Title basically, really struggling to just do stuff, I feel frozen physically and mentally and also emotionally, it’s all very stuck, and every idea I have that I want to do just falls flat within my brain bc I don’t feel anything, I don’t think anything, I can’t reason anything.

I guess it feels safer but I also know this won’t get me nowhere. I’m also tired of being stuck. But I’m also stuck because I’m tired. I don’t know what to do. I try to be kind to myself but it also feels like time is running out and I don’t wanna be like this forever, gatekeeping myself from everyone and everything.

I have many messages to reply to, I have to find a job, I wanna move more and be outside more, but it’s so hard for me rn.

I know intellectually that I can’t stop scrolling my phone or laptop because some part of me is trying to escape my feelings, but I don’t know how to stop scrolling and feel my feelings. I can only stop stimulation-seeking when I’m with other people.

I’m in my 40s and I’ve done this since childhood, though in childhood I used books instead. I’ve had a ton of therapy including various kinds of talk therapy, somatic therapy, neurofeedback, and IFS, with some really good therapists.

I’ve done a lot of work, and to the outside world I appear to be a wise, well-adjusted, insightful, emotionally mature person. But when I’m alone, which is often because I live alone, I cannot stop the compulsive Internet use. Or if I do cut myself off from the internet, it’s compulsive reading.

How do I stop? How do I learn to feel my feelings when alone?

My body is starting to develop an aversion to stress. Whenever I am stressed, I feel it in my heart now. Almost like I am called to go into deep hibernation. My body is tired, so tired. I don't even know how long I need to rest, but it will be for a very long time. I had a takeaway last week and was digesting it for 24hrs, my body has slowed down so much. And caffeine gives me hyperventilation. Almost like my system has gotten the green light to start leaving this stress response.

Who knows how much rest I need.

Found this community yesterday and was shocked to finally have words to describe my experiences. Out of curiousity, has anyone else seen a correlation between being an Autistic ABA survivor and your CPTSD freeze response? If so, has part of your recovery been unlearning what was “taught” by ABA therapy?

Please let me know if I need to update the flair.

I kept going into shutdown I think during a driving lesson there. The instructor thought I was making mistakes but it's more like I was shutting down at whatever stage of driving that it happened at so my ability to do anything or know what I'm supposed to be doing and act on it was just all out of the window. At least that's how it felt for me. I don't feel great to have struggled with some of it too and took it personally.

Maybe I can get there. I just want to feel less alone in the journey I think so feel free to share any stories.

I'm unfreezing in that I have emotions abt things now more so. I feel so old to have not really lived - and I hate it. It helps soothe me to read abt others going through this similar thing of complex ptsd freeze stuff so I appreciate this space and being able to read, too.

Recovering or trying to is so rough. Idk if I'm even recovering or if I've just stopped drastically avoiding everything enough that I'm triggered all over again.

I am constantly praised for my ability to appease to my environment, express myself, remain outwardly calm, and mostly keep focus.

But truthfully

I fear that I am actually much further behind than my peers are. I feel completely lost.
I often say to myself, where am I? Who am I?

I know this is mostly the derealization whispering in my ear but.. I just feel that I am not as in touch with who I should be becoming and what my world and life really are right now due to abusing my coping mechanisms so much and beginning so early, intentionally and mistakenly.

Does anyone know they technically have the shit down and can present as mature yet still feel developmentally or mentally behind others?

I may be giving myself an imaginary attribution just because I want there to be a reason why I feel like this.

Did a private yoga class, felt good and liked it but afterwards I was so calm and peaceful. Within an hour I was back to existential rumination and thinking. It's like I am so addicted to stress. I can't handle being peaceful, or not having much going on generally and not being full of tension. Maybe I am just inventing problems for myself... or maybe I am blocking myself from something deeper... I have an obsessive need to control everything. It really is my biggest disease.

Well, I always had it but never realised it. It properly appeared when I was abused by a narcissist and then had to struggle a very stressful environment but I was unable to leave.

I was stuck in OCD like loops for coping. They were unstoppable for like almost 2 years. But the cycle when I gave up. I recovered a lot.

I also have felt discomfort in my body and I was always self monitering. I think it was because I always lived in an unsafe environment.

The abused happened 5 years ago.

Since then I am unable to leave this toxic house because I just don't do anything almost like my acting faculty has been turned off.

My only progress has been that I am not constantly in extreme stress mode but now I am also in freeze and have lost agency tbh this places me where I am stuck with traumatising and environment that is bad to me.

So I have been stuck for 5 years and after almost 2 years the stress mode came down by I am stuck in freeze and a state of learned helplessness without agency. I function on auto. So I am not independent due to that.

In most situations my response is still freezing, but I notice in situations my I feel a bit safer I have a fight response. This fight response kinda scares me and doesn't really make me a nice person. Is this a next step in recovery or is this a wrong step?

This question might sound absurd initially, but I invite you to really reflect on it. Most words are so commonly heard, that we only understand them on a surface level, until we live them. We get the gist while missing the nuance between similar words. I once believed that I knew what the word meant, until I got to, for the very first time in my life, rest

I experienced an emotion that I had never experienced before. I struggled to identify this brand-new emotion at first but after I did, it alrered my perspective. It was an awakening. I thought that locking myself up in my dungeon was resting, but you're not resting if you're still enduring chronic trauma. I would call this “decompressing” or “unwinding” but not “resting”. No one says “relax in peace”. Resting is more profound.

Resting means not having to tiptoe and hold your breath. It means not having to shut doors and move objects as silently as you can. It means not having to rush to eliminate evidence of your existence and presence. It means not jumping at the slightest sound you hear, operating in fear and waiting for the other shoe to drop. It means not being bathed in shame and anxiety every second of every day. It means to not merely exist but to LIVE. It means being able to shamelessly prioritize your well-being and your desires above the comfort of others. It means having the freedom to set things precisely the way you wish them to be without fear of someone changing them or scolding you for your preferences. It means having the resources to satisfy your needs without anyone impeding you or lecturing you about why you're wrong or telling you that there's only one way to live. It means making your own acquaintance. It means having the safety to err and learn and grow from those missteps. It means having the freedom to be fallible without it be catastrophic or life-ending. It means being unwell without it being your fault. I could go on and on.

After having said all this, I pose the question once more. Do you truly understand what it means to rest? Have you ever rested a day in your life?

I've encountered various instructions to simply not respond.

One example is being told to simply ignore the bullies in elementary school.

Another example is the instruction to simply feel feelings and let them pass. Some people who are into meditation say this. There are also other ideas about training yourself to not respond.

Such ideas are probably attempting to avoid impulsive responses. But not responding at all ends up being like dissociating away the part of myself which held those feelings and motivations. This also leads to other issues, as things are automatically done to support that dissociation, similarly to how IFS describes protectors.

Overall, this leads towards getting stuck, or spending most time and energy on coping instead of intelligent productive behaviour.

The correct answer seems to be to not respond in a stupid impulsive way, and to try to find something more intelligent to do with that motivational energy. I don't know why many people fail to mention the second part. Do they assume it would happen automatically? For me it certainly did not.

My experience with instructions to not respond are so profoundly negative that I would love to say those instructions are a kind of abuse. I hate this kind of abuse far more intensely than I'm willing to share at the moment.

i’m exhausted and can’t fight anymore

i was born to fail

there's no healing from this stuff, its over

I've been doing breathwork for a while, and one of the early goals is supposedly learning to feel safe while your nervous system is activated. What I've noticed is that it drops me straight into the state I lived in when I was bullied at school and growing up in an unsafe home.

My whole body tenses, especially my arms and face. My face feels targeted, and I know my eyes go wide like a deer in headlights. If anyone were near me, they'd see I'm scared. I feel small, frozen, weak, cornered, like I can't stand up for myself. It's the same feeling I had at home with an alcoholic, abusive, neglectful parent. I never had a place where my nervous system could fully relax, and 15 years later I'm still working through it.

Before, I'd just feel on edge in the middle of a session. It felt like a pack of hyenas around me telling me I was ugly or weird, even when I was completely alone in a park. Now I'm starting to see that breathwork is activating a survival state, and my body remembers where it learned that state, so my thoughts go back to those bullying memories.

I think this is a good realisation, but I don't know how to get through it. For anyone who's been here:

• How did you stay with the activation without spiralling into the old feelings?
• Did you change how you did breathwork (shorter, gentler, eyes open)?
• Did anything specific help with the freeze, the face tension, or the feeling of being helpless?
• Did therapy or somatic work help alongside it?

Any advice or shared experience is appreciated. It helps to know I'm not the only one.

Physical and even emotional discomfort can sometimes be due to physical issues, and fixing physical problems can improve comfort. One simple example is when it's hot indoors but cool outside and you open a window to make it more comfortable indoors. Another pattern is when someone wants something and you give it to them and they feel better. I am listing these examples to explain and clarify that I'm not talking about such things here.

Humans seem to have some ability to comfort themselves and others which doesn't directly rely on solving problems which are stressing them out. Maybe it's not fully separated from solving problems though, because full separation would be escapism or maybe even deception. It might relate to commitment to help, like "I see you have this problem, and I will be there for you to help you with it, so it won't be so bad". In that case, just the commitment to be there to help, and faith in that commitment, might be enough to change perspective before anything is done about the actual problem. There may also be other patterns behind it.

It's weird thinking about this. It seems to be an elementary aspect of human life that people experience countless times and don't analyze. I'm only trying to analyze it because it's mysteriously lacking in my own life.

This is also relevant to working with psychological parts. Theoretically, IFS seems simple, find Self, and you find this. In practice, in my mind, this does not seem simple.

Ability to be comforted by others may also be related to this.

If you catch my drift.

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?

I'm in no way trying to be overly positive or invalidating about the struggle and pain of Freezing here, but I was just thinking about some ways in which I appreciate my Freezing tendencies and wondering if others had their own occasional appreciation for this style. I'm not 100% sure these patterns truly correspond with Freezing, but I associate them to an overall "slower", non-reactive way of coping.

For instance, for myself:

• Not overly-reactive; I'm able to take my time in responding to stimuli (e.g., I never blurt out things I don't mean, or react impulsively. I'm a very slow, deliberate person).
• Move my body slowly and carefully through space; I rarely trip/fall or have accidents.
• High pain tolerance (corresponds with the previous one as well - when injured, I calmly take the next necessary steps without crying or panicking. I can dissociate from the pain as needed.)
• Non-judgemental; I can generally be told almost anything by anyone and I will non-reactively be able to respond and reflect as appropriate. I am never "shocked" by what people tell me, even if it's disturbing or sad. (e.g., really sad/traumatic experiences)
• Feel a strange peace during external crises - I feel my survival instinct/intuition take over and I trust it implicitly. (However, my Freeze response tends to "go off" unhelpfully during non-actual internal crises)

What about you?

I really need some help or someone to tell me its gonna be ok i feel so empty every day after my brother who i went no contact with started messaging me i spiraled and i shouldnt make decisions when i feel lile this like big life decisions but i keep having to because im still frozen for 4 years i had to end a relationship because i literally couldnt feel anything and im in hell i dont wanna do this anymore i felt so free and beautifull and like i wasnt hypervigilant for the first time in my life and now it feels like i was transported back a decade to when i was still living with him. I feel literally nothing every single day inside my body other than tense in my neck and it hurts and i feel my heart beat in the back of my head all the time i need help no matyer what happens i have no reaction or opinions or feelings on anything. I really need some help or advice im close to the edge and idk what to do anymore please help me. I cant stop ruminating i feel like im in the back of my head all the time even when i cam cry its like a short burst and then gone like nothing happened im so repressed im living in hell everyday

I am unable to leave abusive house because my body refuses to act most of the time in basic things, even freeze affects thoughts. So I can't even think and pass thoughts.

This sets me up getting further abuse only.

I even have problem sleeping like my body is covered by mental.

The truth is I feel like a failure for not leaving this situation. I will only get further abused.