The reptilian brain freaks out because we used to starve if we fucked up or we had to like, kill a motherfucker or be killed. Nowadays most clashes are much less fatal but that part of the brain still freaks out. If we know its coming thought, we can await the freakout and step outside the chemical reaction. This is seen readily in people who take drugs, all kinds, and no longer respond so readily, swept away with the rush because they know its coming. Know the freakout is coming, then tell it chill. Take control, silly human.
This is also why people have grand trouble in relationships. We expect the other person to tell the truth about themselves when, in glaringly repeated fact, people do not fully know themselves. It is GOOD to assume that people are not aware of themselves fully and that we err on the plus side for ourselves in our own view because that’s an evolutionary thing to do. You take my word for me being so great or loving and then I do something not fit to your standards, which nobody has talked about because people can’t and don’t lay out their entire set of expectations and premises for existing, and you freak the fuck out! This is normal. This happens often in relationships. Fuck movies, they lie to you and so do books; less in books though. If you knew I was going to get incredibly pissed off because you don’t want to sneak into the mayor’s office and have crazy sex then you wouldn’t get blown away and offended when I pick the lock and start to pull off your pants. Same as when I freak the hell out when your bipolar makes you say things so offensive that they wouldn’t print such phrases in a Satanic bible. BUT if I assume this is coming, I can not freak out and deal with it logically. In romance, or any other kind of rush, we are so engaged that stepping outside our expectations and removing ourselves from the chemical freakout fight-or-flee reaction is nye impossible. This is why it is very important to give people space to be themselves and not create or stand on expectations of them until you have known them for quite a few months. Oxytocin will make you think you know them much faster and that is a lie. Oxytocin is the chemical love produces.
The best way I can figure around this is that you are allowed to freakout. Acknowledge the freakout as a situation in its own. See it like the door opening and then you get to decide if you want to enter the Batcave, the gateway to hell, the whorehouse, dreamland, or where ever works for you personally in this metaphor. Once the excitement is separated from the actual event, the event is manageable and the freakout gets its allowed attention in its surprise. Be actionary, chose where and what you want to be instead of being reactionary and making the world in charge of you.
