Brad Schipke explains that freezing in PTSD happens when your brain can't fight or flee, so it shuts down emotion and sensation as a last-resort defense. The freeze response can get stuck, leaving you unable to act even when you want to. Healing means retraining your body and processing the trauma underneath.
Why does PTSD make you freeze? When you're unable to fight or you're unable to escape, your brain shuts everything down and freezes in an attempt to protect you. So freezing is your body's last line of defense. Your brain disconnects you from emotion and sensation so that you can actually survive what's going on in the moment. And later on, that same freeze reflex can get stuck. You might freeze even when you want to react, but you can retrain your body, process the underlying trauma, and that's what healing really does. It restores the choice. If you want to learn how to unfreeze your body safely, just hit that subscribe button.
