Three Kinds of “Freeze” Response

If you have been reading much about PTSD or trauma, you have probably come across the term:

Fight, Flight, Freeze

(well, there’s a 4th F, Fawn and I’ll talk about that at another time.)

When we’re going along with our lives and all of the sudden something happens, like we’re taking a walk in the woods and we see motion in the leaves and think, “SNAKE” before we actually enter fight or flight or back to enjoyment because you realize it’s just a little black snake, innocuous. There is actually a moment of “freeze” that we go through – things tense up and our body revs up getting ready to decide, OH! it’s a rattler, I’m going to chop it’s head off (fight) or turn and run (Flight) or realizing it’s just a benign little snake and I can continue on my walk, back into my ventral state of connection with nature. 

This form of freeze is a kind of “sense / tense” form.

Well, the second type of freeze goes something like this. Now your on the African savannah and you’ve encountered a lion – you go through that brief freeze “sense / tense” then you try to run (I don’t know too many people that would fight back a lion.) And unable to escape he’s caught you! You’re on the ground and enter this state of freeze that is often called “tonic immobility.” You’re immobile, but your muscles are tense, kind of like a deer in the headlights stiffness. Dr. Russ Harris calls this “hold / cold.”

The third form of freeze is if the lion continues to chew on you, inescapable, your muscles go limp, your brain floods endo-opiods numbing you to what’s happening, what Dr. Russ Harris calls this “flop / drop.” Now he describes the most vegetative state.

The reason I am writing about this, bringing it back to trauma and polyvagal is that for someone of us, we have experienced so much inescapable trauma, that we find ourselves in that third kind of freeze (not quite all the way to fainting) for a lot of our life, depressed, lifeless, no energy, numb, no hope, no joy…

If this describes how you often feel, you may want to consult with a professional. I have a number of clients who kind of hang out in that “dorsal” state. It robs them of vitality and is oftentimes a result of repeated trauma.

Please reach out for help or contact me, Michelle Grunkemeyer for more information.