What does it feel like to freeze? I don’t mean when you walk outside on a very cold winter’s day kind of freezing. I am referring to what happens to a large majority of sexual assault victims/survivors — though I imagine there are similarities: like telling our body not to shiver is as impossible as choosing how we will respond to danger.
Everyone has heard of fight (attempting to subdue or thwart an attacker) and flight (attempting to flee from an attacker), but while I guess I had heard of the third “F” — freeze — I did not understand it until it happened to me.
Freezing during my assault is the main thing I have trouble accepting. I WISH I could have fought or fled!! However, I believe it very likely saved me from further injury. I can conceptualize it intellectually, yet it’s still so difficult to grasp emotionally.
I created a painting trying to show what freezing feels like. It’s like drowning in ice, but with being suspended in time. Your body is unable to move in an attempt to save itself. Your arms don’t flail above you. You disassociate. Your brain scrambles to make sense of what is happening. Likely you are unable to speak. It hurts yet you can’t say “ouch.”
At first I didn’t understand why I “let” him assault me. I did NOT want to “have sex” with him and he knew it! But he proceeded and my body froze as I was aware of feeling terrified.
The formal term for this is tonic immobility. It’s real and attackers count on victims responding in this way. With animals it is called “playing dead.”
For more information: Tonic Immobility
Speaking My Truth 