What does it mean to be Frozen

[Bewildered]

Recently I wrote a post about an ex-girlfriend who dumped me because I was depresssed. She turned out to be nasty and manipulative. However since that happened and after my posts on this board I realized that mostly when I am faced with an angry or overbearing person or someone who is trying to get the upper hand, I seem to go into a stae of paralysis. I am not describing the state of standing back to take a breath and consider my response, rather a felling of being *frozen*.
I am unable to speak and just want to run even though sometimes that is not practical.
It usually takes me several hours or days to unravel what happened emotionally and rationally and by then I feel dumped on and defeated.

Does anyone else have this experience?

Bewildered.

[Healing&Hopeful]

Hi Bewildered

I can relate to this totally.  Throughout my childhood, when someone got really angry, I froze.  I'd literally freeze with terror... now this a manifested in me to run away and I will bolt out of the room if someone gets angry with me.

Do you know why you react like you do?  For me I know why I react like I do, however it's such a quick reaction, I haven't quite worked out how to solve it.  Now it doesn't happen very often, because it's not very often than anyone is so angry with me.

H&H xx

[miss piggy]

Hello Bewildered,

Oh yes, the deer in the headlights feeling...   very familiar.

It's primal.  It's a survival thing.  Think of a mountain lion chasing down a little bunny.  The bunny runs, is cornered, then freezes.  Hoping to become invisible, blend in with the environment to get off the lion's radar screen.  "Don't see me, I'm not here!"  If it moves, it will provoke the final fatal swipe of the lion's paw.  I find Discovery Channel to be pretty depressing sometimes. 

In order to overcome this, it takes a lot of work.  Who in your childhood was overbearing and controlled people/you with their anger?  Who do you need to shrink down to kittycat size in your mind in order to reduce your fear of their anger?  I don't expect you to have instant answers here.  It takes a lot of thinking when you do identify these forces in your life to figure out why it holds power over you.  Once you ruminate and identify situations and feelings and why you freeze, only then can you go on to (changing metaphors here) slay your dragons. 

 My dragons are activated if I ask for something I need.  Or if I become "visible" to very competitive people who become jealous and need to knock me down to feel better.  Only now am I realizing that I won't "die" if people get upset with me.  Really.  I am an approval junkie trying to stay on the wagon.

Hope this helps.  Miss Piggy (yay, moi!)

[Plucky]

Hi Be,
I think Miss Piggy nailed it.  I would only add, that I love nature shows!  Nature is full of examples of aggression and unfairness.  So is human life.  Except that we as humans have a choice whether to be the prey.   Visualize your ex as a carnivore, next time she approaches you in person or by electronic means.  Don't be meat!
Plucky

[longtire]

Hi Bewildered,
I've been reading your other thread and I think you are doing a good job in a tough situation.  As for the feeling, I call it shock.  Literally, shock.  As if you had been in an accident and all the "non-essential" systems get shut down to deal with the immediate threat.  It is a survival mechanism, but it gets in my way when the situation isn't actually physical shock, but emotional shock.  I wish I could tell you how to not react that way, but I haven't figured it out for myself yet.  I'm trusting that removing the "shocking" people from my life is a good start, though.

[mum]

I realized that mostly when I am faced with an angry or overbearing person or someone who is trying to get the upper hand, I seem to go into a stae of paralysis.

Hey, Bewildered: welcome to a very big club!!!!
I have decided NOT to wonder if I'm ok becaue I can't see these things coming....and because they STILL send me into: shock, a freeze, paralysis....
That happens because I am a nice person who would never treat another human being with the kind of rudeness, anger, disrespect (fill in the blank here) that the nasty person is currently doing....or has just done.
I am shocked STILL because it is still not okay, someone just stepped over my boundaries and I am appalled.
That the other person might THINK they have some upper hand because I am not retaliating at the moment no longer concerns me. I don't think I will ever be prepared for other people's crap (which is what that is) but I do know that I no longer keep it for them. After the initial shock.....I tell myself...WTF (love that) and they get to keep all that. I don't want it, or deserve it.

BTW: have you considered that you were depressed because you had a B***** for a girlfriend? I think you have behaved marvelously with those shocking little dramas of hers. Good for you.

[write]

That happens because I am a nice person who would never treat another human being with the kind of rudeness, anger, disrespect (fill in the blank here) that the nasty person is currently doing....or has just done.
I am shocked STILL because it is still not okay, someone just stepped over my boundaries and I am appalled.

that really resonates with me- I try really hard to be kind and any kind of unkindness or unfairness makes me feel like I was as a small child, tearful and anxious.

I respond by walking away or withdrawing immediately now, even so the emotions still hurt.

It's not happening so much since I started drawing more boundaries and ending relationships with people who like to be nasty, but even so at a rehearsal recently the director was a bit sharp with me and it was all I could do to stay put and not burst into tears.

I guess these wounds go very deep, maybe never fully heal.

[Hopalong]

Know what, B?
Don't beat yourself up for freezing.
You've spotted it. That's HUGE.
So now you'll observe it for a while.
It might happen again and that's okay too.

It's like gradually limbering up. Or something, you know, when people get super out of shape so they can't touch their toes, and then if they do a gradual practice over many months, just pressing a little harder each time, one day they're changed, their reflexes are quicker, they feel surer and looser in their bodies.

It's like that in your emotional reaction body too. You'll thaw.
Don't judge yourself while you work on it, the awareness is a big one!

Hopalong

[Sallying Forth]

However since that happened and after my posts on this board I realized that mostly when I am faced with an angry or overbearing person or someone who is trying to get the upper hand, I seem to go into a stae of paralysis. ... rather a felling of being *frozen*.
I am unable to speak and just want to run even though sometimes that is not practical.
It usually takes me several hours or days to unravel what happened emotionally and rationally and by then I feel dumped on and defeated.

Does anyone else have this experience?

Bewildered.

I have had this experience a lot. I would freeze and not be able to run away from the situation. I have had this with my h too. I can remember one time in the hallway this happening a year ago. I described it in my journal as "deer in front of headlights" reaction; just staring and not reacting. Within my body I feel stiff, my breathing hitches and becomes shallow.

I remember a very angry and evil man who began to attack me verbally. I froze and couldn't get away from his verbal assault.

I have also felt this around people who are abusive or N or highly N-traited. I feel violated and their crap is in my space.

It used to take me days to unravel what happened and how it affected me. Now it is almost immediately after I leave their presence. I realize I was messed with. I find retreating and being alone is my best defense. I can find my myself and regroup within me.

For me I realize my sensitivity to this is that I am intuitive and therefore pick up on people's crap very easily. I am learning what is mine and what belongs to someone else. Now I am learning how to get the crap out of my space.

Also for me it is because I have suffered from PTSD for years. I am getting healthier and responding less and less like a deer-in-the-headligthts.

[Hopalong]

I don't know how it relates to deer in the headlights but I'd guess, Bew and I'm sure ME...it's about not being touched gently. Tenderly. Not enough to offset somebody who hit or scared you.

Touched amply and affectionately and safely with love and gentleness and no, no, no hurt in the hands.

Somebody hurt you, Bew?

I've come out of freezing but do have a sense that I am going around grokking on hugs and stuff (needing the reassurance of affection more than I imagine people around me need it) because of some hunger for touch that's just not met. And it's not about sex.

I have a good friend who's from India and a psychologist and he's always hammering away at me about letting go of attachment. I'm, inside, thinking okay, but why don't you hold me. And it's not about sex.

I think sometimes so many of us are walking around just YEARNING to be safely, closely held. Something about our culture/s just leaves some unmet need there

Dunno how or if that relates to freezing and I know I'm wandering...just tossing a thought in the pot.

Hopalong

[Bewildered]

I guees that whai I am describing is a situation in which I am attacked or feel overwhelmed by someone's excessive demands or'wiseass' insult --I take forever for my mind and body to resond. The words that I need to respond do not form in my head until hours after the event. And I am left feeling paralysed.
I don't know what your psych friend to talking about except to say that the Buddhists share his view. Deliberately setting up detachment from others who matter to you, or 'letting go' of existing attachments is a  self-serving cold bunch of crap IMO.

Bew.

[Hopalong]

Can I borrow that?
I do get that the Buddhists have something to teach me but I think it's that I misunderstand what they mean by detachment. (I bet the word's not a good translation...?)

I don't know how to flatten out the emotionality that seems hard wired in me, and my friend does seem to both go after it like it's a problem, but also zero in on my most vulnerable places in a way that is brutal but not cruel if that makes sense.

I sort of feel loved after we talk, but also kind of beaten up. He did tell me that he was a bully as a kid and he's trying to help me because that's his way of fixing his "karma." I don't want to have contempt for his view simply because it's strange to me...but it does leave me confused. He's very insistent about his personal space and is always asking me to scoot back a bit and not sit close, etc. Sometimes that hurts my feelings but I also think it may be that he's onto something in my nature.

I'm not sure it's something I have to fix, though. It may just be an incompatibility in our natures?

happy dancin'
Hopalong

[Plucky]

Hey Hoppy,
tell your exbully friend he is not quite on top of the karma thing.  There is still a bully vibe in his 'tough love'.
Also, they say bullies have a weakness.  When he asks you to back off, ask if that was his problem, being close to people. I mean, it's your duty to help him to nirvana, isn't it?  It also sounds like he is excessively attached to your outcome.  Point it out.
a wicked
Plucky
       

[Bewildered]

Yes Hopy, I think that your psych friend has an attachment problem not you.
It makes me chuckle whenever I hear these eastern philosophies promote detachment. At the same time they claim to be so compassionate and loving. Seems to me that they want to sit aroiund and just sniff incense and talk about enlightenment ' while the rest of the world fights against evil and wrondoing and ultimately does all the heavy lifting.

Having compassionate 'feelings' ain't worth a squirt unless you are wiilling DO something to change what is wrong into what is right. Karma ? Gimme a break !

Gimme my saffron robes! -Bewildered.

[CeeMee]

May I interject here to say that not all Buddhists are isolating and detaching to reach Nirvana.  The Buddhism that I am familiar with is based on the belief that we are all connected and not just with each other but with the entire universe.  Recognizing that attachment/connectedness is key to the philosophy.   In order to reach the ultimate state of  Buddhahood, one must first experience the state of altruism through helping others.  The state of Buddhahood is defined as the absolute happiness derived while engaged in that altruism.  I can't see how anyone could achieve Buddhahood staying detached from the world or humanity. 

Hopalong, IMO your friend's need to have you scoot back and give him space has less to do with your  need for attachment or Buddhist "detachment"  and more to do with his own inability to be comfortable with people in his "space."  It could be a cultural thing or just the way he's wired as you say.  Which is fine, except that it sounds like he tries to make your natural wiring out to be faulty by wanting you to change. 

Could it be this is an incompatibility between you two?  My husband and I are both very attached, physical, cuddly and in each other's space all the time.  When we sleep, we are like a pretzel.  When we watch TV we are wrapped in each others arms.  When we walk down the street, we are embraced or holding hands.  In fact, there is hardly any time when we are together relaxing that we are not entwined somehow.  Some might find this odd but it works for us because we are both wired this way.

Bewildered, I know that feeling of being stunned into paralysis.  This is not uncommon.  I think that when  someone is attacked unexpectedly, the immediate physiological response causes our chemistry to explode causing confusion.  Not everyone is wired to go into fight response  Perhaps it is an aborted flight response that we experience.  We want to run but circumstances don't permit and so we stand there stunned.   I find that happens to me more often now.  In the past, I never hesitated to go into fight response but over time, I've learned to control my immediate response, but the adrenalin is still rushing.

CeeMee