How to Get Out of a Functional Freeze Response

What Is a Functional Freeze?

A functional freeze is a trauma response in which our minds go on autopilot to get through periods of stress. (Except, in most cases, the stress doesn’t stop until we step in and manually remind ourselves to rest.)

There are traditionally 4 types of trauma responses:

• Fight
• Flight
• Fawn
• Freeze

These are reactions your body takes to extreme stress. Back when humans still hunted for our food, these responses kept us safe from life-or-death danger. Nowadays, they trigger when we get a scary email. 

A freeze response can look like a shutdown: dissociated, nonverbal, and numb to the world around you. 

A functional freeze is similar, except it’s long, drawn out, and you’re still able to function in society as normal. You get ready for the day, go to work, and people praise your ability to cope. 

But you’re not coping. In fact, it might feel like you’re drowning. 

What Causes Functional Freeze

A functional freeze in adulthood is usually caused by chronic stress. Many times, adults who enter a functional freeze grew up with some kind of childhood trauma. 

As children, they learned they had to keep moving to stay safe, and that it wasn’t safe to feel their emotions. As adults, they continue this pattern: succeeding on the outside, but closing themselves off to anything meaningful. 

This autopilot is usually triggered when moments of stress happen again, like becoming a caregiver, dealing with a toxic and demanding work environment, or even just overscheduling yourself with work, school, and social obligations. 

The triggers of a functional freeze will be unique to you, but their root cause is the same: trauma. 

Specifically, your brain might opt for a functional freeze response instead of a fight or flight response if it feels like the other two options aren’t possible. If there’s no running from the problem and there’s no fighting the problem, the best solution is to put your head down and get through it. 

Your brain tries to protect you from this painful truth by shutting down. If you can’t feel the pain, then you won’t experience it, the brain reasons. 

Anyone who has lived through a functional freeze knows this isn’t true. Functional freeze isn’t painless. It’s heavy, lonely, and exhausting.

Functional Freeze Symptoms

You might find yourself in a functional freeze if you experience:

• Chronic decision fatigue: The thought of deciding what to eat for dinner or what to wear tomorrow makes you freeze up. You might end up scrolling by the stove instead of cooking dinner.
• Depersonalization: You feel disconnected from yourself, like things are happening to someone else instead of to you. 
• Dissociation: The world around you doesn’t feel quite real. It feels like you’re playing a game or going through the motions, not experiencing the real thing.
• Numbness or lack of emotions: It’s hard to muster energy for anything, much less emotions. You haven’t felt horribly sad or amazingly happy in a while. You feel locked down, like if you cry or laugh, you might just break open entirely.
• Constant fatigue: The exhaustion follows you everywhere, clinging to you like plastic wrap that you can’t shake no matter how many mental health days you take.
• Brain fog: It takes effort to feel present. Instead, you experience the world through a cloud. Everything is manual effort. You have to remind yourself how to do things like text people back or get into bed at the end of the night. 

A functional freeze is a painful and lonely experience. You wonder what’s wrong with you, but feel like you can’t ask for help because of your outside success. Likewise, people close to you might not understand how much you’re struggling, because the functional part of a functional freeze shows them someone who is succeeding. 

Remember that success doesn’t always mean good mental health. You deserve to be happy and successful; you don’t have to choose one or the other. 

How to Get Out of Functional Freeze

What can you do if you find yourself in a functional freeze? And is there a way to get it to go away for good?

To thaw the freeze, take it slow. Here are three steps to help: Acute help, habit building, and long-term success.

Acute Help

Your brain was triggered by something. Maybe it was a slamming door, a tone that was a bit too stressed. Now you’re slipping into a functional freeze. Here are some quick grounding exercises you can do to bring yourself back to the present moment: 

• Color scanning
• 54321 Exercise
• Box breathing 
• Progressive Muscle Relaxation

Use these as immediate coping mechanisms for when you feel especially triggered. 

Habit Building

Thawing a functional freeze requires more than just breathing exercises. It’s a trauma response built into your neural networks, so it might take a little bit to unlearn it. 

Take it slow and start small. Here are some healthy habits you can begin implementing:

• Move your body: Somatic exercises are a good way to release some of the tension held in the body from trauma, the very thing that often triggers a functional freeze. Try doing some dancing, tai chi, nature walks, or just sway back and forth. The goal is to be gentle and intentional with your body. 
• Create something by hand: Do something physical, like drawing or pottery. Focus on how it feels to create. Try not to care too much about the end result. The goal of this exercise isn’t to succeed; it’s to simply be in this moment with your body and your emotions. 
• Sing along to music: You might be sensing a pattern. Trauma is stored in your body, and a functional freeze is caused by trauma. So to thaw a freeze, you have to get the trauma out. Sing badly to your favorite music- in the car, in the shower, while you're cooking, or wherever. 
• Go on a digital detox: Scrolling might feel good for the short-term, but it can have negative long-term effects, especially if you already struggle with dissociation, like functional freezes. Instead of scrolling, talk to a friend, engage in a hobby, or simply sit with yourself. If you are really craving some screen time, try to engage in new, meaningful media, like a new show or a movie you’ve been wanting to see. Don’t double-screen it, instead, sit and be actively present as you watch. 
• Focus on new flavors: Try waking up your nervous system by eating sour candy, something spicy, or something with mint. You can also take a cold shower or bath or put an ice pack on your chest. 

These habits will help slowly unthaw the functional freeze by releasing stored trauma.

Long-term Success

Unthawing a freeze means making changes in your habits and behaviors that are a little more difficult and may take time. It can be a good idea to talk to a therapist about these:

• Creating healthy boundaries: What work projects can you say no to? Where do you draw the line with family? A functional freeze will have you believe that you can’t say no to anyone because it will show you are struggling. But “no” is a powerful word that can help unthaw a functional freeze. 
• Work through past trauma: What are the core beliefs you hold about yourself and the world? How are they affecting you today? These are the types of questions that working through trauma will bring up. Journaling or meditation can help, but talking to a therapist is recommended. 
• Build spaces for joy: What used to bring you joy? How can you bring a little of that into your day-to-day life? Unthawing from a functional freeze is all about shifting the balance back towards well-being again. That means putting up boundaries in some areas, and other times letting things and people in. Maybe the answer isn’t more rest, it’s more hobby time or time spent with people who actually fill you up. 

These skills are easier said than done. How do you decide what brings you joy? What if someone doesn’t respect your boundaries? These are all questions a licensed therapist can help you answer. 

Functional freeze is a very painful trauma response, and it deserves the weight and attention of trauma. 

Healing from a functional freeze is entirely possible. Give yourself the attention you deserve and schedule with a licensed therapist near you. 

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