Out of the Storm

I shorten this by copy and pasting this so the information is easier to understand.I then divided it into each response.

http://www.pete-walker.com/fourFs_TraumaTypologyComplexPTSD.htm (http://www.pete-walker.com/fourFs_TraumaTypologyComplexPTSD.htm)

This model elaborates four basic defensive structures that develop out of our instinctive Fight, Flight, Freeze and Fawn responses to severe abandonment and trauma. Variances in the childhood abuse/neglect pattern, birth order, and genetic predispositions result in individuals "choosing" and specializing in narcissistic
(fight), obsessive/compulsive (flight), dissociative (freeze) or codependent (fawn) defenses.

Habituated 4F defenses offer protection against further re-abandonment hurts by precluding the type of vulnerable relating that is prone to re-invoke childhood feelings of being attacked, unseen, and unappreciated.

FREEZE TYPE

DEFINED
freeze types hide away in their rooms and reveries;

Many freeze types unconsciously believe that people and danger are synonymous, and that safety lies in solitude. Outside of fantasy, many give up entirely on the possibility of love. The freeze response, also known as the camouflage response, often triggers the individual into hiding, isolating and eschewing human contact as much as possible. This type can be so frozen in retreat mode that it seems as if their starter button is stuck in the "off" position. It is usually the most profoundly abandoned child - "the lost child" - who is forced to "choose" and habituate to the freeze response (the most primitive of the 4Fs).

ACTIONS
Unable to successfully employ fight, flight or fawn responses, the freeze type's defenses develop around classical dissociation, which allows him to disconnect from experiencing his abandonment pain, and protects him from risky social interactions -
any of which might trigger feelings of being reabandoned. Freeze types often present as ADD; they seek refuge and comfort in prolonged bouts of sleep, daydreaming, wishing and right brain-dominant activities like TV, computer and video games.
They master the art of changing the internal channel whenever inner experience becomes uncomfortable. When they are especially traumatized or triggered, they may exhibit a schizoid-like detachment from ordinary reality.

TREATMENT

There are at least three reasons why freeze types are the most difficult 4F defense to treat. First, their positive relational experiences are few if any, and they are therefore extremely reluctant to enter the relationship of therapy; moreover, those who manage to overcome this reluctance often spook easily and quickly terminate. Second, they are harder to psychoeducate about the trauma basis of their complaints because, like many fight types, they are unconscious of their fear and their torturous
inner critic. Also, like the fight type, the freeze type tends to project the perfectionistic demands of the critic onto others rather than the self, and uses the imperfections of others as justification for isolation. The critic's processes of perfectionism and endangerment, extremely unconscious in freeze types, must be made conscious and deconstructed as described in detail in my aforementioned article on shrinking the inner critic. Third, even more than workaholic flight types, freeze types are in denial about the life narrowing consequences of their singular adaptation. Because the freeze response is on a continuum that ends with the
collapse response (the extreme abandonment of consciousness seen in prey animals about to be killed),

OTHER INFORMATION
Although there is really not a treatment specified in this section I added it here.
The opioid production of the collapse or extreme freeze response can only take the
individual so far however, and these types are therefore prone to sedating substance
addictions. Many self-medicating types are often drawn to marijuana and narcotics,
while others may gravitate toward ever escalating regimes of anti-depressants and
anxiolytics. Moreover, when they are especially unremediated and unattached, they
can devolve into increasing depression and, in worst case scenarios, into the kind of
mental illness described in the book, I Never Promised You A Rose Garden.

Thank you for posting these up Badmemories, I read all of them, I think I can relate most to this one and fawn.
They are interesting

Pete was the one that got me into T.  I found him the week I came OOTF.  I read his definition of freeze and started wondering if he had been watching me.  It was dead on, 100% accurate as to how I had been living for the better part of 3 years.  Frankly, I was frightened after I read about freeze in his 4 F's article on the website. 

I printed that description out and took it to my T. 

I was fawn and flight when younger.  But the trauma I went thru over the past 6 years just shut me down I think.  I still have issues with freezing.  Even when my dd(7) yells at me, I freeze.  I never realized that I did that until Pete's description.  Sometimes I am more present and don't want to be, and try desperately to go back into the freeze.  As my name suggests, when I came out of freeze I got emotion overload.  I still have that today, 8 months later, and sometimes I like the days when I wake up numb and binge watch netflix all day.

Pete is like a savior to me, I can't even express the gratitude I have towards him.  I emailed him once and he emailed me back.  I will keep that email forever. 

I am definitely the freeze type, So many of the definitions speak to me. actually IMO the freeze type is like Depression. I am just froze. Honestly I sat in my bedroom from March until end of June, then got worse again the last of July until I started reading out of the fog again. Still lost a lot of August also.

I had starting taking my cymbalta, and I get diarrhea so bad from it the first 3 weeks or so then NPDH was complaining about how I was not getting any of the chores done that I needed to get done. So I went off of them. they had just started working  (It takes about a month to get full benefit from them.)

The diarrea is the worst side effect, however they really do work for me and also help with Arthritis pain. So that is a bonus for me. The diarrhea goes away after a 2-4 weeks.  Now for some reason I did not get that filled even though I ordered it.. don't know why but it is so expensive that I think that MY Psyc. has to send in a special request for it.

Fellow freezer, here.

My T and I have been talking about this the last few weeks. It seems to come to a head when discussing negative experiences or emotions from the trauma. We're working on me feeling my emotions for 6 nanoseconds instead of 2 nanoseconds before I shut down...this is a behavior I've practiced for decades. This is going to be a challenge!

I sure know what you mean by challenge! I am feeling snowed under right now.  Instead of My usual response of burying it I am going to move forward no matter how difficult it is, and how long it takes.  :D

Fellow freezer here too (now I'm singing FreezeFrame in my head - it will take forever to get rid of this ear worm lol), but I totally agree - onward!  Any small success is good.

Tks BadMemories for getting this thread and the other defense reaction threads going  :)

Globetrotter it sounds like you have a good therapist there  :)

Another fawn-freezer here!

This is actually where I paused in the Walker book when I read it this summer. Major triggers...

Now, re-reading the therapy section on freeze, I understand why therapy only got me up to a certain point:

It dealt mostly with my fawn tendencies, they are less intense and less painful to deal with for me.

Right now, I am kinda stuck in freeze over a situation - soon as I find the nerve to do so I will post a seperate thread about it.

Anyway, this is a good thread - even though it's painful for me. Helps to know there's a lot of us here ready to offer support.

I appreciate the persistence and resilience I'm reading here, with commitments to move forward and push on. That's really what we need to do; to not give up on our selves, regardless of how frustrating it gets at times.

When I was in my 20s, I was pretty full of self-loathing and low self esteem. I grew past that with counseling. In Walker's book, I was enlightened by the "outer critic" statements in the FREEZE description. It's a defense that I never recognized before, and seeing it was an 'aha' moment for me - yet another way to keep people away. I had already realized that I was sometimes too unforgiving and critical and that I need to practice more flexibility and understanding; now I know why I am sometimes too harsh. Hopefully, this knowledge will continue to help to propel me forward to open the door to vulnerability a bit more.

I am reading Walker's book, but haven't gotten to these in detail yet. So when I read this yesterday, I skipped over this one, thought, "that's not me." Well, today I read it and yes it is. People are dangerous! And I am not very forgiving.

I remember specifically being 7 or 8 and seeing my teenaged friend who was a neighbor of my grandmother's who I'd see in the summer. We were playing in the grass, frisbee or ball, and she accidentally hit me in the head or face, pretty hard--I feel down from it. I ran to my grandmother's house crying. She ran after me saying she was sorry and let me see, etc. Everyone gathered and tried to tell me she didn't mean it and I'll be ok. But I wouldn't go back out there, not that day, or the rest of the vacation. The next summer everyone thought maybe I'd forgotten, but I didn't. And even tho by then even I knew it was really an accident, I couldn't forgive or talk to her. Every year after (until she moved away to college) I would ignore her. (I'm so evil). I think deep down I also felt like a fool that I didn't talk to her, and with so much time going by, it became so uncomfortable--how to just start talking again? So I kind of chose the persona of "unforgiving mean person" rather than be vulnerable in any way.

I still don't like being vulnerable--as far as I can tell, it's just something a person does right before getting stabbed in the back.  >:(

I do agree with a lot of this being unconscious (and therefore hard to treat). This doesn't fit my self-view. I always thought i was nice and accommodating, etc. Not judgmental and unforgiving. I think I've been treatment resistant because I needed a different approach.

I'm looking forward to seeing what Walker means by "shrinking the critic." I myself think making friends with the critic is what needs to happen. If I or others are the enemy of my critic, he will spend all the time defending himself, and me, and not healing himself or letting me be healed. Life will be nothing but a fight. Sorry if none of this makes sense.

Quote from: globetrotter on August 31, 2014, 01:33:40 PM
When I was in my 20s, I was pretty full of self-loathing and low self esteem. I grew past that with counseling. In Walker's book, I was enlightened by the "outer critic" statements in the FREEZE description. It's a defense that I never recognized before, and seeing it was an 'aha' moment for me - yet another way to keep people away. I had already realized that I was sometimes too unforgiving and critical and that I need to practice more flexibility and understanding; now I know why I am sometimes too harsh. Hopefully, this knowledge will continue to help to propel me forward to open the door to vulnerability a bit more.

I haven't managed to be as successful in getting rid of my self-loathing yet.  Glad to hear you have - it gives me hope that it is possible.

I totally agree that the outer critic part was an aha moment.  For a fawn/freeze, I can be incredibly critical of people.  Just not to their face.  I have realized since reading Walker just how much I do this.  I don't consider this a positive quality of mine, and I'd like to shrink the outer critic.  I did feel a little better after reading this though, realizing that it is sometimes a protective measure to keep people away.  It's not just that I am a bitter, critical b*tch.

Pam: what you're saying makes perfect sense...and rings familiar. An insightful moment on how something painful can impact us for so long. Multiply that times ??? and here we are.

I'm with you, E.O. I'm hoping I can catch myself and say "you're doing it again" now that I know what is.
Tough habit to break. No, never to anyone's face. - just stinkin' thinkin' as Jack Handy used to say.

Quote from: globetrotter on September 01, 2014, 02:30:18 PM
I'm with you, E.O. I'm hoping I can catch myself and say "you're doing it again" now that I know what is.
Tough habit to break. No, never to anyone's face. - just stinkin' thinkin' as Jack Handy used to say.

The other troubling part is that much of my humor is based on making fun of others.  I blame growing up in the age of seinfeld, but I sure use my sarcastic, critical skills to make humor at other's expense.  Usually just people on TV, because I don't get out much, but that's bad enough...

Critic.. that is me.. I have to really work on that one... when I babysit I am always trying to give my GC affirmations. like that feels good doesn't it, or You did a great Job, or Thank You for thinking of doing that for me, it was very considerate of you. You did such a great job of cleaning out your room. etc. But HOW MANY of US do those affirmations for ourselves?

I don't! I see problems that MY daughter has and before in her life I'd probably criticize her.... really doesn't work. So now I try and praise her more also!  When I do have something I see I want to express to her. I try and express it have you ever tried this? or some non threatening kind of way.. I think She receives it better.

I am also trying to tell myself things like I tell the grandchildren. instead of telling myself " You didn't get a da#n thing done today. Now I try and think about what I did get done. I think we hear these tapes going over and over in our heads from our abused childhood, and yet most of them were not true. We accept them like it is G-ds truth because the parents or other elders always told us those hateful harmful to the emotions thing!

The freeze response was discussed in OOTF  great Disscussion and I wanted to pass it on!

http://outofthefog.net/forum/index.php?topic=31648.0 (http://outofthefog.net/forum/index.php?topic=31648.0)

Really glad for this thread as I am catching my outer critic more now. We were watching the show "Extant" the other night and going to town  (it really was so-o-o-o bad), but I realized that I was having a little too much fun and wasting time I wouldn't get back. 

So recognizing the outer critic = less time wasted watching bad TV (and being negative generally). Life is just too short  ;D

I'm another fawn-freezer. I know what you mean about the outer critic. At first I thought: "what outer critic? I don't do that. Other people do it to me! Because they're all dangerous, thoughtless egotists who stab me in the back the moment I'm letting my guard down!" It's a little embarassing how long it took me to realize that this wasn't really the most logical thought I ever had.

What complicates things is, I got emotional abuse from people I never, ever expected it from. How does one deal with that?

Does this get exacerbated by denial? I wasn't allowed to be angry at emotional abuse and neglect. Even at abuse that happened outside our home: my mother simply told me that "it's just kids being kids", and that "only childish people seek blame in others. 'The others did this, the others did that, those evil, evil others!' Remember this: the truly mature person always seeks blame in herself first and foremost." Then she gave me a little sermon on how she'd overcome teasing and problems by being proactive. End of story. She didn't talk to any teacher or to the other kids' parents, she didn't hug me, she didn't comfort me at all, she didn't even inquire again as to how things were developping, she didn't express even one bit of anger at the people who'd hurt me. (This from a woman who was always crucading to protect the weak.) She just completely trivialized and minimized that whole thing. I somehow thought this to mean that it was shameful in me to resent bullying. And of course, bullies and emotional abusers and people who neglect or reject you, they all normalize what they do. They all have their rationalizations. They all victim-blame. So you're slowly brainwashed into thinking that this is normal, it's just this harmless thing everyone keeps doing, resenting it would be churlish.

Then that has two effects that I observed in myself. In each of them, my outer critic means well, but is misguided.
One is thinking: "What my mother told me made me feel really stupid for thinking bullying is this rare, extaordinary offence. It's simply just normal behaviour. That means everyone I meet will be like that." And a part of me wants to protect me. It's always on the look-out for warning signs. Once bitten and so on. So if someone enters the room too confidently, looks too smooth and slick and superior: BULLY BULLY BULLY.
Since bullying has been normalized, it's no longer something a perpetrator perpetrates, it's a quality of life, a normal characteristic of ordinary, sane, laughing, happy, wonderful people. My outer critic has learned this lesson well. The bullies and bystanders have conditioned him to look at the anger and contempt we felt for our bullies, and to realize it's caused by normal, ordinary, everyday behaviour. So that's what he does. He doesn't criticize the words our bullies said, or the things they did. After all, one mustn't do that. It's normal behaviour. It's part of "kids being kids". So accordingly, it must logically follow that those kids' general behaviour was the problem. It wasn't, but I can see how my outer critic might come to that conclusion. He criticizes the normal, ordinary, everyday behaviour that accompanied our bullying. He doesn't criticize the words our bullies said to us: he criticizes their laughing confidence, their fashionable clothes, their giggles, their way of standing tall and sitting on tables and taking up too much space.
Because all the criticism I had to get rid of is still there, deep down in my subconscious. Its connection to the original perpetrators is stoppered up. But here's a group of happy pretty people laughingly entering a room and looking suspiciously arrogant and smug! Ka-WHOMP: instant judgmentalism. Scorched earth. Problem solved. My outer critic has seen to it that these people can't hurt me. He's seen right through them. They're stupid, shallow, hurtful people. He's protected me from them. Nobody will sneak by him now.

Hah! NOW I know who my outer critic reminds me of. Walter Sobchak from The Big Lebowski.

Pete has hybrid combos, and I am a fawn/freeze.  I need to get my notes out and post that because it fits me to a T.

I was bullied in School also. Through at least until the 9Th grade. I do not know what effects it had on me..I read every book in the library at a small country school I went to because I was bullied so much.  Except I am good at freezing and NOT being around mentally at least. When I am stressed out real bad I start having daydreams. I mean I am physically there but not mentally. Mindfull training helped me somewhat. Maybe the daydreams would be great IF I'd actually get off of my Butt and do something to make them come true.  :) :)

Yes I really see where you are both coming from Schroedingerkatze and Badmemories.
Whenever I see someone around my mother's age I think "Bully" and I watch them very carefully and if they say anything to my kids I let them have it. But recently my son told me he feels embarrassed when I have told a supermarket lady off for example ( because she told the children to stay close to me so they wouldn't get lost) I had a go at her because they were right by the trollies as I was putting my youngest one in. I told her I am their mother and it is none of her business. So because my son told me he is embarrassed I'll let it go from now on.
I have also been reading Pete walkers book and I finally found out what that thing was that used to happen to me if my mother beat me for too long. I thought I just made myself go limp and fall asleep kind of and it stopped the pain, but he calls it the "collapse response".

Quote from: Annegirl on September 16, 2014, 01:12:22 AM
I have also been reading Pete walkers book and I finally found out what that thing was that used to happen to me if my mother beat me for too long. I thought I just made myself go limp and fall asleep kind of and it stopped the pain, but he calls it the "collapse response".

Oh my words. I don't even know what to say. I want a time machine so I can get you out of there. I want to get everyone out.

that is really touching of you to say that Scroedingerkatze,
funny thing when that used to happen my mum would almost stop hitting (which she would do with objects that frequently broke, so shed just go and get something else until that broke etc) immediately, and I would think " why stop now just when I was getting used to it and it wasn't feeling bad anymore?"

You made me think of all the things I got spanked with...paddle boards(the kind you buy with the ball and rubber band), willow branches, construction markers(1.5 x1/4), wooden spoons or spatulas,belts,and jump ropes.  i remember we realized if we screamed more she would stop... but once she found out we did that and then DIDN"T stop even IF we were really crying.

Funny, Now Mom tells MY children that it is not good to spank kids... but that is what they did then. I think the emotional abuse was worse for me. Playing us siblings against each other, having scapegoats, Golden child, (it switched depending on her mood)Making me be responsible for all the children at a young age. (I had NO childhood.) When I was molested by Policemans son, just acting like nothing happened. Never letting me out of the house and grounding me months for small infractions so she would not have to deal with it, Making Us clean house for her all the time, making us cook,.

Really when You read it none of it sounds bad... why am I so broke? Or am I just remembering the easy stuff?

What? ALL of it sounds bad! Not just "oh dearie me" bad or "tsk tsk" bad. It's "Swedish arthouse movie" bad. It's the kind of bad people write biographies about (those "I survived a cult" kind of books). It's BAD bad. You're not surprisingly broken: given the hand you were dealt, you're surprisingly strong.

People normalize and rationalize the sh*t out of their abusive behaviour. There's always a good reason, isn't there? The crassest, most mind-blowingly stupid examples of abuse get treated like - "oh, I was having a bad day", "if you hadn't (done this thing or said that other thing or used that tone of voice), then I wouldn't have..." BLA BLA BLA BLA BLA. Nonsense! And we bought it and internalized it and believed in it because we were kids and didn't have a choice.

QuoteEmotional abuse is like brain washing in that it systematically wears away at the victim's [...] trust in their own perceptions [...].

(http://www.counselingcenter.illinois.edu/self-help-brochures/relationship-problems/emotional-abuse/ (http://www.counselingcenter.illinois.edu/self-help-brochures/relationship-problems/emotional-abuse/))

IMO, being parentalized alone qualifies as a marker of a sh*tty childhood. And you had so much other crap to deal with on top of that. You had a youth I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy, and you're still standing, still able to work towards your own recovery, still able to find a voice for what had happened. That's big.

Quote from: Badmemories on September 16, 2014, 04:44:54 PM
You made me think of all the things I got spanked with...paddle boards(the kind you buy with the ball and rubber band), willow branches, construction markers(1.5 x1/4), wooden spoons or spatulas,belts,and jump ropes.  i remember we realized if we screamed more she would stop... but once she found out we did that and then DIDN"T stop even IF we were really crying.

Funny, Now Mom tells MY children that it is not good to spank kids... but that is what they did then. I think the emotional abuse was worse for me. Playing us siblings against each other, having scapegoats, Golden child, (it switched depending on her mood)Making me be responsible for all the children at a young age. (I had NO childhood.) When I was molested by Policemans son, just acting like nothing happened. Never letting me out of the house and grounding me months for small infractions so she would not have to deal with it, Making Us clean house for her all the time, making us cook,.

Really when You read it none of it sounds bad... why am I so broke? Or am I just remembering the easy stuff?

(((hug)))

OMG, if this was the 'easy stuff', I shudder to think what else was there.

You're a survivor and a fighter. You've done what you had to to survive back then - and you're doing what you have to to thrive now. It's hard work to get yourself better and you're an inspiration to us all with all your research and your warm and insightful comments. Be nice to yourself - healing can be quite as painful as the original injury was but if you look closely, the wound gets smaller and more manageable with each passing day.

Thank You both for Your replies. I will comment more a little later. I have been reading today and going over everything here, writing stuff, crying, and I am just worn out now! So, I think I will just go to my favorite freeze response and take a nap! lol