What does the freeze trauma response look like?

Freeze – Feeling stuck in a certain part of the body, feeling cold or numb, physical stiffness or heaviness of limbs, decreased heart-rate, restricted breathing or holding of the breath, a sense of dread or foreboding.

What happens in the freeze response?

The “freeze” response occurs when our brains decide we cannot take on the threat nor are we able to escape. Often when this happens our bodies might remain still, unable to move, numb or “freeze”. We may feel as if we are not actually a part of our bodies.

What does trauma response look like?

Initial reactions to trauma can include exhaustion, confusion, sadness, anxiety, agitation, numbness, dissociation, confusion, physical arousal, and blunted affect. Most responses are normal in that they affect most survivors and are socially acceptable, psychologically effective, and self-limited.

Is freezing up a trauma response?

In fact, an overactive trauma response — getting stuck in fight, flight, freeze, or fawn, in other words — may happen as part of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD).

How do you get out of a freeze response?

Simulation Scenario - Explaining the Freeze Response to a Client

What is shutdown dissociation?

Shutdown dissociation includes partial or complete functional sensory deafferentiation, classified as negative dissociative symptoms (see Nijenhuis, 2014; Van Der Hart et al., 2004). The Shut-D focuses exclusively on symptoms according to the evolutionary-based concept of shutdown dissociative responding.

What causes the freeze trauma response?

Dissociation is something that can occur when a person has a traumatic experience. It makes severely distressing events feel less real, causing a person to feel numb or detached. This may explain why the freeze response is more common in people with previous experiences of trauma.

Is freeze response the same as dissociation?

Dissociation is an adaptive response to threat and is a form of “freezing”. It is a strategy that is often used when the option of fighting or running (fleeing) is not an option.

Am I fight, flight freeze or fawn?

Fight: facing any perceived threat aggressively. Flight: running away from the danger. Freeze: unable to move or act against a threat. Fawn: immediately acting to try to please to avoid any conflict.

What causes a person to freeze up?

The bottom line. Your body's fight-flight-freeze response is triggered by psychological fears. It's a built-in defense mechanism that causes physiological changes, like rapid heart rate and reduced perception of pain. This enables you to quickly protect yourself from a perceived threat.

What are the 4 types of trauma responses?

The four trauma responses most commonly recognized are fight, flight, freeze, fawn, sometimes called the 4 Fs of trauma.

What are the 6 trauma responses?

In the most extreme situations, you might have lapses of memory or “lost time.” Schauer & Elbert (2010) refer to the stages of trauma responses as the 6 “F”s: Freeze, Flight, Fight, Fright, Flag, and Faint.

What are the 5 trauma responses?

There are actually 5 of these common responses, including 'freeze', 'flop' and 'friend', as well as 'fight' or 'flight'. The freeze, flop, friend, fight or flight reactions are immediate, automatic and instinctive responses to fear.

Can your body get stuck in fight or flight mode?

In your daily life, you may experience moments of these states before your body self regulates and brings you back into a place of calm. However, if you are under chronic stress or have experienced trauma, you can get stuck in sympathetic fight or flight or dorsal vagal freeze and fold.

What does fight or flight response feel like?

You're tense or trembling.

Stress hormones are circulating throughout your body, so you might feel tense or twitchy, like your muscles are about to move at any given moment.

What happens when your body is in constant fight or flight mode?

The body turns on the "fight or flight" response, but is prevented from turning it off again. This produces constant anxiety and overreaction to stimulation, followed by the paradoxical response called "learned helplessness," in which victims apparently lose all motivation.

What does the fawn response look like?

Difficulty saying 'no,' fear of saying what you really feel, and denying your own needs — these are all signs of the fawn response. Have you ever been overly concerned with the needs and emotions of others instead of your own? This may be a trauma response known as fawning.

How do you recognize trauma responses?

What is the flop response?

A 'flop' response results in a total bodily collapse, which might involve blacking out or loss of consciousness, loss of control over bodily functions or total disorientation. This is also referred to as collapsed immobility where the muscles become all floppy like a ragdoll.

What does it feel like to dissociate?

If you dissociate, you may feel disconnected from yourself and the world around you. For example, you may feel detached from your body or feel as though the world around you is unreal. Remember, everyone's experience of dissociation is different.

How do you reconnect after dissociation?

When does anxiety make you freeze?

Commonly associated with a state of relaxation, our parasympathetic system counterbalances the physical effects of the stress hormones flooding our body. This process triggers a state of 'freezing', our heart rate and breathing slows down and we may find that we hold our breath.

Can you have all 4 trauma responses?

The most well-known responses to trauma are the fight, flight, or freeze responses. However, there is a fourth possible response, the so-called fawn response. Flight includes running or fleeing the situation, fight is to become aggressive, and freeze is to literally become incapable of moving or making a choice.

Can you change your fight or flight response?

Try deep breathing.

For example, while the sympathetic nervous system increases respiratory rate and breathing becomes shallow in times of stress, researchers have found that we can actively counteract the fight-or-flight response by taking slow, deep abdominal breaths (Perciavalle et al., 2017).

Can you be stuck in the freeze response?

While the survival strategies fight and flight are more well-known, the freeze response has become increasingly identified and worked with over the past several years. You see, if a person can't flee or if fighting is ineffective, then they may go into a state of paralysis.