Opossums are legendary for “playing dead” when threatened or attacked. They are not alone in this. Thanatosis, or tonic immobility, as it is technically known, is an evolved antipredator strategy drawn from a continuum of potential behavioral responses to threat that opossums share with a wide variety of animals.
The first and often most effective strategy, for mild or distant threats, is simple avoidance: either walk away or just don’t go there. For threats that are closer or potentially more serious, attentive immobility (freezing) allows the animal to better assess the situation. Running away is the next response option on the continuum. If running away is not possible or unlikely to be successful—opossums, for example, are not very good runners—the animal will likely engage in some form of aggressive defense. Opossums have sharp teeth that they can bare with a menacing hiss to frighten a potential assailant, but when push comes to actual shove, they are not really fighters. Some animals will engage in appeasement behavior if an opponent has an overwhelming physical advantage. But rather than attempt to appease their aggressor, opossums employ thanatosis at this point, and fall into a state of involuntary unresponsiveness. Although physical contact is not necessary for it to occur, tonic immobility typically happens only after the animal has been pinned down or restrained.
Several years ago, I published a somewhat whimsical essay about a spate of unusual experiences I had with opossums, and explored the possibility of considering the opossum to be my personal animal guide, not in a spiritual sense, but symbolically, as an allegorical tool for organizing my thinking about myself. Comparative self-reflection revealed that I possess several opossum-like characteristics, most notably a tendency to freeze-up mentally and fall into an uncomfortable and sometimes protracted state of cognitive immobility—a psychological thanatosis—in situations in which I feel overwhelmed and unsure how to respond.
I have been experiencing this uncomfortable state, or something like it, with accelerating frequency lately. And I am doing so for very opossum-like reasons, in response to serious and recurring threat from an aggressor with an overwhelming advantage.
My opponent is not the opossum-equivalent of a coyote or a bobcat, but something far more massive and far more dangerous and far more persistent. It is not something that I can avoid. It follows me everywhere I go, and is part of everything I do. It is not something that I can outrun or frighten or fight against. It is not something that can be negotiated with. It can be appeased, but only for a time, and not without surrendering what remains of my freedom and autonomy. And, perhaps the most disturbing part, it is not actually a thing at all; it does not possess a physical body or a coherent structure that might contain targetable points of vulnerability.
The assailant that has me repeatedly pinned down and restrained into a state of involuntary unresponsiveness is civilized life itself.