Sue and I were enjoying an evening meal and a glass of wine on a hotel terrace in a coastal resort. A storm was brewing and thunder could be heard in the distance. I used to be petrified of thunderstorms, but through helping clients with thunder phobias, have appeared to help myself. I still don't like them, but can tolerate them. Sue had been blown up and badly injured by an IRA bomb at Victoria Station in 1991. While her PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) had been successfully treated, she understandably still jumped at loud bangs and bright flashes.


We ate our meal and drank the wine, thoroughly enjoying each other's company. It started to rain, but it was warm, we were under cover and so stayed on the terrace. The thunderstorm steadily built in its intensity. It was both slightly frightening, but exciting too, as the skies and trees lit up with the lightning.


We ate, we drank, we chatted. We talked about a technique for lowering emotional arousal, called The Emotional Freedom Technique. (http://www.EFTuniverse.com) Later on we both trained in the technique, but all we knew at that point, was that it somehow involved tapping on the face, head and various parts of the upper body. It seemed a bit silly to us at the the time and encouraged giggling.


The storm started to become tropical. We looked around. We were sitting outside the large dining room window. There were diners inside. We looked at them, They looked at us. The doors to the hotel were a little way away and not under cover. If we tried to go inside, we would get wet. So we stayed outside.


We consumed more wine. The rain became harder, the thunder louder. Our chatting became a little more high pitched and more giggly. We started to tap away at our faces in a slightly hysterical way. We moved closer together as the rain encroached on the terrace. We looked at the diners. They looked at us. We waved at them. They waved at us.


Eventually, with Sue and I nearly on top of one another, we knew we were going to have to make a run for it and get drenched. I looked around at the diners again, through the large glass window. This time I noticed the window frame. I looked all round it. There was a handle. 


The window wasn't a window. It was a patio door.


We opened it and went inside.  The diners said, "Oh, we thought you wanted to stay out there." I don't think we did anything for the reputation of crazy Poms. 


Emotional arousal had made us stupid.


2. Before a workplace meeting, a woman called Mary, decided to make a quick visit to the cloakroom. She had used the cloakroom many times before. She returned a few minutes later, looking flustered and with a large graze down one arm.


Mary explained that she had tried to unlock the toilet cubicle door, but the lock was stuck. She tried several times, but then panicked. She stood on the toilet, put one foot on the toilet roll holder, breaking it and hitched herself over the partition wall. As she had slid over the other side, she had grazed her arm. Fairly unbelievable.


We went back to the cloakroom. The cubicle she had used was still locked on the inside. We looked at a similar lock. It was a sliding lock. She had been trying to turn it and in her hurry had panicked when it wouldn't open, however many times she tried to turn it. Hardly surprising really. 


I asked Mary whether, she had ever experienced a similar type of episode. She told me that, as a child, she had got locked in a toilet on a visit to the dentist. Despite now being in her 40s and an intelligent woman, she had become a frightened little girl. 


She wondered how I had guessed that something like that had probably happened. I explained that I knew a little about the traumatised brain and that in her panicky state, she had experienced 'flight or fight' and ended up doing something that now seemed a bit silly. She was now going to have to explain to reception, why there was a toilet cubicle door locked from the inside and a broken toilet roll holder hanging off the wall.


In Mary's case, emotional arousal had made her temporarily stupid. 


I should be very surprised if any of the readers, cannot identify a time when something simple has turned into something frightening and the resulting action has not been the most sensible one in the circumstances. 


There may be an exact match, as in Mary's two toilet experiences. More often than not though, it's something that isn't quite so obvious. But the match is always there, with a little searching.


Sue Hanisch has had to learn that loud bangs, bright flashes, large railway stations, the Irish accent, amongst many other possible matches, do not mean that she is going to be blown up again.  For more about Sue: http://theforgivenessproject.com/stories/sue-hanisch-england 


I have no doubt that Sue will return in this blog in the future. She is an inspirational woman.


Meanwhile, I will carry on looking at the busy birdlife and remember a woman I met once in a lift.  For no particular reason she said, "Aren't birds wonderful? It doesn't matter what happens to them in life, they always start the next day singing."


©RitaLeaman2011