Trapped Inside Myself

and frozen in time.

Hello Out There,

For the past decade, I have been studying the body, the nervous system, and the ways in which our often wordless stories are told.  I have always written from my bones, from what lives close to me to my truth, even when it feels hard to tell. I think it is important, and I know that when I read others' voices who speak their truths, I often find healing.

As a trauma survivor, my body has its own way of speaking to me while also showing me what still becomes alive during times of intense stress. And even though there are days where my capacity for choice over what path I take is more available, there are other times when it is not. 

And on those days, I surrender, and I try my best to move towards some curiosity. 

It all happened so quickly, as it usually does. One word turned into a slew of fragmented run-off sentences, carried by a tone of tightly bundled, hidden emotions, and before I knew it, I was lost. 

The words that began to barge out of me all came from my impenetrable jaw that has been clenched down and tending to its wounds for years, for decades, maybe even whole seasons throughout my life. The jaw, my jaw, holds back the stories that cannot be spoken in easy-to-read letters. It does not know phonetics or grammar or the proper way to articulate. The jaw seems to have its own inflection, speaking only from the language of the body—an instinctive knowing; a knowing that does not come so easily with words. Instead, it travels through the senses: closed-up throat, constricted voice, paralyzing breath. The senses speak their own story. They tell me I have been here before. As my chest tightens, it feels as though I am trapped inside myself, a self that has lost its ability to move, to think, to do anything except to feel consumed by the gnawing pain that seems to be held tightly within my body. The relentless discomfort speaks long before this one.  The constriction, a familiar feeling, has done this before, many times in fact.  Sometimes it happens less loudly, and at other times, like this time, it is the only thing that can be heard.  

It feels both hard to get in, and also hard to get out—of my body; like there is no pathway. There is no way to change what is happening, to fix, to breathe again. It is as if I am suspended in a moment of internal struggle. The helplessness that forms in my mind tells me there is nothing I can do. Yet, in another thought, I try to plan my way through this pain. Frightening images rush in; not plans, but glimmers of unspeakable ways to get rid of the pain, with more pain, or even a different kind of pain. I would do anything to get rid of this feeling that is swimming inside me, that appears to be taking over; a pain that feels as though every ounce of me is on fire and suffocating. I feel trapped inside my body, while I also struggle to find a way in. 

I am in freeze, a response to trauma.

Trauma that occurred when I was much younger than I am today. 

The freeze state is a physiological reaction, where an individual, in the face of perceived threat or danger, becomes immobile or experiences a sense of being stuck. This response involves a temporary shutdown of the fight-or-flight instincts, and the person may feel paralyzed, disconnected, or numb as a way to cope with overwhelming stress.

In this moment of overwhelm, I am immobile. I am trapped inside myself; speechless and honestly a bit scared. Scared of the voice that is trying to convince me this is my new forever; that I will somehow get lost, maybe even in a place harder than this.  

I have always thought that the term used to describe this experience was somewhat unjust: freeze, frozen, immobile. For somehow, those words almost suggest a pause in intensity. Even the word numb in this scenario is not numb, and often never actually means a lack of feeling. In fact, it is often the opposite. Freeze is actually an incredibly activated state. It is as if you are able to feel all of the blood surging through your veins and body, but you just aren’t able to move your limbs. 

Whenever I think of the freeze state (when I am not in it), I often picture a symphony frozen mid-performance, where the instruments, conductor, and audience are locked in a timeless tableau, a paused frame of a moment in time. The freeze state captures the cacophony of trauma, each note, sensation, emotion, and memory held alive and active in suspense as the body waits in perceived stillness for the conductor to signal the next movement. 

A sort of frozen chaos.  

A freeze, that will eventually thaw.

Yet, thawing often turns quickly into feeling. 

When I most recently found myself in this place, I did not have words to describe it. Instead, it was as though words didn’t exist. Which for me, can feel even more terrifying. The whole scenario I wrote above probably only lasted a few minutes, although due to its time-traveling nature, it felt like a lot more. 

It is hard to say what broke the freeze; and how I got out by getting in. What I first noticed was the ability to tap my fingertips. So I followed them, lightly tapping on my legs. I noticed it felt good, so I continued by crossing my arms and tapping the tops of them. The taps eventually turned into the most gentle swaying back and forth; a sway that if you were not looking for it, you would miss it entirely.  

Then a sharpness came through, and the experience of shame was felt: a deep desire to hide, to become invisible. A feeling that tells me I should not be feeling this way, that I should be able to not respond or react with such an old tongue; a feeling that tells me I am older, wiser, smarter than this. And even now, although I don’t know what “this” is, I still believe it.  

I, somehow, quickly caught myself here before going any deeper.  

I think of my son and how he feels when he loses control or has overwhelming emotions that sometimes seem too big for his little body.  

I then tell myself it is okay—I am okay.  

More and more movements come in. I let them. I begin to be able to move again, and with the movement, the emotions start to flow.

And I weep. I weep for the much younger part of me that had to carry such pain, often alone. 

I weep for the much younger part of me that still carries it, even though I know now how to tell her I am here to help her hold it.  

The weeping, I know, is grief. 

I also know it is my way out and my way in. 

After crying for a bit. I wrapped myself up in a blanket while the frozen, hardening shell continued to thaw. 

I placed my hand on my heart and breathed it in. Tracking the rise of my hand and the fall back into myself. 

Two poems that speak to the heart from Delia Hicks-Wilson’s brilliant book Small Cures:

sit with your pain.

hold its hand.

it is as scared

as you are.

healing will not always tell you

when she is coming,

what she will look like

or how long she will stay,

but like the moon

she is always coming.

so darling, pull your curtains back,

keep your windows wide open

and every room inside of you unlocked,

healing is coming.