I do this very same thing, and am kind of relieved to hear others with the same experience. When it happens, I become completely immobile-like can't lift a pinky finger. My ability to speak leaves first, and the loss of physical movement comes next. I can hear the responses I want to say in my head, I'm usually screaming it over and over, but I physically cannot speak. Interesting side note for me though, is that if someone touches me, I automatically jerk back. It's like an automatic response. I'm aware the person is coming towards me, I'm not scared of it, but my body jerks back anyways. If they either don't let go or immediately reach out a second time, my body relaxes and doesn't do it again. But that first touch, always causes me to involuntarily jerk back.
I have been diagnosed with ptsd. There are a lot of signs there that my dissociative behaviors are rank higher than just ptsd. My therapist seems to continue evaluating the dissociative aspect of things, but thus
far, nothing has been diagnosed.
I've done this my entire life, especially when I was in trouble with my parents. When my dad would catch it, he'd usually talk to me and hold me until I could come back.....and this explains Stockholm syndrome. I just know for certain that if someone doesn't continue to talk to me, I will lose touch with everything entirely. My sense of hearing is the only thing that keeps a foot in the real world.
I told my therapist about this type of dissociation. She made the statement that something absolutely horrific must have happened to me at a really young age in order for me to be able to dissociate like this.
I've never completely frozen in front of her, although I have lost my ability to speak numerous times. I had one instance where I felt my body beginning to shut down and managed to fight it from happening, but it scared me. I started to dissociate during one of our emdr sessions tackling something small. I tried speaking multiple times. I could hear what I wanted to say, tried to take big breaths and even opened my mouth to speak, but I couldn't manage to speak no matter how hard I tried. I started to get scared because I could hear my therapist calling my name several times, and each time she raised her voice a little more loudly and said my name a little more firmly. I was there, I just couldn't communicate that with her, and I didn't want her to get angry with me thinking I wasn't trying to come back. I was afraid that I would slip further away and not be able to move and I would have felt completely helpless.
I think it's funny that as common as that response is for me, I've never actually had a full blown episode in front of her. I almost wish it would happen just once so that she could see it.
