There is a legend that once, when colobus monkeys were
hunted for their pelts, a troop found itself surrounded by hunters and their
dogs. Realizing they were defenseless and escape was impossible, the monkeys
grabbed fistfuls of their long fur, pulled it out and let it rain onto the
hunters. The hunters realized their prey was now valueless, and retreated. Nature
gives no frivolous gifts- by ruining those long, black-and-white coats, they
surely complicated their lives, but they bought themselves the opportunity to cope
with the loss.
People marvel at stories of survival, but those are people
who don’t realize how deeply survival is programed into every living thing. It
is our most basic default setting, the setting that over-rides all others in an
instant. The body and mind both have remarkable, and deeply connected, ways of
coping with massive threats to safety. What we lack is a switch to kick us out
of survival mode and into living-comfortably-in-a-modern-society mode.
The legend of the clever colobus monkeys stops after the
monkeys outsmarted the hunters- this story was apparently documented by someone
not understanding the nature of survival instincts. It doesn’t talk about what
the next day of the monkeys’ lives was like. It doesn’t say if, that next day,
at the first crackling of leaves on the forest floor, the first noise
resembling a dog’s bark, the monkeys froze, briefly assessed the danger, and
then started pulling their remaining fur out. It worked once, it should work
again. Of course, it’s possible it never worked, and the hunters departed not
because the monkeys made their bodies less valuable, but rather because more
desirable prey crossed their path, or because they suddenly had a change of
heart. But to the monkeys, it was their own self-mutilation that saved them,
and that would have made the behavior one of the first ones to come to mind
when they felt their lives were threatened. It would have made them feel
better, whether or not it actually worked.
All of us, throughout the animal kingdom, do what we need to
do to survive. When our life or safety is deeply threatened when we are young,
the behaviors that seemed useful tend to become more pronounced and entrenched.
And this is part of the reason I’ve heard child sex abuse survivors say they
were decades into adulthood before they realized they could say “no” to someone’s
sexual advances- to them, submitting to such advances in childhood was a key to
survival. And if the act of harming one’s body provides one with the belief
that they will be safer, that behavior persists. For me, lying in bed and
feeling, exquisitely, every rib and hip bone and vertebrae poking me against
the mattress was a very comforting feeling- a feeling of being encased in my
body. So I did what was necessary to cultivate a body that provided me with
that feeling. Being able to lay in bed and feel completely solid, no pesky
bones poking at me from the mattress, was almost as good, and was something
else to cultivate. Even after the danger passed.
Colobus monkeys have their long, luxurious coats so they can
glide farther and stop abruptly as they leap through the forest canopy. Without
them, presumably they face-plant into tree trunks and land below their intended
target with every leap they take. Perhaps, at one point, after the clever
colobus monkeys who had been pulling their fur to deal with all the frights of
the forest, started to tire of broken fingers and bruised faces. On some level,
in some way, they realized destroying their bodies wasn’t worth it- there are
other ways to cope with fear and anxiety, and perhaps even danger. Perhaps one
or two trend-setters first decided to re-grow their fur. Perhaps all of the plucked
monkeys decided to try it together- a simian support group.
And thus, healing happens. At some point, abuse survivors
realize they’re paying much more than anemic feelings of safety and calm are
worth. If they haven’t done too much damage to their bodies, they get to
experience what “healthy” feels like. Feeling so alive and strong and focused
and energetic and capable all day is so powerfully good it over-rides the need
to feel safe while lying in bed. And when life feels so good, it’s easy to
forget we do indeed live in a world full of predators. Small things can jog the
memory, though. It doesn’t need to be much, it can be as simple as parking your
car in a parking garage at a concert and having four guys approach you,
offering you drinks, the moment your door swings open. And you say no, and they
insist, and you say no again, and as you say it you can’t help but notice that
the big pick -ups on each side of your little car mean no one can see what’s
going on unless they’re right in front of you. You can’t help but notice how
each of those guys is taller than you, and you notice their musculature. You
try to figure out who the leader is. You keep insisting you don’t want a drink,
and finally, you crack a joke about it and dart away, wondering if there’s any
chance the garage will be better lit in a few hours, after the sun goes down.
And you wonder how quickly you’ll be able to make it back to your car after the
concert, and you wonder exactly what kind of mood and what state of
intoxication those guys will be in should you see them again. And you can’t
help but realize this never used to happen when you in your years of
body-mangling mode, and it certainly wouldn’t have happened if you had the good
sense not to go somewhere alone in the first place.
It’s easy for me to go to a zoo, look at the monkeys on
exhibit and say “you poor monkeys- you live in a cage”. But if I did, I couldn’t
be sure they weren’t thinking to themselves “You poor human- the cages that
keep us in keep danger out.” If I didn’t fear being transported from the zoo to
the psych ward, I could tell the monkeys “I know how to use keys”. And then I’d
need to pause and reflect, because you never want to be proved wrong by a
monkey.