You've Hidden Your Feelings For Long Enough. How to Heal Your Freeze Response

fight flight freeze or Fawn these are four common trauma responses that you might slip into when you are under stress you probably have one dominant trauma response and the others show up from time to time but today I want to talk about the freeze response and the different ways it can show up and sabotage your life something stressful happens or it triggers you neurologically so that you get dysregulated that's what we mean when we say triggered here dysregulated feels like spaced out discombobulated confused very emotional but not necessarily in the right proportion to what's happening and then maybe the freeze response shows up as not being able to speak up your ability to express yourself to defend yourself or to run away or say the thing that needs to be said it gets Frozen or the flip side in that moment of discombobulation you blurt something out that maybe you feel but was not at all what you meant to express it could be something offensive hurtful irrelevant just somehow not what you wanted the other person to hear this is when the freeze response kind of explodes so the freeze response arises in people who felt deeply attacked and threatened as kids you could call it a survival mechanism it is because it's very much what some animals do when they can't escape a predator and it's their last-ditch attempt to get the Predator to leave them alone but like all trauma-driven strategies the freeze response stops working it doesn't keep you safe freezing up in the face of trouble is not actually a way to avoid trouble it's a way that trouble can engulf you and sabotage you my letter today is from a woman I'll call Caitlyn and she writes hello fairy I was in a relationship for six months I'm 50 years old and I fell deeply in love I've got my pencil I'm going to read Caitlyn's letter it's a little longer than usual but I think you need all the details to hear what's going on she's got a very complicated situation and I will come back I'm just going to read all the way through and I'll Circle things I want to come back to and then we'll go through another time and I'll talk about the things that I flagged here so 50 years old fell deeply in love the man was super aware and sensitive and during our time together it became apparent that I have cptsd I did and said numerous things that made him feel unimportant and in his words destabilized our relationship every month prior to meeting him I was in a 23-year relationship says Caitlin with a man who cheated on me repeatedly he left me for a much younger woman who was a friend I fell into a deep depression and basically had a breakdown after one and a half years I finally got to a place of being okay I met this new man and he melted me despite my uncertainty that I was ready for a new relationship in retrospect he wanted me to dive in so deeply and quickly that I was feeling in deep water however the connection between us was so beautiful and special I remember packing a suitcase calling a taxi and moving out I lived with the parents of the man who got me pregnant while he was in the army training my mom disowned me and I remember seeing her at the local shops with my younger siblings she ignored me she was also pregnant we gave birth weeks apart can you imagine the shame and pain Etc I still keep this part of my life secret from my much younger siblings and want to expose it my dad asked me to move home at eight months pregnant I had the baby and I gave the baby up for adoption the baby's dad filed for custody and was successful I tried to be in contact at various points in my life but they had moved out of my country and I never succeeded at this back to the now during the recent relationship it became evident that I'm still carrying shame and guilt from the past I was not able to initiate or go to the next level of relationship with this man who I felt so loved by and attracted to he felt like an absolute gift it was wondrous yet I was self-sabotaging he drew his boundaries and said even though he loved me deeply and it was devastating there was only so much he could put himself through life turned into a nightmare and has been for the past few months I'm doing what I can to work on myself we're in communication a little bit still and he's kind enough to be willing to hear what I'm uncovering we talked about marriage owning property together planning a future together I'm completely devastated I felt like we had a future together and could be in service together as you mentioned that it's a sign of marriage if two people can be of service together he he's a mindfulness teacher and meditator and I feel I have the gift of presence he leads devotional singing and I love to sing especially with him I asked him if he's looking for a new love since separating he said he has taken the emphasis off finding a relationship and looking at other ways to grow and fill his time I'm hoping he's allowing time and space for me to grow even though he said it's not fair for him to expect me to grow in a matter of months I'm caught in a cycle of grief and hope that there's a chance we can be together again forever this time even though I know he's deeply and rightly cautious of the pain all of this caused so this was the first letter I got from Caitlin and she told me all this but I didn't understand like what exactly had she said that was so definitively devastating for the relationship he seemed to really care about her so what was it so I asked her and she clarified these are some of the things she did that were upsetting to him that were deal breakers she said I told him I still feel love from my previous ex of 23 years and and had hoped we could rekindle I told him that I asked my previous ex how his relationship was going with his new girlfriend at about three at the three month Mark and in my relationship with Mark which made him feel worthless and like a second choice I was defensive and said I thought it was a measure of my Detachment but in the conversation last night he said my attachment to my ex really caused a lot of difficulty for us so I do concede it is an attachment wound of some kind that was not yet completely finished although I I knew I had to fully let go of the of my ex of 23 years in order to be in a new loving relationship just after Mark discussed moving into my house with me and being co-owners I said perhaps I should sell my house and move back to another country where I lived for two years in an ashram with a teacher I didn't think about it but just blurted it out I think it was an expression of my desire to be healed and whole I didn't know if I could do while in a relationship and thought perhaps I had to choose the path of renunciation or of selling all and being with a guru it might be some kind of inability to believe or accept in myself that I'm capable of being healthy and loving and whole in life it might be the desire to run and hide from all the pain in my life in another incident I spoke to a friend who was also following this spiritual teacher and she said that perhaps the life she has created for herself is a beautiful prison and I went straight from that conversation to speaking to mark on the phone and repeated it he said I was implying our relationship was a prison and I responded that I would have to make sure it wasn't I think I was speaking from my past experience of relationship but he could only understand it in relation to us okay there are probably more examples that I'm not remembering right now but what transpired after these conversations and words was that he would ask me for Assurance and I couldn't give it I would go into shutdown he works in mental health and told me I was having a freeze response it got to the point where he became increasingly upset with me which culminated in fiery outbursts his anger although somewhat mild to medium also must have triggered me because my mother was angry and yelling at me into my 30s exasperated at me for making such a mess of my life and not getting married or starting a family it was a the freeze response where it would take me days to be able to respond to his cries for reassurance that hurt him so much and destabilized him also he wasn't able to sleep next to me suffered a lot of inner tension and pain and felt completely unimportant to me he hadn't cried for 17 years and said our love opened him to be able to cry again yet he had to cry too often due to the pain he was also experiencing wondering why he wasn't important to me I also had lost my job during this time and was in survival mode trying to make my house into an Airbnb and doing cash cleaning jobs to survive so he always had to come to my house to see me and I rarely visited him I was so busy running around in circles I couldn't stop or process or be still I also have a cat I couldn't leave alone for long I felt guilty about this but was not able to change it in our conversation last night it became apparent again that that the freeze response that was undermining my natural ability to be vulnerable and reliable he said he loves me there is no doubt and he knows that I love him but I have to accept that as we are now it is done for us to get back together I have to grow past this freeze response and become trustable he said the task of rebuilding trust between us would be an immense task I told him there is nothing I want to do more that I need to change for there to be any hope for us to get back together the fear has become so overwhelming in the sense of loss so huge that has become chronic anxiety I recognize that I feel powerless and scared my fear of telling my mother how wounding it was to be disowned is affecting my ability to be loving and vulnerable and reliable today I spoke to her for the first time as an adult just a week ago about the teenage experiences and told her I'm still carrying guilt and shame around around it and that I can't keep it a secret from the rest of my family anymore she responded lovingly and said I shouldn't feel shame or guilt and offered to speak to my siblings about it however I was not able to tell her directly of the effect her emotional responses and actions have had on me when I was speaking to Mark last night I told him of this conversation and I started not being able to remember how she responded the fear freeze response became apparent sure and that it is intimately connected to her Mark said that she would have interpreted that I was stating Mark said that she would have interpreted that I was stating shame and guilt around being pregnant but none of the emotional wounding with her she still had no emotional response to offer me she said that surely my siblings know as they were there when it all happened which is of course basically impossible due to their ages she offered to tell them about it for me and I said yes Mark said how disempowering it would be for her to tell them and yet still none of my experience with her is validated or acknowledged it feels like a sickening task for me to speak to her about it I've become an extreme people pleaser and cognitively understand that my mother is the one I'm people-pleasing the most I think the wounds are so deep deeply ingrained into my being like a coat of armor where I pretend that I'm an island that I'm okay on my own I'm okay being isolated and not valued in this life the pattern has become so loud it is on repeat in me in so many levels and layers of living including my employment and friendships and obviously my ability to have a loving relationship and hope that my insights are right my understanding is right and that I have the courage to speak to my mom and family and truly heal myself and possibly find love at the end of it that that's how she's signing off Caitlyn okay oh Caitlin what a what a lot all right I think I think I can help I have some very strong Impressions about this all right so first of all a 23-year marriage with somebody who cheated on you the whole time is so much and especially given the way your parents just totally abandoned you disowned you shamed you told people you were dead that is terrible what happened to you and I at age 15 what could you have possibly done to manage it differently what could you have possibly done better it's you know I just totally feel for you this this dilemma it's happened to so many people in their lives and the way your parents handled it I'm so sorry it's the worst possible way you met this guy Mark um and you were together for six months so first of all and when I read all of this I had to go back and go wait how long have you been together six months and I just want to say that a lot of the demands that were placed on you I feel are excessive for a relationship of six months now everybody gets to decide whether they want to be in a relationship or not and Mark does too so you you had this terrible relationship you had a breakdown afterwards you were just feeling better you meet this new guy you knew you weren't quite ready but love came to town and that's there we are so you were in the relationship then you tell me about what what came up for you was about being 15 yeah and disowned and this whole thing where your mom was putting on a show by wearing black and going to church every day and I respect people who practice their religion but telling people you were dead is not part of the religion that was her selfishness and her concern about what other people thought and I just oh I think that's horrible she doesn't sound like a very loving person and I hear that she was a little loving but she still doesn't even understand F you know she has really let you down and it's gone on for years and I just want to validate that and I imagine that in this marriage with the cheater like you were so conditioned to think that you didn't deserve better I don't know that that you were on a like in a in a ship that was foundering in a storm and just trying to hold on you've been doing it all your life so I'm not surprised when you meet this nice man and he's into you that you of course you really wanted it to work and I'm also not surprised that it was all going too fast for you you weren't ready for it he was putting a lot of pressure on you to be serious to talk about marriage and living together and all this stuff at six months honestly that's extremely fast and especially for somebody who's recently divorced and as we know for somebody who's you know got a lot of unprocessed trauma When you mention the thing about I say a sign of marriage is that you could be of service together and he he has this thing he leads devotional singing or something and he's a mindfulness teacher and meditator you say you have the gift of presence I don't know if that's a sign I think one thing that's the biggest sign that something is a marriage is that somebody can be with you and they will be with you and so that's the kind of thing that sort of disqualifies the other things but you know that but I'm just saying that I'm just saying that for the record when somebody won't be with you you have your answer so he said very he said you know it's not he can't put up with all of this and you hadn't told me what it was yet so I asked you and you told me about this so this is very interesting so you told Mark that you still felt love for your previous ex and had hoped you could rekindle so I don't know if you told him that at one point you had hoped for that or you hoped for that in the moment but that would certainly be lobbing a bomb in a relationship to say well I'm actually hoping to get back together with my ex anybody healthy would have to say okay then I'm not gonna be here but I'm not really sure what you meant there and what's interesting is that you didn't describe it clearly enough that I know and you're a good writer and you're pretty clear about a lot of things and um so I was just wondering are you disowning that part of yourself that was wanting that or Trying to minimize it or if all you said was you know for a while after he left you were still hoping it would work out and the reason I think that could be it is because some other stuff seems pretty normal to me you told him that you asked your previous ex about how his relationship was going with his new girlfriend and this was when you were three months into your relationship with Mark and he says it made him feel worthless in like a second choice if that's what you say that's a very strange and insecure and controlling reaction to you just asking your ex how it's going now to me that's a very ordinary I know he was a jerk I know he cheated on you but you were together for 23 years so there is some kind of friendship there to ask well how's it going with her so maybe there's more to his side of the story where you were you know in light of the fact that you had said you wanted to rekindle you know maybe that's what was making him react so I don't know but what you're describing here just sounds like somebody being way too controlling and thinking that you can't talk to your ex and ask how their relationship is going that's not fair you were defensive and you said you thought that asking your ex that was a measure of your Detachment I do too I I if that's what it was all it was but in the conversation um Mark said your attachment to your ex really caused a lot of difficulty so I guess he wants you to not have any contact with your ex and I don't think that that I think anybody can ask that they can ask hope to have a relationship like that but it sounds like it wasn't made clear up front it's pretty normal that people do have some contact with their ex sometimes there's children sometimes there's you know property and it's it hadn't been very long so so then you said it I concede it was an attachment wound of some kind and I would just I'm not sure what you mean by attachment wound and but I think what you mean is you were just still attached to him you were there was still an attachment there and I just want to validate for you that's really normal nobody can make you not have that you'll get over it in your own time you know it takes time it hadn't been that long you had been through a lot you were also wounded attachment wound technically yeah well who cares what it means technically I think that's what you mean it was too much attachment it wasn't appropriate in in your boyfriend's eyes and it meant that you were not completely finished which is okay a person a year and a half out of a 23-year marriage is not obliged just because somebody else has come into their lives to be in a place different from where they are okay Caitlyn I just think I think that you're getting an unfair Shake here so you said I know I have to fully let go of the ex in order to be in a new loving relationship well that's debatable all right people are going to date somebody freshly out of a marriage at their own risk and um I think they I think that person needs to take responsibility for doing that if they know the timeline right so just after Mark discussed moving into your house with you and being co-owners okay huge move after six months I don't approve that timeline I think that's way too I know people do this kind of thing all the time like and even if he just wanted to move in one thing but own half of your house wait a minute I don't like that and then you said perhaps I should sell my house and move back to another country where I lived for two years in an ashram with a teacher so he was hurt you you're kind of speculating maybe it means that I was trying to be whole yeah I think you were trying to be whole I think you were being pressured into giving up half ownership in your house six months into a relationship when you still weren't over the horror show that was your last marriage I think that's like Fair that's what it looks like to me it looks like you weren't able to own those feelings maybe your freeze response your fear of speaking up you couldn't say I'm sorry it's too soon to talk about this I'm not really over this I don't know you that well yet I want to get to know you I like you let's just keep dating for a while you could have done that but that would have been hard to say and it sounds like anything like that disappoints him so you didn't want to and now you're psychologizing yourself but I don't think you need to psychologize yourself that is really fast to give someone half ownership of your house or presumably he was going to buy it I don't know I don't know what the arrangement was I hope I hope he wasn't proposing something unfair but it's not happening now in another incident you spoke to a friend who was following the same spiritual teacher you kind of blurted out you should go see that's when you're recovering from a lifetime of Abandonment and abuse these types of questions should I rush in and hold on to a relationship should I run off and be a spiritual person and Retreat from the world you know should I be alone should I do this those are good questions I just I can really feel it in my bones you have not had room to consider these questions those are good and real questions especially at your age 50 and what you've been through and wanting to do something new and different with your life maybe you didn't want to just jump right in with some guy who had these strong opinions about how you should be hadn't you been like that before so kind of proud of you so this friend said well she had gone and lived in the ash room and she said it was a beautiful prison and and then you said to Mark and repeated it and he said are you implying our relationship as a prison and you said well I need to make sure that it's not and and he said it could only be an implication no it couldn't I think it sounds like it was what it was you you just said I think you were saying my friend saying that the ashram was a beautiful prison I want to make sure that our relationship is in a prison because I did that before for my entire Youth and I don't have time for that anymore right good for you good Caitlyn that's correct it could have been a prison it was right to take your time it seems like you're you're bet you're better Angels your your wisdom about what's best for yourself you have trouble expressing it directly so it gets blurted out as sort of a contradiction to the other thing you were saying and I get that Mark didn't like that who would right it's like I thought you were into me wait what's this you want to go be a monk or you know what it would be very confusing and a disappointment and you know he pulled away and that's okay he has a very definite idea about what he wants and he seems it to want it to happen very quickly and people get to do that they get to set those goals for themselves so you said there's probably more that you did but he would ask you for reassurance all the time and you couldn't give it and it would take you a few days to produce the reassurance he was looking for but he correctly notes that it doesn't really count if it was that hard to come up with it's just not the nature of the relationship it's not a secure little Nest that he can hop into right now which is what he's hoping for so it's not that but that doesn't mean you did anything wrong it's possible Caitlyn that you're doing everything right you're trying to have a relationship but really what's coming through in your healing is that still Small Voice that goes I need more time I don't feel total trust in this situation I'm not sure what I can give I do not want to end up in a beautiful prison that's a coherent statement and appropriate for where you are okay so you say it it you know you couldn't respond to his cries for reassurance and it destabilized him also so I I relate to that I have been that person but from where I sit now somebody who gets all destabilized from an early relationship with a recent divorcee because they can't give reassurance right now I could see somebody saying I don't like that that's not what I want okay fair enough but it destabilizes him that sounds very unstable to me so I I just I just say don't fault yourself here he said he wondered why he wasn't important to you he sounds like he has uh some issues there and I'm not criticizing like that's what we have here we have these trauma issues but that's like I'm not important to you I'm not this and well why would he be it's only been six months um and I I hear I don't know yes you were inconsistent so let's focus on you you were inconsistent because you weren't ready to give that level of commitment you did nothing wrong by trying out a relationship I'm so glad you had that experience the only art of it that's needed now is to be able to get through the end of it and carry on with your healing so that one day you will be more healed and you will be more ready for a proper loving relationship and you just weren't nobody can be ready until they're ready so so you're good you're in a good place I also then you went on and you psychologized yourself and this it sounds to me like he was putting pressure on you to talk to your mom with some sort of idea that you need to confront your mom about how she made you feel with that all right I'm going to give you a contrary opinion your mother sounds very self-centered and lacking in empathy towards you in fundamental ways and that it hasn't changed and I suspect based on my little window of Your World here but based on what you're telling me I think it's very unlikely that confronting her about that would go well I think it's really unlikely it would turn into her going really did did that make you feel that way oh now I see it I'm so sorry I'm so sorry what a terrible thing for a mother to do to a 15 year old girl you must have been terrified we left you no choice you know we hijacked your life we treated you like you were a shameful object I don't think that's what she would do she does not strike me as somebody capable of that she when it's about telling your siblings about how ashamed you are she's eager to help you with that and that really bothered me Caitlyn you have nothing to be ashamed of you have nothing to be ashamed of you know oh did you have sex at 15 well welcome to the world welcome to this generation you know it's not ideal to get pregnant but it happens all the time and your parents made a decision for you to go ahead and have the baby and then shame the crap out of you for having this normal function of sexuality a boy in your life fertility you know it's not ideal it's if we never had trauma we could probably figure out a clever way to do everything in the right order right but we didn't we can't and there's a reason for that and even people who aren't traumatized have accidental pregnancies and I just am so so sorry that you got this message that you were a terrible shameful person that you are dead to them that's so much about them and not you and no wonder you had to stuff down this experience and no wonder grief is coming back now and I celebrate you having all the time you need to kind of deal with what happened and I don't know maybe one time you'll make contact but that's the thing about um adopted kids or adopt you know kids that were adopted or parents who were the birth mother it doesn't always go the way everybody hoped these are tricky relationships so no pressure the beautiful thing about healing your trauma and I happen to know that you use the techniques you use the daily practice you get support in our community and I'm so proud of you and happy about that and I'm confident and I know that you are experiencing some some relief and some clarity coming into your mind about what does it all mean how do you really feel about stuff and so all of these traumas and the losses and including this guy who had this idea of what he wanted and you're not like that not not yet and maybe not ever but you're beautiful and good you're beautiful and good and blameless and uh I don't believe that you need to confront your mom if you want to you can but the hard the thing is if she's gonna just use it as an opportunity to lay into you about stuff or shame you again I'm just not sure that's helpful or productive um I don't I'm not somebody who was it you know I I had I had abuse and neglect as a kid and I did try confronting my mother and others who were responsible for what happened and it went terribly I was kicked out of the house and that's why I have a pretty strong opinion that it doesn't always work and that people who haven't been through that kind of trauma they don't get it like if they would do that in their family with their parents and go hey you really hurt me it would be different right but that's not how it is like we know that we know that about these parents and that doesn't mean you can't heal that's some sort of weird equation through all those old equations out of like in order to heal you must confront not true in order to heal you must become fully yourself and learn to process your emotions your stress and your dysregulation in a constructive way and learn to find comfort and ease within yourself no matter what's going on that's how you're going to recover and to have friends who support you along the way isn't it beautiful that you're already doing what works talking to your mother is an option it sounds from what you're saying and again I don't hear his side of the story and I don't need to because he's gone but it you say it sounds like a sickening task to speak to her about it listen to yourself your your voice counts your voice is the only voice that counts in your decision to do this there's no need to do it when you said you've become an extreme people pleaser and you cognitively understand that your mother's the one you're people pleasing I think you were people pleasing Mark you were trying to be the good patient who does what he thinks is necessary you don't have to please him at all you get to never do this you get to do it in your own time you get to you get to do whatever you want to do and other people can discover you the person and let go and allow you to live your life and heal as you heal and love you along the way if they're if they've got the heart if they've got the heart to do it so it I'm sure it's a lot to deal with right now and there's nothing sadder than losing love when it felt like it was going to work out I know now there's things that are sadder but that's a big one and so I'm so sorry for your loss um it doesn't sound like the one and so I I can tell you have so much love to give and you have so much healing to do and your whole life it's not funny how after the age of 50 everything can actually start getting better and we can come into full color and Blossom at last I'm very proud of you how good that this is happening for you if anybody is watching this and you want to do some healing on your ability to meet somebody and date in a measured way that's healthy considering your cptsd I've got a course that's all about that I walk you through the path that I followed and that I've developed over the years by coaching others and it's called the dating and relationships course for people with childhood PTSD I always think I need a more interest name but that's what it's called it's work that's very near and dear to my heart and it helps you identify ways that you might have distorted thinking that gets you into relationships with people who aren't truly workable or available to you and how to set yourself up to succeed instead by going slowly I call it structured dating you can take that course find out all the details right here and I will see you very soon foreign [Music] foreign

Channel: Crappy Childhood Fairy

Views: 90,352

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Id: 6ImvAB97hVU

Length: 31min 0sec (1860 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 28 2023