How to come out of a chronic freeze response (Re-run of my most viewed #nervoussystem video to date)

I dissociated for my first 12 years of life, and then I was sent to boarding school. It's taken 60 years for me to feel safe. My mother is a covert narcissist, and my dad was an alcoholic. I was born with asthma. My life has been pretty messed up. All the best for everyone going through this

As a surgeon, I can tell you some of my patients have had trauma without them ever uttering a word about it. You learn to recognize the signs.

I took singing lessons for a year, as a side-therapy. I was 'allowed' to unshackle my feelings, raise my voice, experience and express emotion and achieve a form of artistic skill. 😊

Once I've realized that I've been in a freeze state most of my life, it became important to grieve the lives that I could have had if I had been able to use my potential earlier in life. Sending all the love and light to everyone in this situation. We're amazing 🤍💫

Turning 28 soon. I've come to realise that disassociation has always been my only coping mechanism.

Here's a recap for those watching the vid again. 1. Education (awareness) 2. Environmental safety (move out of traumatic places) 3. Internal safety (touch the parts of body that feel safe) 4. Tough stuff (touch the parts of body that were frozen) Thank you so much for the educational information. Wish us, we all with best healing journey. We can get through this ❤😊 Thanks so much for the likes 🌱

Thank you for validating my crippling childhood trauma. Affluent home, "the good kid" that was me. Now I'm a dissociated mess. Trying to put back the pieces.

“Many people are living semi functional lives in some forms of shutdown response… They’re still awake, still concious. Parents, kind of” THE SHADE 💀

I needed this explanation to understand my messy life. I've been frozen my whole life hating myself for not being able to speak and defend myself in unfair situations.

“… driving without never having been taught how to drive “ is exactly how I feel in this moment. I wake up dreading the days. I am supposed to get myself a job, “be an adult” be responsible for myself , Take care of a home, and children , and take car to mechanic , all under emotional trauma , not only childhood trauma , but trauma of a 20 plus years dealing with a narcissist people. I feel lost, stuck , overwhelmed , with too many options and not being able to choose any. This can usually be confused with depression , but for me I know it’s situational. I am certain I am lacking key developmental skills I never got . I have many talents , I am capable. I know this bc I have done it in the past, but interestingly when I look back , I was in a state of “ fight” response. I am searching and searching. I will not give up until I get myself out of this painful / frozen / without a life force stage. Safety is right !!!!!!!! I can’t be ME. I must hide ( I feel the safest in my room.) I must constrict myself not to offend others , etc .

I came into the world in freeze and fawn (when I could start speaking) and it looked like I was shy and reserved, but once I started talking (usually to an adult that wasn't my parents) I was overly gracious, complimentary or interested, and was usually seen as a "good egg." This was me freezing until it I needed to come up for air out of my own mind in which I hid for "protection" in a emotionally and mentally unsafe environment. Needless to say, I liked going to school to get away from home, but at home I was made to engage regularly and share what I learned at school, but basically never asked what I wanted to do or what my actual interests were, so I molded mine mostly around both my parents as a way to connect that was more emotionally driven than intellectual like everything else. I was still heavily immersed in my family unit once I left home and started living with my grandparents during college and my siblings after college until I finally got the opportunity to buy a condo at 32 years old, and I became aware that I had been in a trigger response all of my life until that point. I do a lot of breath work and yoga every day and try to do a lot of low swim learning (reading books, doing puzzles, and writing whenever and whatever I feel like expressing since I couldn't express as a child and throughout my life until recently). I do not share my writing with anyone (other than my therapist if it is relevant to understanding my life) and do not feel comfortable "giving away my true energy" because I need it for myself to self actualize still. It's a mind melt to think that I was in this experience for such a long time because I was afraid to admit that my parents didn't nourish or love me because they themselves were also triggered and dissociated mentally and emotionally. I accept them as they are, but I do not feel any attachment towards them other than in biological references.

As a massage therapist is like to add that there's a lot of sadness stored in the tops of the thighs or quad area. Foam rollers do wonders for this stuff

I have watched this video multiple times. No doubt I’ll watch it a few more times in the future. I’m that kid: the quiet one, the reader.

You are the first person I've seen doing this work that speaks about people who simply don't know what feeling safe/loved means. I grew up in an extremely abusive household where I was being beaten and cursed at daily by my parents. I don't know how to not feel like everything will crumble at any moment. Thank you for this video because I was really thinking that therapy isn't for me because the people who are so-called childhood wound healers can't understand I just don't know the concept of being loved or safe. And I'm 43 years old.

I love that you said "don't look that up right now," lol. (That's how easily I can get distracted and off on a tangent.)

Sounds like my issues. I was an undiagnosed aspie, and I could never regulate my actions. My dad and ex stepmother tried everything to get me to behave. Dad would take a 2x4 across my butt, throw me around, and scream at me. Ex stepmother would take hangers a hit me, slap me around, and threaten me. I was grounded from the age of 8 until the divorced at 12. My ex stepmother talked my dad into getting rid of all of my stuff except for bed, desk, and clothes. The hours I spent locked in my room with nothing to do and no one to talk to screwed me up. Growing up I was afraid of my father, and would feel ice in my chest whenever I heard the garage door open. I am still dealing with night terrors today at the age of 40 where I wake up kicking and reaching for my pistol. They want to be in my life now, and it’s so hard. I’m still working on not freezing to this day, and I can say I am a lot better and less meek than I was at 18. It’s never going to go away, and I’ll always carry psychological scars, but I will not let it define my life. Best of luck to everyone that went through pain at the hands of those that were supposed to love us.

I think another word for freeze is comply, you give up surrender and become susceptible to control.

What finally helped me in the last quarter of my life was getting away from mean-spirited people and finding a little kindness and success among a different sort of people. In the meantime I just tried to do everything before me as well and as decently as I could.

I’ve been doing Irene’s work for over 2 years now. I am an alumni with her SBSM program. I highly recommend it to anyone out there that feels a connection to her videos and blogs. This work does not have an “ending”. It is an everyday mindful journey/path for your life. Listening to this video reminds me of what to do for my healing journey. I am one who never got a map for feeling safe. Having to teach this to yourself after a lifetime of not understanding what is going on with your body is not an easy thing. But knowledge is power and Irene’s teaching and tools give me the belief that I can find my path up out of the darkness. As I continue to immerse myself in all of the wonderful information Irene so generously gives and with patience and kindness toward myself, I find myself making progress every single day. I love you Irene. You have changed my life and I am so grateful I found you and this truth.

Oh gosh!! I’m living with family because of finances. It’s definitely not emotionally safe for me! I fully agree with you, it extremely difficult to heal my freeze when I don’t feel safe!! I can’t fight and I can’t leave, stuck in freeze!! Dang!😓