Chronic Functional Freeze

Busyness isn't always about being busy.

Sometimes it's about trying to avoid overwhelm.

I want to share with you what chronic functional freeze can look like.

And it looks like avoidance.

Of emotions because they're too intense.

When we experience overwhelm.

The intensity of those emotions can be so much.

It feels like we are drowning.

Now,

Oftentimes,

We don't want to appear that we are drowning,

And so no one else would know,

But we can notice these things that we are doing.

This has been one of the ways in which I have recognized my own patterns,

Patterns of protection,

And allowed me to see a deeper level of chronic functional freeze in myself.

Otherwise,

It was very hard for me to see that I had stored trauma in my body because I was so productive.

I was so high performing.

I was getting stuff done.

And yet I knew what I felt like inside where it was so hard to be getting things done.

I was struggling with focusing.

I was struggling with being able to.

Feel like I could generate efficient productivity.

It felt like stuckness that I'm trying to push through.

But it wasn't obvious to everyone else.

And inside,

I was trying to manage these emotions that were wanting to pull me away from being productive.

Let me explain.

In my book,

I'm very open about my patterns.

And so chapter nine is on the patterns of pain.

These are also the patterns of protection,

How we can recognize a chronic functional freeze,

Whether in ourselves or in someone else.

And on page 116,

I write,

When I began recognizing these patterns throughout my own life,

I was stunned.

Despite being a physician trained in human physiology,

I had never connected my relationship challenges and health problems to trauma.

Yet my body told a different story.

And the dots began connecting as I saw how my perfectionism pushed through philosophy.

Chronic fatigue and autoimmunity formed a predictable pattern.

Patterns.

That's what I want to share with you today because the pattern of avoiding feeling is a pattern of stored trauma.

It's in fact one of the first patterns I talk about.

I talk about the first pattern being disconnection and what I want you to be able to know is that disconnection can look like just trying to create distance.

Decrease the intensity of emotions when they start to feel like we're going to drown in them.

I don't know if you can relate,

But this idea that that feels too much for me to feel because the panic.

I feel myself going into panic and then paralysis.

I don't want to go into paralysis,

Which means I need to decrease the intensity of that feeling.

Now,

When we talk about the biology behind that,

I'm reminded of that capacity concept.

And so in my book,

I have the.

.

.

Idea of capacity,

Which is.

.

.

That when The amount of stress that I'm experiencing feels so much bigger than my current capacity.

That is when the overwhelm and that freeze response will take over.

I'm not choosing that.

That's just what my body is doing as a result of going into protection mode.

It's protecting me from this very scenario,

Which is where a stress.

.

.

Feels like it's so much bigger than my capacity.

And this is what has actually happened recently.

And so I have found,

I am discovering a new level of chronic functional freeze.

And I want to share with you what I noticed happening with that.

So disconnection is this idea of creating distance.

And creating distance can look like avoiding.

Feeling because I'm trying to decrease the intensity of it.

So.

For a variety of reasons,

I reached that point in the last couple of days of like,

Oh my goodness,

This specific stress in my life.

Feels so much bigger than my capacity.

And I feel myself at that edge and kind of going into overwhelm.

One of the first things that I noticed was that I immediately started to have sugar cravings.

Craving for carbs.

Now,

Not just anything.

What I noticed was that all of a sudden,

Like I'm craving chocolate.

And I'm craving chocolate muffins.

I'm literally on my phone last night,

And I'm ordering groceries from the app,

And normally that kind of stuff doesn't even catch my attention,

But not last night.

Last night,

I get a picture of these chocolate muffins scrolling across the window,

And I pause,

And I stare at them,

And I start to salivate.

And I recognized the pattern that was happening of those chocolate muffins would help numb.

This panic that I'm feeling inside,

This overwhelm,

Those chocolate muffins would help me feel better.

Now,

I know that they won't help me feel better tomorrow.

They'll have me feeling awful tomorrow.

But I'm not thinking about tomorrow.

My nervous system isn't thinking about tomorrow.

My nervous system is thinking,

Amy,

You are drowning.

In your inner emotions right now,

I'm trying to help you right now survive this moment.

And to help you survive,

I need to decrease the intensity of this stress that has turned into panic and overwhelm.

And that's how I know how to do it.

Now,

Why chocolate muffins?

I know the science behind this.

The science is sugar binds our opiate receptors.

So it's like taking a pill of Vicodin.

Dilaudid,

Whatever other pain medication.

That you have taken in the past.

It literally binds those same receptors to numb pain.

And not just physical pain.

Opiate receptors are not specific to the type of pain,

Which is why we will crave carbs,

But specific types of sugars that will be the most effective.

On numbing our inner overwhelm.

Not just the sugars,

But also gluten.

And gluten is the other kind of food that we can eat that binds these opiate receptors.

And that's why it's often the combination of those two that I'm craving when I have gone into that freeze response.

I'm literally trying my body.

My nervous system is literally scrambling for anything that will just decrease the intensity so that I don't feel that I'm drowning in emotions.

Now,

What else?

Because as I'm looking at these chocolate muffins,

If you have been following me lately,

You know that I'm actually on a carnivore diet right now.

Meaning I only eat meat,

Which has been very helpful for my body,

Stabilizing my blood sugar levels.

But there's no room on a carnivore diet for chocolate muffins.

So that's why it would be an even bigger deal for me to order those,

Have them delivered in an hour and a half.

Of course,

I'm going to rush those.

And eat those because of how it would disrupt my entire health routine at the moment.

So even though I'm starting to sweat,

I'm starting to salivate,

I'm like,

Oh,

Those chocolate muffins would help me feel better right now.

I'm going to say no because I'm thinking of how I'm going to feel tomorrow.

And what's the next thing that comes up?

No surprise to me is the next thing that comes up is like,

Oh,

Let me call that friend.

Let me text them.

Let me call that friend.

Meanwhile,

I'm supposed to be doing some planning work for the next day,

But that's what's stressing me out.

And so here I am finding myself distracted by,

Oh,

Let me call this friend,

But I don't want to talk about me.

Because I need to get out of this overwhelm.

I'm trying to avoid.

I'm trying to not look at.

What's stressing me out.

So let me now dedicate myself to you.

Let me ask about your day.

Let me ask about what's been great,

What's been hard.

We're going to talk about you because as soon as that spotlight is on me,

I'm back in that overwhelm and I feel like I'm drowning again.

So I noticed that my nervous system,

The next thing that it grappled with,

As soon as it saw that it wasn't going to get away with the chocolate muffins,

Let's go focus on someone else's needs and someone else's experience in their day so that we don't have to look at ours and we can put some distance between me and this overwhelm.

What happened next?

Well,

It goes through the list.

Because now it's going to feel restless and antsy.

Like I've got to,

I can't sit still to work on this because I'm trying to avoid this.

So I've got to get up and move.

Let me go unpack that box that really doesn't need to be unpacked.

Let me go,

Oh,

This needs to be cleaned.

Oh,

I can go clean that.

And I find myself organizing and cleaning and doing anything but focusing.

On.

Working through this big stress and overwhelm.

Well,

I notice what I'm doing and I bring myself back and be like,

All right,

Amy,

Let's do this.

We need to do this.

We need to move through this.

But again,

That stress felt too big for me still.

So I noticed that my nervous system is now going to reach for the next thing.

Do you know what the next thing was?

The next thing was putting a movie on while I'm working.

Now,

I know what this is about.

This is about,

I don't want to fully be present to this.

So let me allow myself to be distracted and have part of my attention over here so that I don't have to be fully present to this because this feels too much.

And so these are the ways in which I now recognize that my body has gone into that overwhelm,

Has gone into that freeze response when I notice that it's not able to feel the intensity of.

Whatever problem is going on in my life,

And I am grasping for things that will distract me.

Anything that will allow me to create distance.

So that I'm not drowning in those emotions.

The last thing for me yesterday was realizing that I then looked at the clock and I was like,

Can I go to bed yet?

Going to bed is one way to just escape it all.

And of course,

That can look really good.

That can look really healthy.

Oh,

Look,

She's going to bed early.

She's really taking care of herself.

And it's also sometimes a sign of a freeze response.

Because I'm just trying to avoid.

I'm trying to run away.

And this is one way to create distance.

Is to go to sleep.

End and avoid.

All of this to say that by recognizing these messages now,

By recognizing what it means.

That I'm craving those chocolate muffins?

What does it mean that as soon as that is not an option,

I want to call a friend so I can focus on them?

And then I want to clean and then I want to organize.

And then I want to play a movie so that my attention is pulled in two different directions and I'm not fully present.

And then I just want to go to bed early.

Knowing and seeing and hearing those messages from my body now,

It allows other.

.

.

It allows a space for me to make a different decision,

To have choice that I never had before.

When I didn't recognize these as signs of my freeze response.

I had no choice.

I was falling into the chocolate muffins.

And then,

Of course,

It would be so much more.

I was falling into the distractions to focusing on other people and what they need.

And all the things.

They weren't choices because I didn't recognize what my body really needed,

Which was I'm drowning.

I'm drowning.

I need to know that I'm going to be okay.

And when I can recognize that now,

It allows me to have a different.

.

.

Choice.

And that's powerful.

That's what's been game changing for me,

Which allows me even now to still experience freeze responses.

And know that I'm going to come through it and I'm going to be okay.

And I'm going to be able to actually expand deeper because I'm obviously at my edge,

Which can be my growth edge.

This can be an opportunity for me to see how did we get to this point where I'm in overwhelm at this?

How can I grow my capacity so that I can hold more stress and not go into overwhelm?

It's not the.

.

.

Doom and gloom that it used to be and the hating my body as I would feel it shut down and do all of these things and not be able to focus.

Knowing that I am going to move through this,

Knowing what is happening in my body and knowing that this can and will be an opportunity for me to expand my capacity.

Is what allows me to have a very different relationship with that freeze response now.

So if you've read the book.

I encourage you to go to Chapter 9 where you can read on the patterns of disconnection specifically is what I've talked about today.

I'm Dr.

Amy,

Your host for this Biology of Trauma podcast,

And I will see you next time.