Fight/flight/freeze - is it possible to change your default response?

[barefoot]

My default response is freeze.

I can understand why animals freeze - playing dead can save their life.

I also understand why freezing can be a life-saving response in humans...that fighting back or trying to run could actually make things worse for the person. I can also see that freezing involving numbing/dissociation can offer psychological protection against the reality of a horrible situations and the emotions that go with that.

I can see how the freeze response, including dissociating, has probably psychologically protected me through some traumatic times, especially as a child.

Now though, it just gets in the way and I hate that I do it.

I wish I could do fight or flight instead so that I can actually do something instead of just doing nothing, saying nothing and letting things happen that I don't want. In the moment, my thoughts are in overdrive telling me to get up, to leave, to speak up, to ask for something, to tell someone to stop for a second, to do it now, to say it now...but I just can't do anything and I can't get any words out. I just have to wait for whatever it is to be over and then I feel upset, triggered, angry with myself for not doing anything again and just horrible.

I think the main way it now shows up and causes me some problems is that my default freeze response now often stops me from being able to advocate for myself eg in medical settings.

Is it possible to change one's default response to one of the others?

Or is that not desirable anyway and is it more a case of working towards not going into any fight/flight/freeze responses in the first place??

Or are neither of these things realistically achievable and I just need to accept that I freeze?

 

[New]

Oh my goodness! I’m so glad you started this thread.

I have frozen as well and I hope someone knows how to change it. I wonder if it is because something did happen when we were so young.

 

[Marvel545]

I read a fantastic book about these responses by Pete Walker, its called from Surviving to thriving. He speaks about rebuilding the fight response. I can't remember much more, I need to read it again, but I know it has helped me.

 

[grit]

I do not know how to change that but from personal experience, I did 8 years of boxing and that sort of unleash my anger emotions out and freed up my throat to speak up (still work in progress). My trauma destroyed so much of my boundaries all my reflexes were out of whack for many years. I think the only one that I did not develop was fawning reflex.

On a lighter note, I am getting better speaking up or walking away but when it comes to telling jokes or good comeback, I am not good or up to speed yet. I love people who can come back with the best quip! gosh...I always think of a good comeback like the day after. This is how trauma stifles one's spontaneity! - I learned in therapy.

 

[Friday]

Of course.

That’s exactly what military and other forms of training do... teach people to change their instinctive response, to respond in the way that’s wanted. Whether that’s running towards danger (instead of running away or freezing), or keeping your temper in check no matter how provoked. That’s one thing you ALWAYS have to do when training fight response, pair it with discipline. But both conscious control & knee jerk reactions are altered by training, practice, and application.

It’s the exact same thing with panic attacks... training yourself to be able to yank them back down to earth before they can kick off, getting calm/rational/grounded, etc... & the foundation behind exposure therapy. Fundamentally altering how you respond to things.

All this stuff is highly able to be manipulated. Although my experience is that a) it sucks pretty hardcore & b) you have to really want it in order to direct the way things shape. (Part of breaking people is making them respond in ways that are neither wanted, nor natural to them... self directed change is infinitely easier than unwanted change).

I was always the kind of person who ran towards trouble. What I had to learn to control was my fight response. When I broke, that’s what kicked into high gear / what I lost control of. I could no longer trust my instincts to respond in the best way possible, instead I had a single gear I kicked into. Bad juju. Learning to bring it back under control? Learning to freeze, and then unfreeze at will? Learning to duck, or run away, or run toward, as the situation called for it? Sucked. Hardcore. But I’ve done it. A few times.

There’s a big difference between listening to your instincts & being a slave to them.

 

[barefoot]

@Faith Andrews - my therapist said it’s a learned response so I guess that, yes, whatever response we first used successfully during traumas becomes our go-to.

I’m no expert on any of it though - I only have quite a basic knowledge - so I’m very happy to stand corrected by anyone who knows more!

My therapist also said that she has worked with many many clients who have experienced “physical invasion” (sexual assault/abuse) and that 9 out of 10 of them froze. So, I can accept that it is common - and understandable.

I just find it so upsetting and frustrating as a response now - especially since there isn’t a major, traumatic threat when it happens now. It’s unpleasant, triggery things...but not that I’m actually being assaulted again. But my failure to act/speak up means that I end up enduring stressful, unpleasant things.

@Marvel545 - thanks for the book recommendation. I like the sound of rebuilding the fight response.

I have read people here before saying that they took martial arts lessons etc to feel more confident, empowered and more prepared/able to fight back and protect themselves. I’m not sure whether that is the same though... I think I could learn something like that but, in the moment, I don’t know that I would fight - I suspect I would still feeeze? And I don’t need/want to actually fight in the situations I’m talking about - it is more about wanting not to freeze to improve my self-advocacy, I think.

@grit - it’s encouraging to read that you are getting better at speaking up and walking away. In “normal life” (ie when I’m not feeling triggered/in the grip of high anxiety) I am actually pretty quick witted and quippy and part of my work involves public speaking and facilitating groups. So, it’s not that I can never find my voice or respond to people spontaneously. Maybe that’s also why it feels so frustrating to me - that I think of myself as having a strong voice...until, in these sorts of situations, I don’t!

 

[grit]

Barefoot
maybe precisely you are frustrated because you can use your voice otherwise so in essence, you are actually very close to re-channeling it but somewhat stuck.

I will just throw it out there, but maybe since you already have strong voice, maybe accept this side of you and see if that releases the grip. You are already ahead of the curve of trauma impacted voice/throat area if you can do the quick wit or have great humour (to captivate audience) - that is great! It just puts smile on my face.

Sometimes I find what we resist, persists (that old saying).

Also maybe just minimize triggers in your environment. For me, I am triggered by trump - his shamelessness reminds me of my mother, so I do not read about him when I am high in anxiety.

 

[shimmerz]

In the moment, my thoughts are in overdrive telling me to get up, to leave, to speak up, to ask for something, to tell someone to stop for a second, to do it now, to say it now...but I just can't do anything and I can't get any words out.

Yep. This was me. Still is occasionally but by and large I have kicked it.

For me, the spinning around in my head was about safety. I needed to get out of the room that another person was in with me. Or even if a person was too close in my personal space. I would drop like a rock and my head would be absolutely spinning as to where that (those) person was and how to escape the room. I damned myself, cajoled, cooed, screamed inside.... none of which was helpful. All of that (brain in overdrive) just kept me frozen still.

Is it possible to change one's default response to one of the others?

Yes. It is.

is it more a case of working towards not going into any fight/flight/freeze responses in the first place??

No, I think it is about resetting the default response that we have learned. From my experience it wasn't about getting to angry (while frozen or pre frozen), it was about tricking my body into moving. That was all I needed to do in order to stop the default freeze response. The rest, the fight/flight stuff came naturally afterwards, so I wouldn't necessarily focus on those two other options. All you want to do is train your body to get out of that freeze state and recognize that you aren't going to die.

I just need to accept that I freeze?

Absolutely not. You and I both know that that is absolutely no way to live.

I used to freeze 100 times a day. Maybe more. Sometimes the freeze was so bad that I would freeze for up to 5 days in a row. It is a life destroying pattern that I wouldn't recommend to anyone.

Visualization was a really important thing for me in all of this. I know when I was in the depths of this behaviour I had to literally hand over agency of myself to others because I just had no sense about me. And of course, I couldn't protect myself in that state.

It took about 5 or 6 tries, but I recall the day I lay on the couch frozen solid yet again. I recognized that I needed to visualize a source of energy (because I had none) to go to and ask for more energy and guidance. That was my higher self. Not real big into my higher self at this stage but it sure was helpful at the time.

I literally visualized (while frozen) following my silver cord (this could be mainstream religion as well) to my higher self. I laid down at my higher self's feet and asked for energy and guidance.

I was 'told' to just move the tip of my baby finger. Just to focus on that. That I was willing myself to move my whole body and that was too much for the condition I was in.

So I focused on the tip of my right side pinky finger and tried to move it. It took a bit, and I think it wasn't so much a spiritual thing that helped me with this but rather because I was focused on moving a small part of my body, it distracted my mind from the perceived danger. It also gave my brain a new and more updated program to run.

I was able to move the tip of my pinky that day. Upon success of that I challenged myself to move my thumb. And then my wrist. I actually got up that day - and it didn't take long after the initial movement.

I continued to freeze for a while after that but each time it got easier and easier to move that finger and then the thumb and then the wrist. I kept it the same process each time so that I was setting a pattern that was repeatable for my brain to attach to.

It worked. I had to get up afterwards and hit myself with some spicy stuff to get me back into my body, but I have to be honest -- I rarely freeze anymore.

And the interesting thing is that with me, that lack of freezing let to what felt like almost a 'reset' of my go to behaviours. When I have a hard time speaking I just picture the fight (there is the fight response at work - just not fighting others) on the couch to move my finger and realizing that I was NEVER going to put myself through that again.

No idea if this resonates or makes sense at all so please ignore if it isn't helpful or doesn't make sense.

 

[Skywatcher]

My T has told me many times that dealing with the traumas and refiling them in my brain will help these situations. I hope so. Not there yet. My worst issue is a vocal freeze. It happened recently for about twenty minutes while out with my husband and friends. Later, I asked my husband if he noticed when I disassociated and he had :(.

 

[Mach123]

I did a lot of training in jiu-jitsu but it did not work for this which is a shame because I saw some of those guys become so capable at subduing or initiating an attack. I remember this one time the teenagers class where I trained were "getting cocky" and the black belt had them keep attacking him over and over one after the other. He was like "try and hurt me." These four guys were late teens almost twenty. He made them tap before they hit the mat over and over. In the end, all the attackers were gassed and unable to continue. The black belt could have kept going. The kids were taken down a peg! I really thought that this training was going to work for me but the psychology of my condition just didn't allow it. I think like a military level of training could have? They never broke me down first mentally or emotionally. I was able to do it "within" the trauma shell. I'm not sorry I did it. I was pretty good at my peculiar "style." I think my startle/fear response is actually a little worse now as I have gotten more in touch with me? There is more to go still. I'm way more comfortable with myself now, even if I don't necessarily like everything about me. I just thought it meant there was something bad about or wrong with me.

 

[IamFree]

I believe its possible once you become aware of it . it also takes a lot of mindfulness to figure out things like why are you freezing at what time in...

 

[Justmehere]

Yep.

The freeze response is also known as like a last measure before death - in trauma situations the freeze response is the body playing dead because there isn’t believed to be any hope for escape. Fight or flight won’t do good and lots of endorphins can be released with dissociation.

Dissociation happens when it’s too overwhelming (or one believes it’s too overwhelming) to fight or flight,

The more resourced, grounded, and safe someone feels, and the more coping skills one has on hand, the more some will begin to come out of the fog into the hotter symptoms of fight or flight.

The numb -flood cycle is evidence of this. The ugly or flight response is there, it’s just number out. Eventually as you work through things more, the freeze will get less and the fight or flight can pop up.

It’s also possible to train it a bit. I took self defense, kickboxing, etc. my body now had a “solution”! It didn’t need to freeze. Same with learning to be able to verbalize boundaries fast and easy. My body was more habituated to “solutions” and didn’t need to freeze out.

Some of it may be shifted through cognitive work too. Learning and role playing self advocacy - and challenging cognitive distortions that may be contributing to freezing - can go a long ways to actually being able to do it when needed.