What is the freeze trauma response?

Many peo­ple still look to the out­dat­ed mod­el that says peo­ple will either fight or flee in dan­ger­ous sit­u­a­tions, but we know there is much more to it now. 

It actu­al­ly looks like this: when some­one per­ceives some­thing dan­ger­ous, the hip­pocam­pus and the amyg­dala (parts of our brain) shut down, mak­ing it hard­er to think, make deci­sions, and store mem­o­ries. There is also increased activ­i­ty: the hypo­thal­a­mus tells the pitu­itary gland (more parts of the brain) to release hor­mones that sig­nal our instinc­tu­al sur­vival respons­es of FIGHT, FLIGHT, FREEZE, or FAWN. These four respons­es are not active choic­es but sur­vival mech­a­nisms that have devel­oped over thou­sands of years of evo­lu­tion in the effort to keep you safe. 

Today we want to talk more about the freeze response. 

When some­one faces a dan­ger­ous sit­u­a­tion, such as sex­u­al vio­lence, they may expe­ri­ence freeze. Freeze can look like being very still and qui­et and can feel like being numb or dis­so­ci­at­ing (being on auto-pilot or robot mode or seem­ing to watch your­self from the ceil­ing). It is a very com­mon response for sur­vivors. In one 2003 study from Tem­ple Uni­ver­si­ty Philadel­phia, 88% of vic­tims of child­hood sex­u­al assault and 75% of vic­tims of adult sex­u­al assault report­ed mod­er­ate or high lev­els of paral­y­sis dur­ing the assault. In anoth­er study from 2017 pub­lished in Nordic Fed­er­a­tion of Soci­eties of Obstet­rics and Gyne­col­o­gy, 70% of sur­vivors report­ed sig­nif­i­cant ton­ic immo­bil­i­ty and 48% report­ed extreme ton­ic immo­bil­i­ty (a clin­i­cal way of describ­ing the freeze response) dur­ing the assault. 

Freeze is seen in oth­er species beyond just humans. This type of response can be life-sav­ing. It is very com­mon yet still not under­stood well by many peo­ple in our communities.

If a sur­vivor froze dur­ing their assault they may face a lot of ques­tions, con­fu­sion, and self-blame for their response. This is because, even before dis­clos­ing, our soci­ety has taught us that there is ​“a cor­rect way to respond to sex­u­al assault” and ​“if you are not the per­fect vic­tim it didn’t real­ly hap­pen”. These lies are rape myths and part of the rape cul­ture we live in. Rape myths have dev­as­tat­ing effects on peo­ple who are already liv­ing through immense trau­ma. What we need more of is for peo­ple to val­i­date and affirm to sur­vivors (and to every­one) that a freeze response does not mean there was con­sent. Freeze is an invol­un­tary sur­vival response and there is no shame in freez­ing dur­ing assault (or when remind­ed of the assault lat­er on). We need to acknowl­edge that while peo­ple react dif­fer­ent­ly to trau­ma there is no one cor­rect response. 

We also want sur­vivors to be able to under­stand that even though peo­ple have dif­fer­ent instinc­tu­al reac­tions that that doesn’t mean they can­not be affect­ed in sim­i­lar ways. Where some­one who froze may think ​“I didn’t do enough to stop it”, some­one who fought might think ​“if I was stronger I could have pro­tect­ed myself”. Mean­while, some­one who tried to flee may think ​“I should have tried to leave soon­er” and some­one who fawned (pla­cat­ed the per­pe­tra­tor) may think ​“I gave in”. All sur­vivors can strug­gle with self blame and guilt but it’s impor­tant to remem­ber that you are not at fault no mat­ter how you respond­ed. The only per­son who deserves to be blamed is the per­son who made a choice to assault some­one. If you are strug­gling with self-blame at how you respond­ed dur­ing trau­ma, know that you are not alone and we are here to sup­port you in find­ing self-com­pas­sion for the ways you survived.