During a session with my therapist, she talked about how the Fight or Flight responses had been expanded. She told me that now it’s Fight, Flight, Freeze, or Fawn.
The FIGHT response is your body’s way of facing any perceived threat aggressively.
FLIGHT means your body urges you to run from danger.
FREEZE is your body’s inability to move or act against a threat.
FAWN is your body’s stress response to try to please someone to avoid conflict.
We don’t talk enough about how grief causes you to only know how to freeze when faced with even a semi-similar threat.
It blows my mind how certain words or topics abruptly steal the present moment from me. My words escape me and I feel the most insecure. It probably looks like I’m listening when honestly I’m mentally reminding myself to breathe regularly.
Inhale… 2… 3… 4… Exhale… 2… 3… 4… Again.
Right now, because I’m trying to find the middle ground between freeze and flight, I don’t care about how to work through this feeling in the future; I just want it to end.
When will it pass? When will I heal? Be normal again? Myself again? Take risks without feeling like death or grief will prove once again to be the greatest risk. To openly feel without fear of debilitating loss. Waiting for the other shoe to drop to confirm the grim bedtime story you already tell yourself where happiness and joy are fleeting. But grief…
Grief and his side kick Freeze are consistent and dependable.
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