I'm at the stage where I've given up trying to "do something" and i have surrendered. I have accepted that being in bed is okay because i really cant do anything else, especially eat due to the anxiety... lets hope this helps 🤞🏻🙏🏻

I've spent years sitting in all of this without the shifts... hours and hours being with it. We need each other deeply to provide that safe energy. Too much cognition in this, but needed to try get understanding. Humanity is so close to getting what's needed to come out of this

I'm finally realised that we are avoiding our imperative for human connection and to be held. That we are all in denial about the leval of vulnerability we need to surrender to or acess to surrender into another

@howtosober

10 ай бұрын

Coregulation requires safe people. Not everyone has safe people. Ergo, self-regulation is crucial. Only a regulated person can identify and build safe connections. Otherwise you're just replicating insecure attachment strategies and trying to get your needs met by other insecure or unhealed people.

@samanthab6642

9 ай бұрын

This. We often don't feel safe because as a society we are so judgmental or uncomfortable with the feelings associated with the shutdown state.

@samanthab6642

9 ай бұрын

we tend to want to fix not accept and be.

@annastone5624

6 ай бұрын

@howtosober 💖 yes.. 100%

@ifemadzimoyo

3 ай бұрын

This whole thread is speaking my life right now. 🙌🏾 Things I’m realizing as I decode living with shutdown and chronic pain/illness. So much dissociation in our society. It’s no wonder.

I keep finding myself in this state and creates so much anxiety in my system. I am able to cope for a few months and then boom it hits me hard. I have had to quit so many jobs due to this. 😢

@emilyb5557

11 ай бұрын

Have you been able to get some professional help to figure out why it keeps happening and help you?

@epiphanychild3289

11 ай бұрын

Me too

@fifiearthwanderer

11 ай бұрын

@@emilyb5557 i am working with a somatic practtioner now hoping it helps. Therapist, doctors and psychiatrist havent helped.

@matta-g8490

11 ай бұрын

​@fifiearthwanderer safe sound protocol (SSP) has been the one thing to help with this exact thing for me. Worth looking into.

@fifiearthwanderer

11 ай бұрын

@@matta-g8490 what is that? Never heard of it

This might be the most accurate video I've seen on a shutdown

@JustinLMFT

7 ай бұрын

Glad you like it! I have lots more stuff on shutdown too. :)

@le_th_

5 ай бұрын

I agree, and I'm also very sorry that you can recognize how incredibly accurate this is.

I feel like I’m in shutdown most of the time, unless I’m super anxious. The way I describe it is walking around doing things while constantly having the urge to curl up in a ball on the floor, even in the middle of a store. I also tend to say that I’m stressed and overwhelmed and want to just give up. I think it’s part of why I experience chronic passive si. I’m really, really struggling.

@le_th_

5 ай бұрын

While in full shutdown, I was curled up in a ball on the floor...no mattress...no pillow...at first. Then I got a thin mattress and pillow and blanket. I incurred $21K in dental bills from *not* brushing my teeth, I gained over 30 lbs from not moving. I didn't know what day it was for a while. I had no energy to be anxious. I could barely get up to walk a few steps to the toilet and back. I went *months* without a single shower. Once every two or three weeks, I would leave the room...after having washed my face and brushed my teeth, and put a baseball cap on, only because there was not a single thing left that was edible. I walked 3 blocks to the store, and walked back with 2-3 weeks worth of groceries in 2 bags. At times, I couldn't walk the 2-3 blocks with groceries, so I would have to drive there and back. Plus, use a wheeled cart to get the grocery up the elevator and to my door. I *wish* shutdown had been walking around doing things and only wanting to curl up in a ball on the hard floor instead of actually being curdled up on the floor in the same clothes...no shower...no brushed teeth...feeling zero empathy, zero joy, zero anger, just nothing...imagine that must be what it's like to be a psychopath who feels nothing, but knowing that I used to before the traumatic event. I believe it is called collapse because that is exactly what it is: total collapse...only continuing to breathe. After all, your automatic nervous system commands your muscles to inhale and exhale, and your heart muscle to keep pumping while you feel zero will to live and zero will to die because you feel nothing and can barely stand. I would not wish it on my worst enemy. In fact, I don't think I'd wish it on the predator who traumatized me and held me against my will. Or, if I did, it would only be so he'd be immobile and couldn't harm anyone else. Please do not ever confuse and conflate moderate depression and anxiety with collapse, crippling and highly illogical hypervigilance (and you are FULLY AWARE that you're being illogical and still powerless to alter the way your brain is driving you to overreact) that leaves you unable to leave the house unless absolutely critical or walk to the bathroom, and full-blown PTSD. Please do not ever want that for yourself. What collapse/shutdown definitely is NOT is walking around doing stuff only wanting to curl up in a ball; that is the definition of moderate functioning but still functioning. You showered. You dressed. You accomplished basic tasks like brushing your hair and your teeth. I say this with kindness and compassion, as I would never want anyone to have to endure that.

@punisher-1911

5 ай бұрын

People experience things different. Dont gatekeep other peoples experiences.

@user-mn2ul1eh7s

5 ай бұрын

@leth2753 You describe a really severe form of shutdown/collapse. What the othet user describes is simply a less severe form, but still a really limiting existence. I am happy you got better! ❤

@jamiemelissa7762

3 ай бұрын

❤

@Heyu7her3

2 ай бұрын

​@@le_th_ just because you experienced a very, very extreme version doesn't mean they or anyone else are not experiencing shutdown. The most people are able to do are ADLs/ IADLs. That's what they were able to do.

Shutdown is tonic and/or collapsed immobility, and certainly is different than freeze.

This is so helpful, thank you. Currently trying to come out of shutdown and working on it

Helpful ... thank you.

@JustinLMFT

4 ай бұрын

You're welcome!

I just break shit. Brings me out all the time.

@le_th_

5 ай бұрын

I've heard of these places where people PAY to go in with a bat and smash stuff to bits. : O I wonder if that works? I never feel the urge to smash stuff, throw things, or rage at people. I might tell them off in a calm, articulate manner, but's because of being irritated by some kind of ignorance or narcissistic behavior they're displaying not because I feel rage. In fact, I associate that with how narcissists, borderlines, and sociopaths behave. They *discharge anger* by misdirecting their pent-up hostility at their parents who broke them onto strangers/people who rarely ever deserve it. I think they call them "rage rooms". It should be requisite for narcissists, borderline, and sociopaths to frequent these places so they stop harming others and beating their children, pets, and spouses.

@Heyu7her3

2 ай бұрын

​@@le_th_ that's not how personality disorders work

What if you have been in shutdown for nearly 2 decades? It is my default state of being at this point.

@JustinLMFT

8 ай бұрын

Deb Dana calls that a "home away from home." It's generally possible to climb out of shutdown, even if after decades.

@Butterflies-are-free

7 ай бұрын

I think I’ve been in shutdown since I was in the womb 60 years ago 😢😢😢

please dont name a problem then tease a solution witha question, then say you dont know.

How can we allow space for our bodies to guide us into what modality would best heal us?

Hello! How does the polyvagal theory relate to Jaak Panksepp's seven emotional systems?

Does anyone know who in the UK can offer face to face therapy for CPSD that I poyvagal informed.

I keep hearing too ignore the bad symptoms and exercise and the depersonalization disconnection “brain Fog” would go away on it own? True?

@JustinLMFT

6 ай бұрын

I've never recommended people ignore their presenting symptoms as a path to recovery. Coping can be helpful. Distraction may be needed at times. But imo, ideally, one would eventually embrace their felt experience fully. Then change happens. I'm not telling you what to do, please don't take this as personal advice. It's a very general thought. Recovery is a long process for anyone and the safety state needs to be developed from the Polyvagal lens.

Ok, but when they say we have fight/flight/freeze/or fawn response wouldn't "shutdown" still be considered the freeze response? In this context, to me it's the same thing even if, technically, it's not exactly the same neurologically. Are you saying it's like a combo of freeze and flight, maybe? I just always thought of it as the "freeze" response when your body literally shuts down to deal with the trauma or extreme stress.

@JustinLMFT

5 ай бұрын

www.justinlmft.com/post/shutdownvsfreeze

@DaveE99

4 ай бұрын

They have also expanded the polyvagal states according to the nicbam organization that puts info out on trauma trainings. Their course can be taken for anybody but are directed at clinicians. And yet I do love their articles that are free

@louisehogg8472

13 күн бұрын

I thought the purpose of freeze is to remain alert, while camouflaged, so you're ready to switch to flight, when the opportunity presents itself. Or playing dead, while alert, to reduce a predator's chase instinct. Until it's safe to switch to flight or resume your life. Whereas I thought shutdown is closer to 'flop', a kind of playing dead by actually 'being' dead. So predators lose interest due to your lack of response. But also as a last resort when you CAN'T escape, so that if by some fluke you DO survive, you've reduced the amount of emotional damage you've actually sustained, at a deep level. So, potentially, if you CAN get out of it, your inner self might actually be less damaged than otherwise? Because a lot of environmental stuff has gone over your head. Almost like hibernating to miss the cold winter, and avoiding frostbite. A bit of 'Wake me up, when it's all over'.

Can you ask youtube not to have a jarringly loud, and chaotic ad to come on during your videos?

@JustinLMFT

2 ай бұрын

I cannot, sadly. But if you subscribe to their KZread Premium or something like that, you can watch ad free.

I suffer from a swollen stomach every day. Then I know I'm in a stress mode. When I start kickboxing, I get enormous anxiety and uncomfortable feelings after class. Then people want to talk to me but I can't talk in this mode. My face literally tightens and laughs like a farmer with a toothache. Is it true that I went from freeze/shutdown to fight/flight mode? From here I have to learn to regulate myself to get back into a mode of rest. This is all very tiring pfffff😩

@RepublicOfWesternCanadaNOW

25 күн бұрын

What are you eating regularly?

Humans have lost the ability of co regulation to come out of this through being held by another physically and in connection. The body can then with the safety of another go into the immobilisation and tremor and shake wirh the charge, but this takes a lot of energy and the western diet affects this. So clean the diet to get the electromagnetic charge back up so we can come out of this.

@winxclubstellamusa

9 ай бұрын

The western diet has NOT caused Americans to be unable to co-regulate with each other! The problem is the severely traumatized people’s nervous system has been trained that it’s unsafe to be in safety, fun, and genuine connection mode which is necessary to be able to find and make those awesome, genuine friends who know and love our authentic selves and know his to lift us back up again. So we must have met those people while in parasympathetic mode in order to find people who can co-regulate us, and food has nothing to do with this, don’t be daft. I have always eaten healthy and have always been severely abused in all ways and that’s why I’ve never been able to make any friends in my life as a 26 year old woman.

@le_th_

5 ай бұрын

@@winxclubstellamusa Whenever I hear these clean-diet, clean-skin care freaks I want to stretch tape over their mouths and around their fingers so they stop misinforming people. smh It's so unhelpful to spread misinformation like they're the arbiter of all knowledge because they read it on social media memes from "influencers" hawking lifestyle products so advertisers pay them $$$$ . smh

🧐😷🤕