The Startle Reflex - Ailsa's Story

You may have read that I have an over-active startle reflex on my ‘About Ailsa’ page, but what does that exactly mean? The Moro reflex, more commonly known as the startle reflex is one of the involuntary reflexes that a baby is born with, making their body and limbs extend out straight, a bit like a starfish, and then they retract in again when they see, hear or feel something sudden. This happens in seconds of each other. It is fairly common for babies to cry following this reaction. I used to hate balloons and used to cry when they burst because they made me jump. As I've got older, I have learned to cope with this and I don't cry anymore, but I still dislike them intensely. I hate the anticipation that they might pop. I also really hate the noise that they make when they rub against something else!

An average baby will typically grow out of reflexes like this by the age of one or two, but for many people with Cerebral Palsy (me included), it stays with them. I have always been a “jumpy” person, from a baby right up to now. Any sudden noise, from something that is so small as a pin dropping onto the floor can make me jump.

When I was at school, one of the people in my Science class realised that loud and sudden noises always made me jump, and he thought that it would be funny to bang on the table repeatedly to make me jump on purpose. At first, I thought that he was just being disruptive, but when he did it several times, I watched him get his mates’ attention before he thumped the table, and then they fell about laughing, I knew he was doing it to make me jump. The bottom line is that he was bullying me, and what made it worse was the fact that he did it when none of the teachers or LSAs were looking, so I couldn’t prove it. A couple of years after finishing school, I decided to confront him and ask him why he did it… This could have gone several ways, but he claimed that he didn’t do it at all. Although I had hoped that he would admit and apologise for it because I was interested in finding out the reason why he did it, this showed me that he still wasn’t mature, so I just left it.

Some people say that the startle reflex can die down a little bit as the person gets older, but I’m nearer 30 than 20 now and I have yet to experience this – in fact, I would say that it has got worse and I think this is because my anxiety has increased in a way. Since moving into my flat with live-in carers, I feel like my startle reflex has become more of a burden because I am constantly having to explain about it and explain that I am not scared, and when the carer doesn’t have a good understanding of the English language, it is extremely difficult to get them to understand the words as well as the concept. I find it really embarrassing.

I have had to learn how to deal with my startle reflex and most of the time, I either ignore it when I only just jump a little bit, or if I jump viciously, it can cause me pain or embarrassment. Generally, it’s only painful when my Botox wears off and my arm is really tight. Coming up to and on Bonfire Night and New Year, it is also bad because I jump each time a firework goes off and I don’t have time to recover before the next one. I live very close to a field where an annual fireworks display is held and each time I am at home on the date of the display, I dread it!

My hope for people reading this is that it helps them to understand how the startle reflex affects me. I don’t have any control over it! I really hope that somewhere along the line, they will stop saying that I get scared because it doesn’t mean that at all; all it means is that I still have primitive reflexes from when I was a baby, and it’s no big deal.