Peter Walker On Freeze

[Badmemories]

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

[Kizzie]

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 

[schrödinger's cat]

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.

[emotion overload]

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.

[Badmemories]

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. 

[Annegirl]

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".

[schrödinger's cat]

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.

[Annegirl]

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?"

[Badmemories]

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?

[schrödinger's cat]

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.

Emotional 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/)

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.

[keepfighting]

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.

[Badmemories]

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

Keep ON keeping ON!