When stress hits your nervous system like a freight train, something strange happens to your body. You feel frozen in place, like your limbs have turned to concrete. Your mind goes blank. You can't move, can't think, can't speak. This isn't weakness or cowardice. This is your nervous system's ancient survival mechanism kicking in.
What Actually Happens When You Freeze
The freeze response is your body's involuntary shutdown when fighting or fleeing isn't possible. When threatening situations occur where fleeing or aggressive responses are likely to be ineffective, a freeze response may take place. This state is characterized by physical immobility (motionlessness), tense body posture (increased muscle tone), loss of agency, analgesia, depersonalization, and derealisation.
Your nervous system operates on a hierarchy of responses. At its core, Polyvagal Theory provides a biological framework for understanding safety, danger, and life-threatening states, fundamentally reshaping how clinicians conceptualize and address trauma. When your brain perceives overwhelming threat, your body's ancient safety mechanism shuts down to protect you,just like a circuit breaker.
Research shows this response is more common than many realize. Perceptions of immobility in the context of the challenge were reported in 13% of the sample, compared to 20% reporting a significant desire to flee. In trauma situations, particularly sexual assault, a full 70% reported that they experienced tonic immobility for at least a portion of their assault.
The Science Behind Nervous System Shutdown
According to polyvagal theory, developed by neuroscientist Dr. Stephen Porges, your autonomic nervous system has three main states. Ventral Vagal (Social Engagement Mode): Calm, connected, and safe. Sympathetic Activation (Fight or Flight): Alert and ready to defend. Dorsal Vagal (Shutdown Mode): Overwhelmed and checked out.
When stress becomes overwhelming, Dorsal Vagal Shutdown serves as the body's emergency "freeze" response in the face of overwhelming stress or trauma, when the usual "fight or flight" reactions are not viable options. This protective mechanism conserves energy by minimizing metabolic activity and reducing visibility to potential threats.
Dr. Peter Levine, who developed Somatic Experiencing, discovered something crucial about this response. Animals are constantly under threat of death yet show no symptoms of trauma stuck in their systems. What he discovered was that trauma has to do with the third survival response to a perceived life threat, which is freeze. When fight and flight are not options, we freeze and immobilize, like "playing dead."
Your Freeze Response Isn't Your Fault
Like all trauma responses, freeze is an involuntary response. Understanding this process can reduce shame and offer clarity. You're not "lazy" or "overly sensitive." Your body is doing its best to keep you safe. This ancient survival mechanism helped our ancestors survive predators and continues to activate when your nervous system detects inescapable threat.
Why Some People Freeze While Others Fight or Flee
The freeze response often develops from specific life experiences. As a child, she would seek comfort and closeness from an attachment figure, like her mother. But the physical abuse she experienced at the hand of her mother would also trigger a fight or flight defensive response in her. Because these two systems , the attachment system and the defensive system , are at odds with each other, the child doesn't know what to do. And so instead, she might go into freeze.
Research confirms that tonic immobility during sexual assault was associated with the development of post-traumatic stress disorder and severe depression. They reported that just over half (51%) of the women who experienced tonic immobility developed PTSD compared with 28% of women who did not experience it. This demonstrates how your body's protective response, while adaptive in the moment, can have lasting effects.
How Freeze Shows Up in Your Daily Life
Freeze doesn't only happen during major trauma. This response was useful for survival in extreme situations, but today, it may be triggered by things like trauma reminders, relationship stress, emotional overwhelm, or sensory overload. You might find yourself:
• Unable to speak during conflict • Procrastinating on important decisions • Feeling stuck when faced with choices • Going blank during stressful conversations • Experiencing brain fog or dissociation • Feeling paralyzed by overwhelming emotions
A person who felt vulnerable for prolonged periods may experience collapsed posture, shallow breathing, or chronic fatigue. If the nervous system gets stuck in survival mode, particularly in the freeze response, it can lead to patterns of dissociation, numbness, fatigue, or chronic illness.
The Misunderstood Connection Between Trauma and "Personality"
Many people mistake chronic freeze responses for personality flaws. Perfectionism might look like a personality trait, but for some it's rooted in childhood criticism or the belief that love had to be earned. Likewise, being "overly independent" may not just be a trait,it could be a response to emotional neglect, where depending on others never felt safe.
Chronic trauma responses over time come to look like personality traits. For example emotional outbursts and anger can lead someone to be perceived or perceive themselves to be "an angry person" or someone might believe themselves to be "shy" when in reality they have had to be less visible in order to protect themselves from harm.
Breaking Free from Chronic Freeze
The good news is that your nervous system can learn new patterns. The Somatic Experiencing method works to release this stored energy and turn off this threat alarm that causes dysregulation and dissociation. SE helps people understand this body response to trauma and work through a "body first" approach to healing.
Healing starts with recognizing that when a client is stuck in this trauma response, they won't be able to process verbal communication well. That's because, as we mentioned earlier, our prefrontal cortex , the brain structure that integrates verbal information , is offline when in freeze.
"You cannot do psychotherapy or psychoeducation when people are frozen, because when you're frozen, nothing can come into your brain until the frozenness is stopped." - Dr. Bessel van der Kolk
Effective approaches include grounding exercises using your senses to anchor yourself to the present moment, co-regulation through connecting with a safe person, and breathwork with slow, steady breathing that sends signals of safety to the nervous system.
Your Path Forward
Understanding your freeze response is the first step toward healing. Understanding the difference between traits and trauma responses can reduce shame and increase self-compassion. Many people blame themselves for being "too sensitive" or "too controlling" without realizing these patterns may have started as survival strategies. Recognizing them as trauma responses can shift the focus from self-criticism to healing.
With awareness, self-compassion, and body-based healing practices, it is possible to restore a sense of safety and reconnection. Your nervous system learned these responses to protect you. Now it can learn new ways to feel safe and connected.
The Freedom Triggers Assessment measures 57 different trauma triggers that might be keeping your nervous system stuck in protective modes. Understanding your specific patterns is crucial for targeted healing. When you know what activates your freeze response, you can begin the gentle work of helping your body remember it's safe to move, feel, and engage with life again.