It’s been postulated that dissociating in the midst of a traumatic experience is the foremost predictor for developing PTSD symptoms later on (see, e.g., van der Kolk & van der Hart, 1989). And, as already pointed out, young children are particularly disposed to dissociate during episodes of trauma. So, for instance, a child who “froze” during incidents of frightening family abuse is, as an adult, especially susceptible to experience the freezing reaction again. And sometimes the current stimulus for such retraumatization isn’t anything specific. It may simply emanate from being in a state of highly exacerbated stress, which itself serves as an unconscious reminder of the acute stress linked to the initial trauma.
Emerging From The Dark Night 
I am not wired to ever freeze
There is never die bestowed inside of me
Primal Repr
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But thus talks about the chronic response of fighting if the treat was jn the past in actual fact it dies not really exist except on our wiring. I think that’s the point of this article. Fighting is a response to trauma. It doesn’t always free us
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No maybe not but doesn’t prey you as vulnerability to be victimized and in state of quicksand either.
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True..as long as you can actually relax when not undee threat with much Complex trauma that becomes very difficult as we both know. ❤
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As someone that has experienced this it’s terrifying. Not being able to do anything to stop whatever it is. Not surprised it happens to children. As an adult it’s different. But I’ve read cases of adults freezing in certain cases also.
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Its a deeply programmed mammalian response.. but it can get so ingrained in so many different ways. I live with it every day.. its so hard to navigate at times..
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Whenever I read such articles, I can’t help wondering how many instances there have been wherein immense long-term suffering by children of dysfunctional rearing might have been prevented had the parent(s) received, as high school students, some crucial child development science education by way of mandatory curriculum? (After all, dysfunctional and/or abusive parents, for example, may not have had the chance to be anything else due to their lack of such education and their own dysfunctional/abusive rearing as children.)
Regarding very-early-life trauma, people tend to know (perhaps commonsensically) that they should not loudly quarrel when, for instance, a baby is in the next room; however, do they know about the intricacies of why not? Since it cannot fight or flight, a baby stuck in a crib on its back hearing parental discord in the next room can only “move into a third neurological state, known as a ‘freeze’ state … This freeze state is a trauma state” (Childhood Disrupted, pg.123). This causes its brain to improperly develop. Also, how many non-academics are aware that it’s the unpredictability of a stressor, and not the intensity, that does the most harm? When the stressor “is completely predictable, even if it is more traumatic — such as giving a [laboratory] rat a regularly scheduled foot shock accompanied by a sharp, loud sound — the stress does not create these exact same [negative] brain changes.” (pg.42)
I did not know any of the above until I heavily researched the topic for specifics.
I feel that the wellbeing of all children — and not just what other parents’ children might/will cost us as future criminals or costly cases of government care, etcetera — should be of great importance to us all, regardless of whether we’re doing a great job with our own developing children. After all, a psychologically and emotionally sound (as well as a physically healthy) future should be every child’s foremost right, especially considering the very troubled world into which they never asked to enter.
That’s what I strongly believe, anyhow.
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This is so powerful.. Thank you so much for sharing it.. What you say about unpredictability really resonates and since babies are so exquisitely sensitive to energies and sounds this makes so much sense.. God bless you. I believe similarly we do not ask to come here. Though some say we choose it..
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Thank you, too, for posting the article from the always-informative Psychology Today. …
Another interesting and perhaps instructive fact I read (from the same book) is that, since young children completely rely on their parents for protection and sustenance, they will understandably stress over having their parents angry at them for prolonged periods of time? It makes me question the wisdom of punishing children by sending them to their room without dinner.
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“It has been said that if child abuse and neglect were to disappear today, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual would shrink to the size of a pamphlet in two generations, and the prisons would empty. Or, as Bernie Siegel, MD, puts it, quite simply, after half a century of practicing medicine, ‘I have become convinced that our number-one public health problem is our childhood’.” —Childhood Disrupted, pg.228.
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Thats completely spot on fgsjr. I was frequently sent to my room. Punishment teaches little but hatred of the parent (out of longing and dusappointment) and spiritual loneliness. It us not effective to isolate a child, instead at least try to instruct and attune and assist their expression. It also leaves them struggling with feelings they often can’t manage alone. And yes to that final.paragraph..how many psychiatrics really make an effort to understand neglect before they reach for medications????
Thanks for such a valuable comment.
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And thank you.
There’s so much to know and understand about child development (science) in order to properly/functionally rear a child to his/her full potential in life. I once read an ironic quote from a children’s health academic that, “You have to pass a test to drive a car or to become a … citizen, but there’s no exam required to become a parent. And yet child abuse can stem from a lack of awareness about child development.”
By not teaching child development science to high school students, is it not as though societally we’re implying that anyone can comfortably enough procreatively go forth with whatever minute amount of, if any at all, vital knowledge they happen to have acquired over time? It’s as though we’ll somehow, in blind anticipation, be innately inclined to fully understand and appropriately nurture our children’s naturally developing minds and needs.
Regarding psychiatry, Within our “universal” health care system there are too many health treatments that are universally inaccessible, except for people with a lot of extra money. (Canada is the only universal-health-care-coverage country that does not also fully cover medication.) The only two health professions’ appointments for which one is fully covered by the Canadian public plan are the readily pharmaceutical-prescribing psychiatry and general practitioner health professions? Such non-Big-Pharma-benefiting health specialists as counsellors, therapists and naturopaths (etcetera) are not covered for a red cent.
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Oh my that is dire. It also shows so much psychological ignorance. Its a very sad state of affairs.
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