Fight Or Flight? No Freeze?!

[Anna]

For many years I lived with the guilt that I never tried to fight against the person who assaulted me. It was made even worse because I had been trained in martial arts. My reaction was to freeze in absolute terror.

My therapist explained a sexual assault is completly different psychologically to a physical assault. Therefore your response is different.

I still find it terrifying, and have been trying to look more into the freeze response. If anyone has any information or articles to share please do.

I found this today which I found to be very interesting.

http://www.lifecentre.uk.com/dealing_with_the_effects/the_freezing_response.html

 

[matthios]

I was physically assaulted. I fought back. The legal ramifications of fighting back has ruined my life. Expecting a full acquittal doesn't matter.

Don't blame yourself for your reaction. You did what you did... y'know? Each path has its own strengths and weaknesses, plusses and minuses. Living with the aftermath, no matter what path you take, is going to have problems- so try not to think of it as a right vs wrong reaction. (easier said than done, I know.)

 

[SweetPeaandSunBird]

Don't blame yourself for your reaction.

Hi Anna, I've undergone several sexual assaults from childhood (molestations) to adult life (armed sexual assault). I don't know if you had any childhood traumas, but, if you did, depending on the dynamics, a groove could have been set very early on in terms of what response you generate in later life. It could have to do with neurology, conditioned responses, etc. Plus, if you held your breath during the assault, the necessary oxygen required to strategize (for fight and flight) can also inhibit a response other than freezing.

Assault never adheres to a script.

Sometimes survival requires freezing, sometimes fighting, sometimes fleeing. Survival is triumph, no matter what response allowed you to keep living.

I'm glad you posted this thread; it has reminded me to look at my own advice/response.

Take good-care.

 

[RockyMtnHigh]

Hi Anna, I agree with SweetPeaandSunBird in that Survival is intimatley wired in your (lizard) brain. Along with fighting or fleeing, freezing is a also one of the natural survival techniques and many other mammals, birds, lizards do the same. Guilt over not reacting in the way you think should have is something that plagues most of us survivors, and for numerous reasons. Best to you in your search for answers.

 

[Hashi]

This is covered in trauma therapist Peter Levine's book Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma, which talks about the long terms effects of freezing as well. I just googled to see if there was an online article about it but I didn't see one that did it justice.

It's a survival response beyond our conscious control. You were not responsible for it, any more than you would be for automatically pulling your hand back from something that was burning you.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

I froze as well.

It's hard to read responses from people who say the freeze response is not valid (not here in this thread). It is very much so...anyone who has observed animals in the wild knows that freezing happens all the time. The term "fight or flight" has become so engrained that other valid responses are pushed to the side as hogwash.

 

[matthios]

I'm certainly not going to say freezing isn't an option. I'm not discounting freezing or judging it lesser than other options either.

I do have a question: is freezing more common a reaction to sexual assault than physical/violent assault? (which sounds awkward- I'm not implying a sexual assault isn't physical or can't be violent... I hope I'm understood here.)

I haven't encountered too many "freezes" in my (entirely superficial and perfunctory) glance through violent assault stories or academic literature.

 

[Shellbell]

I've had all of the reactions to severe and ongoing sexual and physical assaults; fight (got hurt more), flight (tried to run but couldn't, got hurt more) and freeze - this was more so when being molested as a child.

Plus dissociation which worked best for me and became a huge coping method for a long time.

All of them are normal reactions to abnormal situations/trauma.

And we have guilt over these, but we shouldn't. There is no right or wrong way to react in these critical moments.

 

[AS1975]

I was physically assaulted. I fought back. The legal ramifications of fighting back has ruined my life. Expecting a full acquittal doesn't matter.

Don't blame yourself for your reaction. You did what you did... y'know? Each path has its own strengths and weaknesses, plusses and minuses. Living with the aftermath, no matter what path you take, is going to have problems- so try not to think of it as a right vs wrong reaction. (easier said than done, I know.)

My problem is that I always fight, I never freeze and I never flee. It isn't adrenaline, although it is always there, it is just the wiring - yet that doesn't mean you'll always do the same thing, unfortunately some people are just 'prone' to being in situations.

One thing I do know, I would have difficulty with the situations whether I fought, froze or fled. They happened, I cannot allow myself to feel guilt, or pride, over my actions, they were involuntary, as were yours. For that same reason, I cannot get overly judgmental or excited over the involuntary actions of others.

It is strange, but most people who've done what are called 'brave' things, will be ambivalent about the actions others rave about. Most of the time they don't feel any pride in what they did, they may even be ashamed, the reason for this ambivalence is the involuntariness of their actions, it would like taking pride in a facial tic.

You are beating yourself up because you didn't react precisely how you thought/hoped you might, no-one ever is happy how they deal with a traumatic incident, when everything goes wrong, it is not unusual for everything to go wrong. Bad things really can happen to good people.

 

[matthios]

involuntariness of their actions,

Exactly!

 

[RockyMtnHigh]

...it would be like taking pride in a facial tic.

No offense intended to anyone else, but AS1975 made me LOL because I have facial tics! However my Pride Is busy with all my other problems right now ;)

 

[SweetPeaandSunBird]

I do have a question: is freezing more common a reaction to sexual assault than physical/violent assault?

That's an interesting question. I think molested children/teens (like Shellbell suggested) couldn't really fight or flee per se because often times the perps are family or family-friends. They are respected through their non-perp persona. The power dynamic is different; the social dynamic is different. Many times the perps, as family members, are half "good" and half "monsters." One day, reading you a storybook, the next, molestation. Just the confusion of that dynamic dumbfounds even adults -- let alone little ones. Plus, little ones/teens are supposed to respect their family/family friends, etc-etc-etc.

By the way, I appreciate that you were very careful in the way you posed the question.