I Think That I Might Be Thawing – Part 1: When Emotional Processing Leads to Thawing

Today is May 9th 2025. It’s likely that this post will be published much later than that. But I am writing this while I feel like I’m going through a thaw moment, which might be movement away from a functional freeze state, and a step towards functional freeze healing.

Before I go any further let me define what “thawing” means. Thawing is the gradual process by which a person begins to feel, sense, and express emotions, memories, and physical sensations that were previously suppressed, numbed, or inaccessible due to a long-term functional freeze response. It often involves waves of intense emotion, bodily sensations, and psychological release as the nervous system “wakes up” and starts to process what was once too overwhelming to face.

Thawing The Freeze Moving Beyond Trauma With Dr. Arielle Schwartz

The Trigger

A couple of days ago, I received an email reply from an extremely narcissistic ex-boyfriend. I had written to him, politely letting him know that I was finally moving on. I told him I was going to give myself the very thing he never had the courage to do, which was to wish me well and hope that I find someone who truly loves me for who I am, not for some projection or idea of me.

His response sucked and he clearly didn’t understand a shred of what I said. This did not go over well for me.

When I was reading his reply, I immediately started gagging. It was almost like something was coming online, maybe? It was like a bad gut feeling. A warning. It could also have been a clearing. It went on for a while. I’ve been trying to process this ever since it happened. I feel surges of emotion so heavy.

Prior to this, I had been processing a lot of stored emotions. I think in the last month and a half I have literally been crying (and hopefully processing) every single day. It seems these days that any little thing will set me off. I just let it happen. I try not to question it, I can’t help but to analyze it. This is all so new, including my reaction to my ex’s reply email.

It’s like I almost wonder if I am going to die OR…. is it possible that this is the nervous system rewiring itself??? After YEARS and YEARS of being in functional freeze??? Was I actually processing and purging excess nervous system cycles that never had their chance to finish?

Another thing that happened when I read that email was….

I time-traveled straight back to 2018, the year everything shattered. I remember walking in on him with another woman, a woman I immediately compared myself to. Immediately I told myself she was “more beautiful” than I could ever be. That memory floods me. Just a week before, he’d carelessly ended our relationship, using the excuse that I “wasn’t into surfing.” Never mind that I had done everything for him. I had welcomed him into the life that I built, I vouched for him. I supported him. And he discarded me like I was disposable, while I was away taking continuing education classes.

And the worst part of the recent letter? The final line where he claimed that he knows that I still love him, that I still think about him all the time. WOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

That line pushed me over the edge into madness. I went into a deep, primal grief I hadn’t let myself fully feel until now. All the racing thoughts came surging back. I’m remembering a time when a person who claimed to love me secretly body-shamed me throughout our entire relationship and was never happy with how I looked. It makes me sick, it makes me sad. It makes me not feel worthy.

And just to be clear – If there are any thoughts that I have about him? They CERTAINLY aren’t loving AT ALL.

Is This Healing?

I’m still haunted by how low my standards were. But I also see that, back then, that was the best I believed I could get. That’s the wound I’m speaking to now. My body is releasing in ways I didn’t know it could. I’ve had histamine reactions, mucus surging, waves of gagging, legs twitching, muscle spasms, crying. It’s as if every unprocessed sensation from 2018 is finally demanding to be felt. It sucks. I’m alone right now, I have no support.

This is the messy, terrifying truth about healing. It doesn’t always feel good. It can feel like your body is falling apart, like you’re going crazy. The worst part about all of it is – I AM NOT EVEN SURE IF THIS REALLY IS HEALING. Is it? Is this re-wiring?

I mean Jesus, I can only hope so you guys….because I am getting to a point in this “chronic illness” management where there are certain things that I can’t hide from anymore. My body is going to respond whether I want it to or not and I am realizing that I have to be even more careful going forward with who I associate with and what I am doing because god damn…. My body will let me know whether I want it to or not.

Right now my body is letting me know that everything he said and everything I put up with WAS NOT OKAY. No way not okay. At all.

I’ve lived for so long in a state of chronic functional freeze, frozen in that moment of betrayal, frozen in shame. On top of being frozen from all the other things PRIOR to what happened in 2018. Perhaps I’m thawing. Maybe everything stored in the ice is coming up to be metabolized.

Maybe….

I wrote a part 2 to this blog post. It’s a continuation of my journey moving beyond functional freeze.

Thawing the Freeze Response: Tips From a Maryland Anxiety Therapist — Beth Charbonneau, LCSW-C