At a boiling point?
Trying to connect with a feeling, for me, can be like trying to boil a kettle with no water. You can click the button, but all you get is a few vapors. You can go through the motions, but with no hot water at the end of it. Ironically, being unable to tap into your emotions can leave you in hot water.
Conversely, denying yourself access to your own emotions can be a good coping mechanism. When you are going through the most horrendous, gut-wrenching, traumatic time, blocking the associated feelings, can sometimes be beneficial in recovery and resolution. Having experienced some traumatic events, survival was key. Particularly when raising children. Being able to keep calm and carry on is no easy feat. And, I am not being flippant when I say I just brushed my feelings aside. It is not as simple as that. In fact, on many occasions, it was not always a choice.
State of mind
There are three states you can enter as a reaction to adverse circumstances. The first of these states being, fight; screaming, anger, rage, tears, in other words, a complete overflow of emotions. An outpouring of what you are being subjected to. Then there is flight; whereby you become anxious, restless and nervous with an inexplicable urge to run, both metaphorically and physically. Finally, there is the freeze response. Which is more common than you would think as a reaction to trauma. Being in the state of freeze, is a state of numb, a large sense of heaviness, not being able to place or connect with feelings. All these responses, however different from one another, are normal responses to trauma. They are like a reflex.
Being in the aforementioned; freeze mode has its upsides, in being able to display some level of coping yet, it can be like there is a strange sense of disconnection within yourself, what your thoughts are. You can maintain a ‘going through the motions’ like state, but it does affect your ability to make decisions. Rendering you indecisive, confused and unequivocally numb.
Anti-freeze
This dulled sense of emotions can develop into disassociation which has many levels of losing connection with yourself. Even as far as forgetting who you are, where you live etc. I experienced this, probably in its mildest form. Following many years of domestic abuse, homelessness, and other difficulties my mind began to withdraw from emotion. I could articulate a situation but not the emotion attached to it. This, on the surface, was good. It meant day today I could function, yet I felt like life was a little foggy. Sometimes I didn’t experience things fully. I didn’t feel fully immersed in anything. Not all the time anyway. Which led people to believe I was perhaps cold (emotionally), and also left me susceptible to accepting more than I should. I found it hard to differentiate between what is right and wrong because I couldn’t feel it. All I had to go on was my moral compass and boundaries. And my boundaries were hazy at this point. Because I wasn’t addressing my feelings, I began having panic attacks. Which involved hysterical laughter, intense crying, an out of body feeling and shortness of breath. These episodes of anxiety were exhausting, but they released a build of unresolved emotion.
I mist myself
Addressing buried feelings can be difficult. It is only in recent years I am beginning to identify feelings and try to hold onto them. Writing an emotional diary can help, jotting down words that come to mind. And noticing how you react physically to situations can help too. Is your heart racing? Does your chest feel tight? This can help to ground you. It can help to focus, in the fog of your own dazed mind. It seems not so simple to regain yourself. How you feel and what you want. When you shut this down for so long it can become second nature. But, continuing to give yourself space to feel, and allowing the emotions to pour in (at your own pace) can allow you to find you again.
By Claire Exley
My name is Claire, I have three amazing children and have had a bit of a whirlwind life. My experiences, make me want to read others, and to share my emotion rollercoaster. I studied Counselling at University and currently write freelance and work in mental health support. Drawing and writing are a kind of catharsis for me.
Im in freeze mode after traumatic year with a narc. I feel nothing and can sit for hours doing nothing and have no real thoughts.
Wondering how to break out
Is there anything you enjoy/enjoyed doing particularly? Sometimes a release can start to ease the numbness. I never watch tv series but I accidentally got so invested in one and it very slightly defrosted me. X
Thanks so much for your twitter feed.
Freeze mode I think, is what Im going through and have been for months. I have isolated myself, its difficult to leave my home – to walk outside. It’s hard to do the simplest things – I avoid and fall into a heap because it causes so much stress eg. to get the mail, then avoid opening the mail, answering the phone, I can’t prioritise or organise ….sleep is not my friend.
Im definitely numb to emotions, I watched a movie and it was sad, and I noticed I was numb, in the past I wouldn’t be. I have no support, my family have ostracised me and life sucks, I have suicide ideation everyday. Ive given up hoping things will improve. Im 60 years old, trauma all my life – family then relationships were toxic and abusive – Ive had many Narcissistic people in my life. I dont trust anyone, and most of all I dont trust myself anymore, due to not being able to discern
I am 49 years old and started therapy for the first time about 2 months. I have years of emotional and physical abuse from an alcoholic and unstable parent. When I can talk about it, it’s like I am telling someone else’s story. I am starting to have the sense that I need to cry but I can’t. My therapist is really nice. He doesn’t push me to talk about these things. But I think I need him to ask me about it. I just don’t know if I am doing this right. Something feels off and I don’t know what to do.
What is it that feels off? It is difficult to connect with yourself when you feel as if it’s separate to you. Have you tried promoting him to ask you? It sounds as if you are becoming ready but nervous to connect your own emotions to the events. Are you able to feel emotions in any other circumstances? Have you tried mindfulness? Little steps can be better than unleashing everything at once
Thank you for this article, Claire. I feel as though through the process of mourning the many things that occurred in my childhood that I have begun to unravel within myself and not in a bad way but in a healthy way. I know that sounds strange, it does to me, too.
It has been through writing that I have found a voice, though barely a whisper when I consider that I am usually writing in my journal since the discovery I was adopted and my world turned inside out. So many unanswered questions for so many disorienting years. The frozen state of my freeze response is cracking and crumbling
Thanks, Claire. In my fourth year of recovery after narc abuse. I think you can have periods in your recovery where you alternate between flight and freeze or even sort of experience them simultaneously, because of triggers. That’s where I’ve been for a while. Those periods are becoming fewer and farther apart, but my creative self still gets stuck because of this. I do think I’m moving forward now, but after 30+ years of emotional abuse, recovery may take a little longer for me.