[Teacake]

The traumatic events where I fought and won are a lot easier to overcome than the ones where I froze because I could do nothing.

Trauma is when we freeze. Recovery seems to be about going back to old fights knowing what we should have done.

[glok]

If trauma is when one freezes, fighting and winning as you describe it does not involve a traumatic event. This article is enlightening:

Myths & Facts about PTSD | Psych Central

I wish you well.

[Teacake]

Freeze isnt an on/off switch but a continuum.

Berzerking may be fighting with enough opiates in you that you don't feel, and your forebrain so frozen that you no longer have access to moral judgment. Fighters who berzerk have higher incidence of PTSzd than fighters who don't. (Jonathan Shay, MD, psychiatrist and VN veteran.)

Acting on ones own behalf can be protective against PTSD. Among the children in the Chowchilla bus incident, the boys who acted to rescue themselves and the others had fewer /less severe symptoms later. (Lenore Terr, PhD, psychologist and research).

My PTSD mentors have all told me that it is better to do the wrong thing than to do nothing. Of course, I Believe freezing once saved my friends a beating but who is to say PTSD is not a worse beating than you get in a fight.

[birdpumpkin]

I froze. My neighbor even told me and my husband later that it was like I froze when he was there trying to save me from our fire. I had just put my birds/cage outside on the back porch and was about to spin around and go back inside to - do something. I had no actual thoughts in my head, but my 10 cats were in there, and that's what I told him when he grabbed my arm and tried to lead me away. And it was like I froze and didn't know what to do - go with him or jerk away from him and go inside and try to save my cats. I feel I caved because I went with him. That's when I began to panic, too, as he led me away to his yard. And I still regret not trying to at least help them somehow. I didn't care about saving myself at all. I just wanted to go inside and get my cats. And they all died. I agree - I would rather have suffered smoke inhalation and had to go to the hospital knowing that I at least tried to help them and do something, anything rather than what I'm going through now feeling I just left them behind in danger.

[Teacake]

Originally Posted by birdpumpkin

I froze. My neighbor even told me and my husband later that it was like I froze when he was there trying to save me from our fire. I had just put my birds/cage outside on the back porch and was about to spin around and go back inside to - do something. I had no actual thoughts in my head, but my 10 cats were in there, and that's what I told him when he grabbed my arm and tried to lead me away. And it was like I froze and didn't know what to do - go with him or jerk away from him and go inside and try to save my cats. I feel I caved because I went with him. That's when I began to panic, too, as he led me away to his yard. And I still regret not trying to at least help them somehow. I didn't care about saving myself at all. I just wanted to go inside and get my cats. And they all died. I agree - I would rather have suffered smoke inhalation and had to go to the hospital knowing that I at least tried to help them and do something, anything rather than what I'm going through now feeling I just left them behind in danger.

Well, I'm glad you didn't suffer smoke inhalation! And I'm glad that as you didn't care about saving yourself your husband saved you.

Thank you for writing. You say very beautifully what that moment is when we become the ones who get stuck in trauma, and stay stuck as others carry on.

My experience of freezing is that it was giving up, like suicide. I was going to let strangers pluses to attack do whatever they were going to do to me, because I was so tired...I have had that terrible feeling of guilt toward myself. If was relieved when in imagination I shot one of them. That restored a lot of myself to me. Its like my jody had an action it needed to complete and when it did, even in imagination, it was satisfied. perhaps for you , completing the action of going back to open the door and let the cats out will free you from the stuck place.

Peter Levine's ideas about ptsd are very good. I know im not the Wyoming example of ptsd recovery but im still around trying for having read Perera books and been willi.g to try David Bercelis TRE. If I ever do get well it will be because I didnt rely on medical doctors alone.

[Teacake]

I froze sometimes. I didn't freeze sometime. Freezing times gave me more trauma that was harder to unload. So...I had to fight and when I had to fight I thought I could be beaten to death. It was not an unrealistic fear. But because I fought this trauma isnt nearly as bad as trauma from freezing when I saw someone else having an emergency, like stroke or night terrors.

I just want to say, that Its not what we did or didn't do or what happened to us that gives us ptsd. Its the way our bodies respond.

A police officer and martial artist told me that cardiovascular conditioning and trained responses prevent us from freezing in trauma. We can make ourselves resilient.

[JaneC]

When I first read this thread, I felt awful, briefly.

I froze. Each time I was sexually assaulted, I froze...I didn't fight.

I'm having a period of not feeling my emotions, and even now talking about this.....a tiny flash of something...then nothing. Anyway....

When I read this, first briefly awful, then briefly hatred of myself for freezing. Maybe it is good that I am not feeling.

I am glad that you talked about it though Teacake, it is another thing I'll need to discuss in T. Maybe I need to spend more time on/with my body..........

[birdpumpkin]

Well Teacake, we no longer have a back door as the house is demolished and gone now, and our new one doesn't have a back door but one on the side. I know - it's strange and I don't like it lol. But I do think something like that would help. Maybe if I had done it before the house was knocked down - it stood for 3 months with all our stuff inside. We stayed at my parents house for a month and a rental afterward, but I came back out here (we're back on the same spot out in the country) daily for 3 months to look for my 2 lost. The smell of smoke I encountered daily those 3 months along with what remained of our house and seeing things left as they were through the windows along with the damage from fire, firefighters tearing out our ceilings and making holes in the walls - for...?? For some reason I took all this damage personally, and it hurt a lot. It got to where I had to turn my head and try not to see what was there as I looked for my cats. But still - that smoke smell... Pages out in the yard blowing around from my books that burned up. I couldn't make myself go inside, though my husband and several other family members did several times. The descriptions I heard as if the place had been ransacked just hurt me more. Coffee table broken, couch flipped over and torn up (where my 8 dead cats were found), lid of my piano torn off and water sprayed inside, insulation and drywall on everything. I have books I saved I haven't cleaned off yet with small chunks of drywall stuck on them. I had my husband find my favorite shoes - my black Mary Janes - but I can't wear them because there is cat fur in the Velcro clasp and I don't want to lose it. I don't know what any of this has to do with freezing. I'm just rambling and remembering. But I do feel if I had allowed myself to be rude and had jerked away from my neighbor's grasp and gone back inside and done something - at least looked around quickly and maybe at least gotten one or two of them out to safety, I think I'd feel a little better. I'm sure I would've checked under the couch early on... But I don't know how I could've gotten terrified cats out. They might've been scared and bitten at me or who knows. I'm told I took exceptional care of my cats, but I always counter that with, "But I just took off and left them in harm's way. I didn't try to help them when they needed it most." The fact is there. I gave in and went with my neighbor, and I think I panicked right then because I knew I wasn't doing what I felt in my heart I should've done. What I would've done if he hadn't have been there.

[Open Eyes]

I don't see it as all that simple, it depends on the person and what their trauma is. A lot has to do with somehow being invaded and caught off guard and not having a way to self protect or have a sense of personal boundaries that others respect too. Also, it is bad enough to have a trauma that is so real and invasive, then developing PTSD makes it harder if the person is further abused or invalidated.

When someone has experienced a loss and develops PTSD, the last thing that person needs is to be told they "should not be suffering, what they have is not "real", what they felt was valuable was not, or don't beat yourself up as though it is the victims fault that they suffer. The last thing someone suffering needs is to talk about how they suffer and try to verbalize it and to have others tell them they are doing it wrong and "make it quick and simple or brief". The last thing someone with PTSD needs to hear is how what they say is not important, how they feel is not important and that "if" they talk about it whatever they say "will" be used against them and even twisted to convince others what they are saying happened, what they saw happen, all of what they lost is "not worthy of anyone believing them".

[Teacake]

The body cares that it survives. That is Its first priority. It makes sure we live to see the next sunrise. When we understand it, we can forgive it. It got us to tomorrow.

Our failing, as i see it, is not that we froze and "let" ourselves get traumatised, but that we have forgotten what wild animals still know, how to recalibrate after trauma.

Peter Levine and David Berceli are the names to know to get self help modalities for ptsd. Porges is the name for neurogeeks who need to know more.

I am also a big fan of marital arts training for little girls. I've been thrown to the floor by many a little moppet and Its a great thing to see. I didn't throw my own self down either. I was trained better than that.

[Parley]

I must be an idiot because I have no clue if I fought or froze. I was there and I know I did what I had to do to survive. I feel I fought but I also used denial as a means to achieve it. It seems to me that denial is a form of freezing?

I guess to me it doesn't really matter because I'm here and even knowing what I know today~ I would not have did anything different.
Teacake you said, "Recovery seems to be about going back to old fights knowing what we should have done."
There is no "should have" for me. Does that mean I am not in recovery?

[Teacake]

Originally Posted by Parley

I must be an idiot because I have no clue if I fought or froze. I was there and I know I did what I had to do to survive. I feel I fought but I also used denial as a means to achieve it. It seems to me that denial is a form of freezing?

I guess to me it doesn't really matter because I'm here and even knowing what I know today~ I would not have did anything different.
Teacake you said, "Recovery seems to be about going back to old fights knowing what we should have done."
There is no "should have" for me. Does that mean I am not in recovery?

In my experience, which is just my experience, getting to a place of no "should have" is a great relief.

Ive experienced my body throwing up all kinds of images. Some are violent. If they are spontaneous they blow over quick. Its like an action untaken got locked in place needs to be discharged. But sometimes Its an improbable or unrealistic action. No matter.

Where im stuck right now is in a time of witnessing a lover reliving some horror, being frozen and not knowing what to do. My fantasy is, oddly, to be back on the dijo floor, practicing shaking a man awake, I guess the body-minds just wants to Master it. God knows, I have a yearning like the yearning for love to be able to go back into that moment and bring that man out of that prison. I have hope that I will find a way. I happened before.

[ChipperMonkey]

How is this discussion productive? I see it as nothing but victim blaming. Freezing is a VERY valid form of defense in the wild. There are LOTS of animals that when encountered with danger and simply freeze. They may be too small to fight, and flight would indicate that they are there. Freeze enables them to simply get lost in their surroundings and hopefully avoid the predator. Uhm, you are aware that many predators don't have the greatest eyesight and rather depend on simply seeing the movement of their pray, correct?

[Teacake]

It is NOT "victim-blaming".

[monkeybrains21]

Growing up being assaulted I didn't fight it only made it worse if I did. Most sexual assaults I didn't fight, I was very drunk. My twin dying though, that I did fight. I wouldn't stop the CPR I made all the decisions I just wasn't quick enough starting. I couldn't bring her back and it haunts me everyday and very night. I say I'm over it and speak of it more often but I'll never forget that day. I'll never forget what I saw, did, and heard. I'll never forget the blood. I'll never forget doctors telling me I have to wait to be with my dead twin. I'll never forget how I let them stop me when all I wanted to do was charge past them and just sit with her. They wouldn't let me.

I will also never forget the anger I felt and still feel today for the hell she went through for others.