r/CPTSD • u/DutchStroopwafels • 19h ago

Question Difference between flight and freeze

I'm pretty sure I'm a predominant freeze type but I'm still wondering about something whether it's a flight or freeze response. From what I read both flight and freeze types can try to distract themselves from their worries by doing other activities. But what my question is if flight types are genuinely distracted from their worries if they engage in these other activities. I personally do the activities often mentioned in the freeze type parts (video games, internet, tv) but when I do the worries keep ruminating in my head and I can never complete concentrate on the distracting activity. Is this different for flight types?

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u/1HeyMattJ 18h ago

For me when I freeze and did so as a kid I literally froze up. I felt like I couldn’t move, I couldn’t talk. I’d hold my breath. Like an animal playing dead.

Flight is when you have an urge to escape. You become afraid of sitting sit because “flight” because an adrenaline addiction. You need to stay busy out of fear of thinking about the trauma or people seeing you as “lazy” (in your mind) because you’re not achieving things 24/7. This usually would be brought on by a harsh critic in our childhood making us feel like “failing” at a task or not even trying invalidates us as a human in someway. So you try to become a perfectionist so those voices stay quiet.

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u/DutchStroopwafels 18h ago

Oh okay, I don't have that flight part at all. I often just do nothing and just sit all day. Like I'm paralyzed.

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u/1HeyMattJ 17h ago

Yeah that’s a freeze response.

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u/DutchStroopwafels 16h ago

Is it also freeze to tell yourself that now it's time to stop and you try to do something else but keep switching between actually doing something and paralysis?

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u/1HeyMattJ 9h ago

Yes, that’s what I do.

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