Wired Wrong

Part 1

A recent event in my life is the driver for this blog.

My friend and I were confronted by a distressed individual who had crashed into my friend’s stationary car.

We arrived on the scene seconds after it had happened and the vehicle was being driven away but was damaged to the extent where a rapid exit was not an option.

I photographed the car as evidence to the apparent dislike of one of the vehicle’s occupants who came across the road and demanded my phone/camera and at the same time deliberately bumped into my friend then struck him violently. Within a few seconds, my friend had been knocked to the ground and suffered a heavily bleeding scalp and lip wound.

My phone was irreparably damaged and we were both rather shocked.

Subsequent police involvement posed the question regarding electronic monitoring.

I had mixed emotions regarding this for a forty plus year old man and the trajectory that brought him to this tragic place in his and our lives.

All behaviours can be sheeted back to the flight, fight, freeze response.

Two primal responses remain paramount. Protecting oneself from trauma and the search for the successful transfer of DNA.

Two essential elements are required for the response to trauma. The inflammatory response for healing and the haemostasis response to stop exsanguination ( extreme blood loss).

Life experience both in the womb and thereafter up to adolescence coupled with the individual’s genetic variations (or SNPs) determine the degree of variance of dysfunctional behaviour that the individual will exhibit when the challenge activates the flight, fight, freeze response.

The quicker the activation the more likely the individual is to survive. There is a big however around this statement.

The glucocorticoid receptors (GCRs) that facilitate and are sensitized during the early life phase, exist on almost every cell and are set to respond to the threatening environmental stimuli. I liken them to turbo buttons and they respond to adrenaline and cortisol to provide increased overall strength and alertness of the senses for the challenged individual.

The management of the flight, fight, freeze response chemistry is in major part modulated by the COMT (catechol-o-methyltransferase) genes.

In an evolutionary environment, without the distress created by our westernised lifestyle, the COMt gene variant that results in the quickest most appropriate response is desirable.

However, in our messed up, highly fractured family units (through causes often beyond the control of the family) the setting of the turbo buttons becomes overly sensitive and environmental signals may trigger inappropriately and over-deliver a violent (protective) response.

So in a fractured violent dysfunctional family for whatever reasons, the frightening reality of extreme action, what self considers a protective life-saving action, will be delivered with tragic consequences to all.

A such primed individual not only needs to be safe to others but primarily safe from self.

Our society is nowhere near addressing this, as we don’t understand the genesis of this and currently have no commitment to seek it and solve it.

So should we electronically monitor?

Yes, for the protection of all potential victims and the so-primed perpetrator.