I can totally relate to the body going into survival mode that's what's happening to me right now with whipple's disease it's like my body isn't mine anymore and the bacteria has spread throughout it so much that it controls me now and I do the most bizarre, strange and odd things. It's crazy how the body and mind respond to something invading and attacking it. That's actually how I figured out something was seriously, seriously wrong. That and having sores and lesions all over my skin and autonomic and hypothalamic dysfunction and not being able to physically fall asleep at all. There were numerous occasions where I was up for 5 days straight without sleeping and I wouldn't even crash or get tired it was a horrible and vicious cycle. These all lead me to figure out what was causing it all.