Thank you Kiya. When I read your thread it really hit home on somatic responses and I thank you for sharing and hope you find support and understanding here.

My experience during the robbery did not involve emotional responses, I don’t remember feeling anything not anger not fear, everything was so automated, afterwards when I locked the door behind him, as he told me to do. I went right back to doing what I was doing like nothing had happened, I noticed police cars zooming by, with light flashing, but it did not register mentally, and then the policeman jumping up and down banging the windows outside all upset.

I recall everything moving so slowly and wondering why he was so upset, but I just couldn’t move…the staring affect you have been describing... He actually had to crawl in thru the tiny window for customers to pay for gas, because I still just kept buffing the floor like I had been doing before the guy came in. Nothing really was kicking in I think at that point I kind of just had shut down. I don’t recall anything much afterwards, and actually showed up the next day to work and did not understand why they told me to go home and rest.

After a few weeks of nightmares, and headaches I talked to my mother when she told me about the childhood incident and they flooded into my conscious mind, only after that did I end up in the Emergency Room with a horrible migraine, which affected my ability to speak and move, the poor Doc thought I was having a stroke, I recall him trying to reassure me or himself, I am not sure at this point that I was not having a stroke because I was to young, since all of the tests were coming back okay that’s when they referred me to Psyche.

Anyway, my main response is freeze, neurological symptoms, but I used to get horrible migraines 3-4 times a week, now with therapy I feel so grateful they have improved dramatically and usually will occur during trauma processing or if I have an environmental trigger response and start to dissociate. Kiya, I hope you take it easy and get some rest until your reactions calm after being set off by the sound of gunfire.

Eva..