Thank you for this nuanced explanation. It is very helpful! In my body oriented psychotherapy training we use polyvagal theory among other modalities and tools, but there's no room for this much nuance. Does it make sense that someone living in freeze most of the life first will go through shutdown when they start working on it? I would say that after most of my life in externally high functioning freeze, when I started this work and my system was ready (enough safety with others) to start thawing off the freeze I noticed I kept falling into shutdown in therapy with a safe-enough therapist ( we have many due to training, and some were not 'seen' as safe by my NS). It took many instances of therapists or even friends being the safe and active presence pulling me out and bringing me to safety, until the first breakthrough where I, with dual awareness, chose and was able to pull myself out. And I believe that's the moment when we feel safe enough to ourselves. I can now notice either freeze or shutdown coming on. At first, for a couple of years, I couldn't do anything but indulge in compensatory regulation (food, screen time, etc) and just notice and work on not judging. But recently there's enough safety in my body and the inner adult to regulate myself more and more. This work is amazing and life saving! And thank you for producing this content :)
I think it's likely that someone in freeze will experience shutdown as they work on recovery, yes. It's likely the process will be too much and so they defensively enter shutdown. And it's likely they will need to eventually get in touch with their immobility aspect of freeze in order to help thaw it. Thanks for the kind words and good luck on your continued unstucking process!
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Thank you for this nuanced explanation. It is very helpful!
In my body oriented psychotherapy training we use polyvagal theory among other modalities and tools, but there's no room for this much nuance.
Does it make sense that someone living in freeze most of the life first will go through shutdown when they start working on it?
I would say that after most of my life in externally high functioning freeze, when I started this work and my system was ready (enough safety with others) to start thawing off the freeze I noticed I kept falling into shutdown in therapy with a safe-enough therapist ( we have many due to training, and some were not 'seen' as safe by my NS). It took many instances of therapists or even friends being the safe and active presence pulling me out and bringing me to safety, until the first breakthrough where I, with dual awareness, chose and was able to pull myself out. And I believe that's the moment when we feel safe enough to ourselves. I can now notice either freeze or shutdown coming on. At first, for a couple of years, I couldn't do anything but indulge in compensatory regulation (food, screen time, etc) and just notice and work on not judging. But recently there's enough safety in my body and the inner adult to regulate myself more and more.
This work is amazing and life saving!
And thank you for producing this content :)
I think it's likely that someone in freeze will experience shutdown as they work on recovery, yes. It's likely the process will be too much and so they defensively enter shutdown. And it's likely they will need to eventually get in touch with their immobility aspect of freeze in order to help thaw it.
Thanks for the kind words and good luck on your continued unstucking process!