PTSD help for "freeze" pls? Frozen here

[Sunfl0wer]

Hey guys,

I recently read in someone's thread about the idea of "freeze."  (Not fight, not flight but a third response)

I totally get this and this is where I am currently STUCK!

While having a difficult time coping with this stress of this BU, stress of looking for a new apartment, and now it looks like I may be changing work (a positive thing), loss of my therapist. (who was through MC, his insurance) It is compounding on me.  As much as I am trying to keep taking baby steps, sometimes I am instead finding myself caught in major "FREEZE."

Maybe I need a PTSD support site as well?

Does anyone know what I am supposed to do about this?  How to better manage this tendency?

Thank you!

[Sunfl0wer]

Ok, so I just went off and tried googling and looking for some answers.  I "joined" another support group for PTSD because I would like some tools to fix my freeze issue.  I did read up about it some and see how that is where I get stuck at times.  Then another response is the "fawn" response.  That is likely what drew me to this uN/BPD partner in the first place.

Ummm, I have to say, that I am grateful to have found this site!

(I know much of the same stuff applies to us all here, but I think that just a touch of PTSD flavor to the support would help me ATM)

Apparently just googling and finding my own "PTSDFamily" (that is not the name of the site) is not anything like this place!  The blind leading the blind just isn't gonna work for me.  I have no interest in a pity party or to perpetuate a victim role.  Anyways... .

So I know I am not the only person with PTSD here guys.  Where do I go?  Any resources that are great for the PTSD person who just unearthed this crap? 

[Sunfl0wer]

Umm, pls don't laugh at me for posting myself! 

I found something!

www.thrivingnow.com/tapping-when-things-are-just-too-heavy/

After digging around here, found a workshop on helping kids deal with trauma, the person heading it put a link to this site, and I found my way to the above tool. . (I have used it in the past, am familiar with it)

I will try that + mindfulness and see how I go!

[jhkbuzz]

Hey guys,

I recently read in someone's thread about the idea of "freeze."  (Not fight, not flight but a third response)

I totally get this and this is where I am currently STUCK!

While having a difficult time coping with this stress of this BU, stress of looking for a new apartment, and now it looks like I may be changing work (a positive thing), loss of my therapist. (who was through MC, his insurance) It is compounding on me.  As much as I am trying to keep taking baby steps, sometimes I am instead finding myself caught in major "FREEZE."

Maybe I need a PTSD support site as well?

Does anyone know what I am supposed to do about this?  How to better manage this tendency?

Thank you!

I'm not sure how to respond because I don't know what "FREEZE" is.

[EaglesJuju]

Hi Sunfl0wer,

I am sorry that you are going through this.    PTSD symptoms can be very difficult to process and cope with. 

I can understand how you could be in a "freeze" type of state.  You mentioned quite a few stressful things, the breakup, looking for a new apartment, and the loss of your therapist. There seems to be many changes in your life.  Do you think these things could have triggered a "freeze?"

What does "freezing" look like to you, solitude and isolation or something else?

[Sunfl0wer]

Lol jhkbuzz, it's the thought that counts!  I mean it! 

EaglesJuju,

I'm sure all of the changes triggered it.  Having to change into so many life directions at once is a bit much right now.

It looks like this:  I have a to do list a mile long, in my head, in my planner.  I'm stuck, idk where to start.  It is like my brain lost its gas.  I'm confused and can't get my mind together to have productive thoughts around the "real life" tasks that I'm fearful of.  I literally have trouble thinking of these things, take a break trying, then try again, get nowhere, then give up, then freak out more as deadlines are approaching me like I will drown as the tide rolls in!

[EaglesJuju]

I understand how overwhelmed you feel.   Change can be hard, but when you factor in multiple changes it can be a bit much.  

As you mentioned, practicing mindfulness really helps with this. Mindfulness increases control of your mind, reduces suffering and increases happiness, and experiences reality as it is. (Linehan, 2015).  

Mindfulness is very useful in problem solving or coping with stressful situations.  The ultimate goal of mindfulness is getting into wise mind. Many times we can either be too emotional and not enough logic or too logical and not using emotions to make certain decisions. This can really be conflicting.  Wise mind is similar to intuition where emotions and logic amalgamate. Wise mind is synonymous to inner wisdom or intuition. Once in wise mind, we get a broader, clearer picture of the situation and how to handle it based on experience, common sense, and prior knowledge.  

Finding wise mind does take practice, but once you get there it is almost like the calm that followed the storm.

Have you been practicing mindfulness?

[Sunfl0wer]

Thank you for asking, while I said that was what I should do, no, I didn't, just have been disconnected.

Thanks for catching me.  Time to start NOW! 

Awesome!

[ReluctantSurvivor]

Hi Sunfl0wer,

 Sorry to hear you are having a bit of shell shock from everything, but it is only natural to get shaken when so much changes in our lives.  While I have not been formally diagnosed with PTSD or CPTSD (my former therapist preferred to focus on the individual and their issues, not on diagnoses) I did go through a spell where I was hyper-vigilant after my B/U.  As others have mentioned, mindfulness is a great tool to help keep our minds from snowballing into a state of shock.  I have been going through the online CBT exercises linked at the bottom of this site and found it very helpful.  CBT seems to draw a lot of parallels with much of the philosophy and metaphysics I have read over the years so I really like it.

[EaglesJuju]

Mindfulness has really helped me with many of my PTSD like symptoms.


Here is link to help you get started. 


Practicing mindfulness--how do you do it?

[eeks]

I've heard good things about Somatic Experiencing for trauma, developed by Dr. Peter Levine.  The author himself though says that it is developed for life threatening trauma, bearing in mind that "life-threatening" is subjective... .a young child undergoing surgery doesn't know it's for his own health, for example.  

Others have adapted SE to developmental trauma. Dr. Laurence Heller's book Healing Developmental Trauma, I was excited to read (as my childhood trauma is more developmental and relational, not physical threat or injury).  However I ended up disappointed because it seemed to rely in the end on the old "clients don't initiate their patterns, but they continue them" and pull yourself up by your own bootstraps willpower.  Which if the method actually works as he says it does, it seems peculiar to have to rely on that in the end.

I also read Dr. Diane Poole Heller's blog, she combines SE with attachment theory (they have the same last name, I wonder if they are husband and wife, which would be pretty funny because there are significant differences between their approaches) so there's more emphasis on the interpersonal interactions, but still the same SE techniques for reintegrating dissociated memories.