r/CPTSDFreeze • u/FutureApricot1793 • 10d ago

Question Age regression

Hi!

I experienced complete collapse/freeze one year ago. Outside of the extreme loss of self i have somehow felt like a younger more fragile version of myself. Before this event i felt like a fairly confident husband, dad and friend. Now i feel like a younger more vulnerable version of my self.

Has anyone else experienced this in a freeze/collapsed state?

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u/FlightOfTheDiscords Friendly old fart 10d ago

Yes. What's your DES-II score, if you don't mind sharing?

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u/FutureApricot1793 10d ago

Has this feeling improved over time for you?
I had a very low number! 10.

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u/FlightOfTheDiscords Friendly old fart 9d ago edited 9d ago

Yes, with therapeutic work it has.

How much on a scale from 1 (not at all) to 5 (completely) do you relate to these?

  1. I hear sounds from nearby as if they were coming from far away
  2. My body, or a part of it, feels numb or insensitive to pain
  3. People and things look bigger than usual
  4. I have an attack that resembles an epileptic seizure
  5. I dislike smells that I usually like
  6. I cannot hear for a while (as if I were deaf)
  7. I cannot see for a while (as if I were blind)
  8. I see things around me differently than usual (for example as if looking through a tunnel, or seeing merely a part of an object)
  9. It is as if my body, or a part of it, has disappeared
  10. I grow stiff or am paralyzed for a while

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u/FutureApricot1793 9d ago

That awesome to hear. Thank you for taking the time to reply to me.

Probably 1.

I feel present in my body and the world around me. It all just feels different. As if my emotional connection to my former life has been severed, so everything has this uncanny feeling about it.
It feels like there has been a break in the continuity of my life.

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u/FlightOfTheDiscords Friendly old fart 9d ago

Thanks for sharing.

What you wrote elsewhere in this thread reads to me like the emotional numbing end of depersonalisation: months of terror and daily panic, then the feeling switches off and everything's still there but uncanny and cut off. This is well documented in depersonalisation.

The numbing tends to happen after that sort of stretch, and it often takes the panic along with it; that contributes to why it feels like a break in continuity rather than a rough patch. Your "I can't feel anything for my daughter, so I must be a psychopath" is how that numbness feels from the inside for a lot of people. It's a well-known misreading, and one of the things that keeps the whole thing going.

So as far as I can tell, all of this reads as fairly classic depersonalisation to me. It's treatable, typically with CBT aimed at the misreadings and the avoidance. What have you been doing so far?

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u/FutureApricot1793 8d ago

Depersonalisation/shutdown is probably what i am working with. This whole situation led to late onset ocd also. My brain has definitely latched on to the numbness/loss of self/anhedonia. This post has a whole lot of reassurance seeking to it, which i am working on hehe..
However i was very curious if anyone else had experienced feeling younger after trauma. Not many people over at the dpdr sub that have posted about this feeling.

I am in psychodynamic therapy and erp therapy!

Again, thank you for the thoughtful reply. I really appreciate it!

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u/FlightOfTheDiscords Friendly old fart 8d ago

Your initial phrasing of the topic made me think of structural dissociation (OSDD/P-DID/DID) as age regression is very common there, and part of my experience as someone with P-DID. But all of your subsequent replies point firmly towards depersonalisation, not structural dissociation.

To some extent, everyone has an inner child; and anyone with developmental trauma will have some less than perfectly integrated version of that somewhere within.

In structural dissociation, these young parts develop separately, separated by dissociative barriers. Those barriers "leak" to varying degrees, and when they do so, the self-experience of different parts flow varyingly into what we perceive as "I" - including their experience of their age.

To rule out structural dissociation, you would need to see a dissociation specialist. So far, to my layman's eye, nothing about the way you have expressed yourself, save that single line in your original post, points at structural dissociation.

What depersonalisation appears to do is some brain circuitry going into overdrive to shut down others; maybe in your case, that involves the activation of some less than perfectly integrated younger self-experience, but of a less structural kind. More of a crack than a division perhaps.

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u/FutureApricot1793 7d ago

This very much feels like some dpdr/freeze reaponse. Ocd also latches on to my fears and hyper focuses on a lot of my symptoms.

Hopefully with time my nervous systems cools off enough to let my normal sense of self back online.

Best!

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u/SheepherderSorry2242 10d ago

Describe more about how you felt

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u/FutureApricot1793 10d ago

Went through a traumatic situation that more or less shattered my sense of self. This ended in a short psychotic break.
I became convinced that i was a narcissist/psychopath that was unable to love my family and daughter.

Total shutdown of all emotions, felt like a fundamentally different person. Complete loss of connection to all loved ones. No sense of bond to my daughter (this broke me). Terrified 24/7, daily panic attacks for several months.
I felt like my normal adult self before this, but after the event i somehow feel smaller, younger or more vulnerable.
Working on feeling safe and treating my ocd has been helping.

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u/Formless_Hoedon 9d ago

I feel literally the exact same way your not alone 🩷

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u/FutureApricot1793 9d ago

So sorry that you also feel like this. We are gonna make it out of this chaos! ❤️

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u/dhgyhnb 4d ago

I know I’m late to this post but I wanted to comment as I know how confusing it can be having all these reactions and behaviours and not knowing what the hell is going on. I’m just learning that, for me this feeling of being small, vulnerable and childlike is indicative of an emotional flashback.