One of my best friend’s thing is being restrained. He has a bachelor’s degree, is a teacher, and is very smart. But if someone tries to restrain him he loses his fucking mind. A cop tried to put handcuffs on him when we were in college and he punched the cop in the face, took off running across the campus with handcuffs around one wrist, jumped several fences, and got away. He reacts in similar ways any time someone tries to restrain him. Idk why he’s like that, and he doesn’t know either. He said he can’t think about anything except for getting away in those scenarios.
I can completely understand that. There’s a name for that kind of phobia, which I can’t remember right now, but I have the same exact thing. I have a Xanax prescription specifically for when I feel “claustrophobic” (it’s not actually claustrophobia; it’s a fear of being trapped and restrained, but people understand the idea of claustrophobia and I have forgotten the word for phobia of being restrained/unable to move).
It’s significant enough that I have thought to myself how might I handle it if I am ever handcuffed, particularly with the cuffs behind my back. I would try to explain that I have a terrible phobia of this and I will have a panic attack, but I know that no cop is going to care about that. So I don’t know. Not much else you can do but flee.
Definitely try to figure it out, because like you said, the cops don’t give a fuck. If you freak out then they’ll hog tie you, which makes it even worse.
The latter. Your prefrontal cortex essentially stops thinking in rational ways, and more primitive parts of your brain are running the show. “Fight Mode”. Dude’s gonna have a hell of a reality hangover when bloodflow and electrical activity return to his front brain and he does a quick audit of what he just did.
Or one lost job and impending cascade into poverty, perhaps after a long climb and struggle to escape that poverty.
Getting one’s car repossessed can easily be the a trigger for the total collapse of a person’s life.
Obviously his reaction is maladaptive. He’s fucked, and his hot head has made it far worse for himself.
But having one’s car towed is not like getting a wedgie or stubbing one’s toe. A person getting their car towed is most likely:
Unable to make the payments required to keep it
Behind on other payments too, like rent
Utterly bereft of any cash buffer (else they would have paid the thing)
Relying on that car to get to work and hence keep their job
Living paycheck to paycheck, hence unable to survive even if he gets a new job immediately (it can take four weeks sometimes for the first paycheck at a new job to come in)
Suffering from the cumulative effects of months, years, or even decades of financial anxiety
Not defending his behavior, but please don’t treat this like someone went on a rampage after stubbing their toe. People are trying so hard to survive right now.
If my car got towed right now, I’d end up on the street. I have better self control than this guy (learned in high school that violence is not tolerated at all by civilized society, so I learned to control it).
I myself have meltdowns, but they remain verbal. I’m definitely not proud at all to report that I lose control of my voice sometimes. I hate it when it’s happening and can’t stop it. But I’m not physically violent. The last time I expressed anger with my hands was when I slapped a countertop in 2009.
People think I’m on top of the world because I drive a brand new car. But that car is a rental.
That’s not some deep point. I guess I’m just saying that just because a person’s groomed and driving a shiny car doesn’t mean they aren’t an inch above absolute financial ruin.
I’m just trying to say don’t make too many assumptions.
For some people getting their vehicle towed means taking an uber to a tow lot, swiping their credit card for a few hundred bucks, and then skipping a few visits to the bar with friends. For others, it means the economic ladder they’ve been climbing with arms shuddering from exhaustion for the last five years, as they rise inch by sweat-soaked inch out of the alligator pit that is homelessness, is disappearing from under them, and that they’re going to be living on the street again.
The world is absolutely brutal at the bottom, and sometimes people’s rage is an expression of fear because they’ve been there and they don’t want to go back, and the yawning asshole checking boxes on his paperwork gets to go home and watch American Idol while the paperwork he filed sends you into the gauntlet of terror.
Thank you for spelling this out for those who don’t get it.
As someone living in their vehicle I can’t say what I would do if someone tried to take it from me.
WTF… Do people really think that they might get away with this? Or is the brain just fully shut down as they’re so full of adrenaline?
Everyone has a thing that will just make them snap.
One of my best friend’s thing is being restrained. He has a bachelor’s degree, is a teacher, and is very smart. But if someone tries to restrain him he loses his fucking mind. A cop tried to put handcuffs on him when we were in college and he punched the cop in the face, took off running across the campus with handcuffs around one wrist, jumped several fences, and got away. He reacts in similar ways any time someone tries to restrain him. Idk why he’s like that, and he doesn’t know either. He said he can’t think about anything except for getting away in those scenarios.
My wife one time tried to playfully pin me and I freaked tf out. I totally get not wanting to be retrained. It feels like suffocation
Childhood trauma, dude. repressed childhood trauma.
Not necessarily. It’s a phobia that anyone can have.
I can completely understand that. There’s a name for that kind of phobia, which I can’t remember right now, but I have the same exact thing. I have a Xanax prescription specifically for when I feel “claustrophobic” (it’s not actually claustrophobia; it’s a fear of being trapped and restrained, but people understand the idea of claustrophobia and I have forgotten the word for phobia of being restrained/unable to move).
It’s significant enough that I have thought to myself how might I handle it if I am ever handcuffed, particularly with the cuffs behind my back. I would try to explain that I have a terrible phobia of this and I will have a panic attack, but I know that no cop is going to care about that. So I don’t know. Not much else you can do but flee.
Definitely try to figure it out, because like you said, the cops don’t give a fuck. If you freak out then they’ll hog tie you, which makes it even worse.
The latter. Your prefrontal cortex essentially stops thinking in rational ways, and more primitive parts of your brain are running the show. “Fight Mode”. Dude’s gonna have a hell of a reality hangover when bloodflow and electrical activity return to his front brain and he does a quick audit of what he just did.
He’s just one of the millions of nut jobs out there one wedgie or stubbed toe away from violence and chaos.
Or one lost job and impending cascade into poverty, perhaps after a long climb and struggle to escape that poverty.
Getting one’s car repossessed can easily be the a trigger for the total collapse of a person’s life.
Obviously his reaction is maladaptive. He’s fucked, and his hot head has made it far worse for himself.
But having one’s car towed is not like getting a wedgie or stubbing one’s toe. A person getting their car towed is most likely:
Not defending his behavior, but please don’t treat this like someone went on a rampage after stubbing their toe. People are trying so hard to survive right now.
If my car got towed right now, I’d end up on the street. I have better self control than this guy (learned in high school that violence is not tolerated at all by civilized society, so I learned to control it).
I myself have meltdowns, but they remain verbal. I’m definitely not proud at all to report that I lose control of my voice sometimes. I hate it when it’s happening and can’t stop it. But I’m not physically violent. The last time I expressed anger with my hands was when I slapped a countertop in 2009.
People think I’m on top of the world because I drive a brand new car. But that car is a rental.
That’s not some deep point. I guess I’m just saying that just because a person’s groomed and driving a shiny car doesn’t mean they aren’t an inch above absolute financial ruin.
I’m just trying to say don’t make too many assumptions.
For some people getting their vehicle towed means taking an uber to a tow lot, swiping their credit card for a few hundred bucks, and then skipping a few visits to the bar with friends. For others, it means the economic ladder they’ve been climbing with arms shuddering from exhaustion for the last five years, as they rise inch by sweat-soaked inch out of the alligator pit that is homelessness, is disappearing from under them, and that they’re going to be living on the street again.
The world is absolutely brutal at the bottom, and sometimes people’s rage is an expression of fear because they’ve been there and they don’t want to go back, and the yawning asshole checking boxes on his paperwork gets to go home and watch American Idol while the paperwork he filed sends you into the gauntlet of terror.
Thank you for spelling this out for those who don’t get it. As someone living in their vehicle I can’t say what I would do if someone tried to take it from me.
I mean…I don’t see any follow up stories where they DIDN’T get away with this…
So you do see them when they do get away with it?
He got away in the video. He’s the tow guy now.
Probably just needs a Snickers bar.