The Survival Triangle with Alexis Artwohl

Dr. Alexis Artwohl, Behavioral Science Expert, and panel advisor for CCW Safe, starts an exciting new series on The Survival Triangle.  The Survival Triangle that Dr. Artwohl talks about involves your physical survival, your emotional- psychological survival, and your legal survival.    

Cognitive Issues

Cognitive issues can happen in any event and become critical to all three areas. Most of us think we have good memories, but research shows that our ability for to account for accurate details is quite impaired. Our memory for detail is bad because we are almost never challenged on it. Our view is almost always a sketchy representation. 

The criminal justice system becomes very focused on your recollection if there is an incident. It is important for you to understand your testimony may be unreliable and with gaps. You may not remember parts of the events, such as your own behavior. 

For example, officers have made phone calls to family and do not remember doing this in the aftermath. This is evidence of the subconscious mind making actions. This illustrates the complexity of our mind, where our subconsciousness is directing a side routine that we have no memory of. 

The criminal justice system can be naive about how the brain operates with human memory. 

Our memory for detail is highly inaccurate, and people can have false memories that turn out to be very different or totally incorrect. 
Selective attention means that we think we are paying attention, but research shows that we only pay attention to a very small part of our environment at any time. 

If our being is focused on event A, the less we will notice around event A. This is called inattentional blindness. You can look at a face and have a ten minute conversation with a certain person and not know what shirt color that person was wearing, because you tuned it out. This is a common phenomenon that does not just happen in critical events, but it happens to people all the time. 
Even the events we do pay attention to, we may not be to recollect. This also happens with selective hearing, where the human becomes less reactive to sound by paying more attention to visual works. 

Officers in shootings often don’t hear gunfire or screams. Victims of car wrecks recall silence on the moment of impact. Other sounds may sound amplified for unknown reasons; this causes confusion and can really impact the human memory. This will cause the memory to not match witnesses, tapes, and other evidence.

It is very important to stick with what you know, and to not fill in the gaps to please any person or interviewer. Try not to make up things under pressure to fill in the gaps of your memory. You do not need to feel any social pressure to state things you do not know are true. Dr. Alexis Artwohl illustrates that your truth may or may not match reality. 

Chronic Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
 
Most people who are faced with defending themselves in a lethal, or critical self-defense incident are resilient and will get past the incident quickly, but about 10% of people will face chronic post-traumatic stress disorder. 

If you are involved in a lethal self-defense incident, everyone is upset, which is normal.  You need to realize that through dealing with the incident, you will also deal with attorneys, investigators, and others involved in the process, and it can be chaotic.  
All this will contribute to the acute stress disorder that will go on for awhile.  Most people get through that in a few weeks or months, and while many people understand that they won’t be the same following a critical stress, or lethal self-defense incident, most will also learn that they will not be worse off emotionally-psychologically following the incident than they were before.
However, about 10% of people will develop chronic post-traumatic stress disorder, and if a month has gone by and you are still feeling a lot of disruption due to the event, at that point you should really think about seeing a therapist to move beyond the event.
Sometimes you may be fine, but some of your family members may develop a post-traumatic stress disorder. 

One thing that happens following a critical stress, or lethal self-defense incident, is that we find out that the world is not as safe as we thought it was.  For some, it can be a brutal reminder that it can happen to anyone, including you or someone you love.  It can change our world view forever.  Once you are involved in something like this or are close to someone who is involved in something like this, you will likely experience post-traumatic growth, which can give you insight to life that you didn’t have before.  Something to the effect that you wouldn’t want to go through it again, but you learned some valuable lessons from it and are better off.  Or, you will experience post-traumatic stress.  Chronic post-traumatic stress is a great intensification of something that happened where you constantly think about it, and are affected by it to the point that you can’t think about anything else, and have a hard time getting past it.

Having a better understanding of the survival triangle, what you may face, and an understanding of the different ways that people are affected can greatly help you if you are ever involved in a lethal self-defense incident. 

Understanding Legal Risk

In the legal aftermath of an event, you must understand that you will be at legal risk, and if you ever have to use your firearm, be prepared in the fact that you may go to jail, it just comes with the territory. 

The legal aftermath will be complex and intense no matter how justified you were in the event, which is even more reason not to attempt to navigate this by yourself. If you have been forced to defend yourself, you don’t have to face the risks alone. Have legal help aligned up ahead of time to help you make decisions. 
When the first responders show up, they won’t know who the victim and offenders are, and which category you are in. The officers cannot count on a 911 phone call, so the officers will be cautious for their safety and the safety of responders and bystanders. Let them know you are not a threat, and make sure you have training on how to interact with them. 

You will be in a stage of heightened emotional reactions, so be careful how you act. You are own stage now, and you will be observed for reports in preparation for the criminal justice system. It is beneficial to rehearse the focus needed to interact with officers and behave in a reasonably calm manner that will not cause concern to anyone. 
The ability to control your emotional intensity is a vital survival skill in everyday life. In this situation, discipline is important and will decide your future. Stay calm and focus at the task at hand. 
Officers will want to know what happened, so you need to decide what to tell the first responders. If you decide to interact with the criminal justice system, never give a full, formal, detailed tape interview right after the event. Keep the information to the first responders brief, and talk with your attorney before giving full details. 

Get a few sleep cycles, and try to calm yourself down after the incident.  Research shows you will give a better and more accurate interview if you are rested, that is why most police departments don’t even have officers give a full interview for 24-48 hours following a shooting. To wait a few days after is a more ideal time than immediately after the event. This is where you and the attorney will act as a team to decide your actions, and your future. 

Second Guessing

In the immediate aftermath of a critical self defense incident, or any critical incident, it's very normal for people to think about what happened, and play that over in your mind, however, sometimes people get stuck there.  Second guessing is really irrational, and when people do get stuck in intense second guessing, it's usually about things that they couldn't change, or had no control over.  At some point, you have to move on, and accept the facts of what occurred, or you will start experiencing guilt, loss of confidence, or other feelings that can cause greater problems.  

Second guessing is very important to remember during any interviews if you are involved in a self defense shooting or lethal self defense incident. You will need to be aware of second guessing, and try to keep your testimony to the relevant facts of the case. Understand the emotional impact of second guessing, and remember that during an interview, that is not the place or time to express what you could have done, or maybe should have done differently.   

Psychotherapy with a trauma incident specialist can be a good idea, at least one session, where you can have a safe and confidential place to work your way through any second guessing or other emotional issues that you may experience.  It is always good to have an attorney involved if you are being interviewed for a lethal self defense incident. 

Confidentiality

Confidentiality following a lethal self defense case should be of upmost importance for your emotional and legal survival.
You will want to talk to someone about your experience, and that is perfectly normal. You just need to make sure that your discussion is confidential and protected. The number one person who you can have a conversation with that is protected will be an attorney. It is always good to have an attorney if you are involved in a lethal self defense incident so you can dump all of those feelings of anger, fear, consternation and worry, with full confidentiality. You may also talk to a trauma specialist, or other licensed mental health professional, or possibly an ordained minister.

I would strongly discourage you from talking to anyone else, friends, family members, and most importantly anyone on social media. There have been some very unfortunate incidents where information has ended up on social media, either by the person involved, or by other who they have talked to, and it never comes out well.

Confidentiality will need to be of the upmost priority not only directly following an incident, but for some time after everything settles as well. Due to statues of limitations and civil proceedings, for your own protection, this timeframe may be a long time.