Knowing the difference: freeze or shutdown with cPTSD

It’s important to know the difference between the freeze response to a trigger or shutdown (dissociation) regardless of where you are at on your healing journey, so we use the right tools and practices.
The two responses are different in physiology and hence the felt sense in our body is also different…. I will give examples
Curious about private 1:1 mentorship?
Let's talk
Book a free Energy Leak Diagnostic today, on that call we will identify a few energy leaks in your current life, and then see if my program is right for you. calendly.com/tanjawindegger/d...
Get clarity on your hidden patterns that keep holding you back, explore customised to you practices and strategies using my magical blend of neuroscience and radical self-awareness, so that you can move forward with confidence even when speaking your truth will ruffle some feathers...
Join the Thriveroo Community
What would it mean to you to walk on this healing journey with like-minded people? The online Thriveroo Community is a small group of people dedicated and committed to healing and inner growth.
We have weekly calls and monthly workshops: on the 8th February is our next online Art Therapy session!
Would be lovely to have you part of the Thriveroo Community. Here’s the page with all the details to join
tanjawindegger.com/thriveroo-...
Check out my website for more resources www.tanjawindegger.com
or
Join my FB groups for additional support :)
Complex PTSD and thriving group: / 124457354918524
Complex PTSD resources group: / 756200208103084
Monthly Book club meetings
Every first Saturday of the month at 6:30 am (Brisbane AEST)
Note: this will be Friday for people in Europe and North America
Here's the zoom registration link (please add this to your calendar app so it does the time conversion for you and saves the link and password)
us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regis...
--------------------------- Let's connect on social media :) -------------------------------- / livingwithcomplexptsd / pins / ptsd_complex / tanjawindegger

Пікірлер: 50

  • @KarmasAbutch
    @KarmasAbutch8 ай бұрын

    Shutdown / collapse response for me = best sleep ever but very immediate and inconvenient

  • @TanjaWindegger

    @TanjaWindegger

    7 ай бұрын

    🌻so true

  • @francesgoodall
    @francesgoodall3 ай бұрын

    Thank you for this video, for me to get out of a shut down/collapse state I usually need to feel anger and connect to the fight response in my system… the shift is amazing once I can.

  • @TanjaWindegger

    @TanjaWindegger

    3 ай бұрын

    Awesome! powerful. thanks for sharing 🌻

  • @ejgames8484
    @ejgames8484 Жыл бұрын

    Ive always blamed myself for these symptoms. Thinking something was wrong with me. Its kind of mind blowing that these are responses due to trauma. I would beat myself up when im shutdown and cant really get stuff done. Or when I freeze and I feel like Ive completely forgotten how to socialize with people as if it felt like I was restricting myself.

  • @TanjaWindegger

    @TanjaWindegger

    Жыл бұрын

    it is sad how many of us blamed ourselves for our symptoms... my heart goes out to you

  • @pedrom8831

    @pedrom8831

    Ай бұрын

    Hello there. I hope you don’t mind me asking a theoretical question. I hear trauma therapists talk a lot about people being ‘stuck’ in a chronic freeze state - loads of sympathetic energy being shut down below the surface. But I also hear that in order to effectively work through that bound energy the system needs to stabilise and find some safety. But how is that possible if the system is ‘stuck’ in freeze? That would imply that some of the bound energy needs to become unstuck first. It seems like a total catch 22. Very confusing!

  • @dianepines9014

    @dianepines9014

    Ай бұрын

    I think learning to reset your vagus nerve is helpful.​@@pedrom8831

  • @KarineTKnudsen
    @KarineTKnudsen Жыл бұрын

    High shoulders, not breathing down in my stomach = freeze. Then I have to lay down and ask my body to release. Sometimes I shake for over an hour.

  • @TanjaWindegger

    @TanjaWindegger

    Жыл бұрын

    thanks for sharing. some days it felt like I had to learn how to breath...

  • @rosi-complextraumayoga

    @rosi-complextraumayoga

    4 ай бұрын

    Yes, this is so interesting: when I am in freeze and lay down I feel supported and can let go of sympatic activation. At the same time it is hard to do so.

  • @krishnabhakt7776

    @krishnabhakt7776

    Күн бұрын

    How are you now? Are you out of freeze state?

  • @DEELIZABETHVanderbiltCecil
    @DEELIZABETHVanderbiltCecilКүн бұрын

    This is detachment. It has taken me years to achieve this state. I am at peace with myself. If I were sanctimonious, I would say I would say: I am waiting on God to move. So instead I will sit. Smiling inside. Content.

  • @Walicia
    @Walicia Жыл бұрын

    Thank you for explaining that. I just want to tell someone my experience I'm trying to understand. I think I got traumatised just from school itself. Every waking moment would revolve around my fear of going in the morning. At night I would get on edge, and in the mornings I would try to cope and go, but most days I'd end up feeling like I couldn't, but I couldn't say no, so it was always a conflict. My mind would race trying to figure out how I felt, how to tell my parents, what their reactions would be, how much I could control myself from being even worse once I got there if I did go. Sometimes I would just lay there in dread anticipating it, not even knowing how to speak when addressed. I couldn't let go of the anxiety but once I could then I wasn't safe from guilt. Or if I did go I'd freeze in the car before getting out and I'd feel like I could pass out or I wish I would. I think that's the part I kinda physically relive to this day, getting stuck in place with no way out. I haven't been able to keep a job or school but I'm really trying, at it's worst I just stop moving and I think again, I have no choice, its expected, and people really look down on you for being lazy enough to not work without being completely traumatised. I'm angry I cant get help I need like therapy without money that I need therapy to be able to get. Especially because I think I might be a classic undiagnosed autistic woman, and I fear people just telling me to do it anyway. There must be a reason I'm so timid and afraid of these situations compared to others.

  • @TanjaWindegger

    @TanjaWindegger

    Жыл бұрын

    this sense of "getting stuck in place with no way out" is very common it takes a lot of daily practice to re-wire ourselves and remind our brain and nervous system that now I am an adult, I have different options and choices available to me compared to childhood... (I used to have notes like this written on little cards that I had in my wallet, so I could read them when out and about and feeling triggered, helpless and trapped... there is a big overlap in symptoms of autism and ptsd. the only difference is that autism you are born with and can be in absence of trauma... but for many of us the trauma started that early that it's impossible to know if it is

  • @ceydaozdemir5688
    @ceydaozdemir5688Ай бұрын

    god bless you for sharing this context I am in shutdown state and I was toxicly shaming myself for it without even notice. Your video help me to notice what is going on with my body. thank you. I lit a candle and felt the warmth from it. helped a lot for the shutdown. 🧡🧡🧡

  • @TanjaWindegger

    @TanjaWindegger

    Ай бұрын

    So happy to year! 💛

  • @Paulo.1984
    @Paulo.19842 жыл бұрын

    Thank you and bless your courage. Knowing the theory is one thing, putting it into practice is yet another. Right now, I wouldn't haven any issue sitting in a panel along Gabor Mate talking about trauma and its effects, yet...the reality of my life is complete shutdown that I can't seem to get out of.

  • @TanjaWindegger

    @TanjaWindegger

    2 жыл бұрын

    I hear you!! the first part of my healing journey was exactly what you described. I only intellectualised the healing process... it felt much safer to learn about it than implement it

  • @Paulo.1984

    @Paulo.1984

    2 жыл бұрын

    @@TanjaWindegger it's more about not knowing how to implement it. Yes the anxiety is paralyzing but when certain of what I have to do, I gain the courage and do it. Too many therapies gone wrong, too many 'experts' trusted who really didn't know what they were doing. I had a look at your website, didn't realise you were in Brisbane. Do you have any initial consultation where we could maybe talk over the phone and see if a plan can be made?

  • @TanjaWindegger

    @TanjaWindegger

    2 жыл бұрын

    @@Paulo.1984 all my calls are via zoom. You are welcome to book a free Energy Leak Diagnostic Call. We can discuss my program on that call to see if it's the right fit. Here's the link calendly.com/tanjawindegger/discovery-call

  • @Paulo.1984

    @Paulo.1984

    2 жыл бұрын

    @@TanjaWindegger Sorry for the late reply, I've just seen it. Thank you Tanja.

  • @a.k.3110
    @a.k.3110 Жыл бұрын

    I once, two month ago experienced my digestion stopping from having fear to get me in an overwhelming situation (job Coaching, i can't work due to getting ill when some expectations and fear of not meeting them and being judged and stress from having to get along with people long term so bonding is happening. I want to work and be part of the society. Partly.) and by that reactions i got to know me better. I panicked but it have been my wish to try working again. I feel so useless, a burden, not part of. But my body said no. I had situations that caused collapse, flight, freeze as a baby, no one knew how to reregulate me, i just got labeled a difficult child. Not to connect with. I went through what lives gives to grow on but all alone i felt overwhelmed on a daily basis and got blamed for this by my caretakers. Now it seems like my nervous system uses this partly collapse and dissociation when i get stressed out. As an adult i think these are just very little and difficult to notice activating circumstances. As a child or a baby, from that point of view... I understand. Your pictures and insights sure will help to differ between my autonom reactions. It's a bit difficult for me as i split/dissociate the collapsed parts of myself to remain functioning. Disfunktion have lead to frustration and rude childlike reactions in my parents so masking what's going on emotionally and physiologically is part of my reaction. What's making it a 🕵️‍♀️ journey to find out what makes me so slow that it's a "running" gag, my thinking sometimes so cloudy and just like it's completely off. Standing still. Then i feel like Patrik star from SpongeBob. Mouth open, no drive to go anyway, no orientation..... But only internal, i cover it up automaticly. With friendlyness, maybe a kind off fawn takes over the remaining parts of myself. orienting in the outside seems logic when the inside is collapsed. So... Freeze reaction is with a lot of energy and me being still connected with the outside. Heart racing, enhanced speed of digestion, high muscle tension. Shut down or collapse is low muscle tension or tonus, slower Heart beat, eyes that feel heavy? Slower or stoped digestion? losing the contact to the environment? ... I experience this on a regular basis. It's exhausting to anchor me in the present moment. Even in a freeze state. It could be that i stabilize myself in holding some parts of my body in a freeze like tension to stay here even when collapsing partly. My eyes feel so heavy, but i am not tired. My jaws clench to keep me present. Is there something i can do to connect those parts that tend to fade away? Because... It's not completely me. It's only parts but it feels like the biochemicals are flooding the whole system and then i am slow, disoriented. Clumbsy, i can't re regulate, or just for short periods. It like the trigger is still there and so my unconscious reaction is still activated/needed. I'm a single mom and i can't allow myself to slip away in bigger chunks. I swore myself not to give the same trauma to the next generation. My body... Does its own thing. Not agressive, I'm very kind but. It's hard to make the right descitions when torn apart internally. Between freeze, collapse, fawn to remain connection, to with the last parts of prefrontal cortex that's online cling to the values and family rules i made to keep me on track. I don't reach the parts of mine that are really knocked out. I hold them safe that's all i can do now. But they don't come back yet. They eventually will. And i love me even if they remain isolated.

  • @a.k.3110

    @a.k.3110

    Жыл бұрын

    Frozen, ?? Cold hands. Blocks to do what would be the next right thing to do. What helps?... Orienting in the room by counting all items of one color. In public transport shoes are great to count. Followed by Elongated breathing out , followed by gently massaging my ears from the bottom to the top with wet fingers or in public, Massaging my hands. What's more often is collapse. I notice it trough: not even knowing what could be the right thing to do. Cloudiness in my head . numbness in my tongue tip. Numbness in my hands, arms. Not feeling my feet. What helps? Orienting in the environment. Counting and moving my head. Counting all the, red, blue, round or beautiful things i see. Then breathing out slowly, then gently massaging my ears from bottom to the top with dry hards. Feeling, naming the sensations of my body helps in both cases. And of course first of all a safe environment. Reminding me that i am adult know and am in charge to cocreate my environment. That i am safe and not in trouble now. While honoring that it feels like i am. Remembering me of all i have survived. That the real hard stuff is over. That i have handled it pretty okay, at least survived with the option to change.

  • @Lilredjeanie
    @Lilredjeanie8 ай бұрын

    I'm so glad to pump into this video right this moment. Thank you for explaining this. I've been in SE- therapy for 2 years and now I'm excatly at this point where I'm becoming aware of these states in my body. Sometimes it can be so overwhelming but your video gave me such hope when you explained how you used to be. That I can build up capacity and regulation from here although it feels really tough. I can so relate to the lack of compassion and being in conflict with my body. Big cry for that. So important to hear these experiences from people who have been able to gain regulation and can explain in a way it's very understandable. It helps so much. Thank you!

  • @TanjaWindegger

    @TanjaWindegger

    8 ай бұрын

    🌻🌻beautiful. so happy to hear

  • @percubit10
    @percubit108 ай бұрын

    i have been in this mode forever.

  • @TanjaWindegger

    @TanjaWindegger

    8 ай бұрын

    at the beginning it's easier to have professional help to break that pattern... I don't think I could have done it without

  • @catalystcomet
    @catalystcomet11 күн бұрын

    What about when it's months at a time? What about when you get evicted because you can't get yourself to work? Why are there no videos about that?

  • @tessagracechase1808
    @tessagracechase18088 ай бұрын

    Skilled presentation, beautifully presented! Your website is spectacular too! Thank you!

  • @TanjaWindegger

    @TanjaWindegger

    8 ай бұрын

    thank you! so happy to hear 🌻

  • @FatimaZahra-oe6br
    @FatimaZahra-oe6br Жыл бұрын

    Very good example 👍

  • @TanjaWindegger

    @TanjaWindegger

    Жыл бұрын

    Thanks! 😃

  • @jeremyseale5463
    @jeremyseale54636 ай бұрын

    Shutdown: sudden, horrible sweaty chills, about to puke every second, about to pass out unless immediately going to sleep, curling up in fetal position and hoping i wont go to the hospital and get worse or die...only 1 shutdown felt good and peaceful, as I was in the ER being taken care of (horribly mean staff that told me I was just dehydrated and wanted to kick me out of their precious room they wanted to fill, akin to turning a table at a restaurant.) That was the one time i knew i shouldn't go to sleep...

  • @TanjaWindegger

    @TanjaWindegger

    6 ай бұрын

    ER is often not the best place to go for mental health related issues. many people described it to me as traumatising experience ...

  • @jeremyseale5463

    @jeremyseale5463

    6 ай бұрын

    @@TanjaWindegger it cost me $10,000 and the only people who were nice were the paramedics...they witnessed my vagal collapse on monitor, and thought I could be having a heart attack. I thanked them so much because I knew I wouldn't get proper care at the EMERGENCY ROOM. Nobody listened to me the whole time...

  • @EtchedinGranite

    @EtchedinGranite

    2 ай бұрын

    I'm sorry you dealt with such mistreatment. I had a similar hospital experience. I went in with a physical illness, and was treated unimaginably. That created trauma that was not present before the visit. This was a few years ago, and I am still somewhat triggered by this memory/event. I rarely, if ever, get sick or go to see a doctor. This was unnerving--going to the so-called proper institution for care and end up traumatized because of it. That is not "safe."

  • @sln5968
    @sln59684 ай бұрын

    Wow thank you Tanja ❤ i didnt know they were two different states! This is so helpful 🙏

  • @TanjaWindegger

    @TanjaWindegger

    4 ай бұрын

    beautiful! so happy to hear 🦋

  • @nature-nomads
    @nature-nomads4 ай бұрын

    Helpfull! 🌱

  • @TanjaWindegger

    @TanjaWindegger

    4 ай бұрын

    thank you! 🦋

  • @MrAnthonyKennedy1
    @MrAnthonyKennedy1 Жыл бұрын

    Thank you!

  • @TanjaWindegger

    @TanjaWindegger

    Жыл бұрын

    You're most welcome!

  • @sarahjustme
    @sarahjustme Жыл бұрын

    This is incredibly helpful. Thank you so much!

  • @TanjaWindegger

    @TanjaWindegger

    Жыл бұрын

    So happy to hear!

  • @EffectivePickyEatersSolutions
    @EffectivePickyEatersSolutions9 ай бұрын

    Looks like it was a shutdown and not freeze. My digestion didn't exist, diarrhea, bloating. I am better now but only because of medication, at least i can function. Is there the same treatment for freeze and shutdown? How far are they from each other? It's a rare topic. I am thinking it's because not many people experience both in their life

  • @TanjaWindegger

    @TanjaWindegger

    9 ай бұрын

    no I would need different approach to get out of shutdown compared to freeze. many people experience both and just not aware of the difference because when we are in crisis we can cycle through them so fast it seems like it's one and the same thing

  • @delphinium5555
    @delphinium55553 ай бұрын

    crashed

  • @lisalove8923
    @lisalove89235 ай бұрын

    😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

  • @TanjaWindegger

    @TanjaWindegger

    5 ай бұрын

    💛🌻

Келесі