Chronic or Functioning Freeze State

I am writing about this as I am doing all of what is described in this post. I suppose this is what is might look like when one is witnessing themself in a repeated pattern.

There’s a particular kind of stillness that happens with me. This is something I have only just recently started to question and understand. It’s not quite depression or dissociation in the textbook sense. It’s just… this space…this place… It is when I sit in bed for hours, maybe half-dressed, maybe scrolling. I click around from one thing to the next.

During the time when I was really sick in 2020 and especially 2021, I’d search the internet for symptoms I may have been experiencing that day, read through medical websites, or scan through endless amounts of Reddit threads of people suffering with the same things I was; and I would do this for hours. I wasn’t upset or numb. It was like I was just… just there, for a long time.

I am now realizing that even BEFORE my illness got out of control, I would do this. In those times, it was always searching through the next place I wanted to live or the next job I was perusing (which may or may not have happened but if it did happen, it certainly didn’t last). It was all not really rooted in the present moment.

It’s not unpleasant, but it’s not satisfying either. And it lasts. I have noticed in those long still, moments; my body actually starts to hurt. When I finally move around, I’m stiff, cracking, and can feel the blood rush up to my head.

I guess this is kind of a soft freeze state. A kind of emotional suspension that isn’t dramatic, but quietly drains you anyway. A kind of functional inertia where the body is still and the mind is gently spinning, future-focused but noncommittal. You’re technically doing things. But you’re not fully in anything.

Why Does This Happen?

I am learning that being in a chronic freeze state has been a good core of all of my issues. I also was always the kind of person who listens, who regulates chaos, and who understands everyone else’s trauma in full color. There’s a history of over-functioning in emotional emergencies, of knowing how to perform calm in other people’s storms. All of this, I realize, was keeping me where I always end up, which in simple terms is, me being alone, and wondering what it is I am suppose to do with my life. I’ve been in that cycle time and time again.

When I was really sick and couldn’t do much, I convinced myself that I was honoring where I was at. After having tried things like eating better, trying different healing techniques, seeing doctors, none of it was working, so maybe doing nothing was the most honest thing I could do.

And in some ways, it was. For a while, the long days in bed with no pressure, no demands, and only minimal effort felt like relief. It felt like a kind of surrender. But now, I’m starting to see that it didn’t move me forward and my health wasn’t really improving. It held me still.

It’s Not Just Laziness

Sometimes I felt guilty for all the time I spent doing this but it became a loop. Hours of scrolling, searching, reading, clicking become a kind of avoidance that looks like engagement, a comfort behavior that mimics growth but rarely results in change, and it was a way to feed the mind while my body and heart stayed disconnected. I was collecting data with no action happening. It soothes the anxiety of helplessness, but it doesn’t resolve it.

The searching feels like doing. The gathering of information feels like progress. But the truth is…I was still stuck. I am still stuck as we speak.

I am learning this as I go, but I think that it was a form of self-preservation. My body, mind, or spirit was (and still is) doing whatever it has to in order to stay safe, cope, or simply endure. I suppose its emotional shut down. But I think writing this, is part of the actual healing process. Because it is different that I am actually seeing this now, rather than not.

LINKS:

Nervous System Thawing: Part 1 – Astra Speaks

Nervous System Thawing Part 2: Understanding Emotional States

What is ‘functional freeze’? Therapist explains why you’re overwhelmed by everyday tasks

https://www.charliehealth.com/post/functional-freeze?

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