When Everything Stops: Understanding the Freeze Response
Blog Four in the Trauma Response Series
“When we can’t escape or fight, we learn to disappear.”
There are moments when we shut down completely, our thoughts disappear, our voice catches, and our body feels like it no longer belongs to us. We may zone out in meetings, feel numb during intimate conversations, or find ourselves rooted to the spot in conflict. This is the freeze response, and while it’s often overshadowed by its more active siblings, fight and flight, it’s no less significant.
But freeze isn’t just what happens after we’ve failed to fight or run. That’s the old model. In reality, freeze can be our nervous system’s first and most immediate response, especially if earlier experiences have taught us that movement, whether in protest or escape, is unsafe.
Freeze Is Not a Passive Response, It’s Protective
For some, particularly those with complex or developmental trauma, freeze becomes the go-to, not because they’re weak or indecisive, but because they learned early on that stillness was safest. In homes where speaking up brought danger, or where emotional expression wasn’t allowed, freeze offered a kind of invisibility.
The nervous system chooses freeze not because it’s failed to act, but because it’s acting exactly as it was trained to do in the face of threat or overwhelm.
How Freeze Shows Up in Everyday Life
Freeze doesn’t always look like a deer in headlights. It can be subtle:
Numbness or feeling detached from your body
“Spacing out” during conversations or tasks
Going quiet when conflict arises, even internally
Feeling like you “can’t move” forward in life or make decisions
Knowing what you want to say, but being unable to speak
Dissociation or chronic daydreaming
Emotional flatness, even when you know you “should” feel something
For me, it sometimes shows up as sitting in front of an email, knowing exactly what I want to say, but unable to move my fingers on the keyboard. Or walking into a difficult conversation and suddenly finding that my voice just won’t come. I’ve found myself agreeing to things I don’t actually want to do, not out of people-pleasing, but because I couldn’t access the part of me that says, "no."
Clients often describe it too, freezing mid-sentence when emotions rise, or avoiding eye contact during moments of intimacy. One spoke of standing at the fridge, overwhelmed by the thought of making dinner, and simply... standing there. Not choosing, not moving, just suspended.
You might freeze in a moment of perceived criticism or social scrutiny. You might notice it in therapy, or when facing a difficult truth. Sometimes it arrives just after a period of intense flight or fight energy, your body hitting the brakes after red-lining too long.
And other times, it’s there first. Like a reflex.
What’s Happening in the Body During Freeze?
Freeze is linked to dorsal vagal activation, part of the parasympathetic nervous system responsible for slowing us down. Heart rate decreases, digestion stalls, and energy conservation kicks in. It’s the body’s attempt to protect and preserve in the face of perceived threat.
Interestingly, sympathetic energy (fight/flight) may still be active underneath. That’s why some people describe feeling frozen on the outside but anxious or panicky inside. It’s a state of internal conflict, like slamming on the brakes while your foot’s still on the gas.
This blend of shutdown and underlying tension can be incredibly disorienting.
The Shame of Stuckness
Freeze can carry a heavy weight of self-blame. “Why didn’t I speak up?” “Why can’t I just do the thing?” But these questions ignore what the body was trying to do for you. Freeze is a strategy, not a failure, and it often stems from a time when doing nothing kept you safe.
Understanding this can begin to lift the shame. From there, we can work with the freeze response, rather than against it.
Working With Freeze in Therapy
Therapy isn’t about “fixing” the freeze response, it’s about building safety and capacity so that you have more choices in the moment. That might include:
Titrating difficult experiences gently, so your system doesn’t overload
Reconnecting with bodily sensations in safe, controlled ways
Using grounding techniques to anchor in the present
Recognising what triggers freeze and building tolerance around those moments
Much of the work is relational, feeling safe enough with another person to stay present, even when your instinct is to disappear.
In time, people find that they don’t have to override freeze with force. They can listen to it, learn from it, and slowly reintroduce movement, voice, and action. It’s a process of reclaiming the parts of ourselves that had to go quiet to survive.
Freeze isn’t weakness. It’s a sign your body knows how to protect you… so well, in fact, that it sometimes forgets when you’re no longer in danger. The good news is that with awareness, support, and time, you can teach your system new ways to respond. Ways that include choice, connection, and a deeper sense of safety in your own skin.