Freeze! Is shyness affecting you?

We’ve all heard of the fight-fright-freeze response to trauma and anxiety. All these states may be thought of on a continuum of cause and effect to intense stimuli. In this article, I will be talking about the freeze response and its effects on a person experiencing this activation.

What is the freeze response?

In short, like any response to threat and danger, the freeze response is a fear response to danger which is involuntary behaviour in the face of threat. The freeze response is activated when the fight and flight responses have failed and we no longer believe we can escape, defeat or run away from the danger – we may feel trapped, terrified, helpless and powerless to do anything. So we become still, immobile and frozen to the spot, in hopes of not being seen by the predator and hoping that the danger will pass without stopping at our door. We may dissociate altogether from the situation psychologically and emotionally remove ourselves in order to protect ourselves.

All responses, whether it is fight, flight, freeze or fawn, can be thought of as on a continuum rather than black-and-white responses to fear and danger.

What happens once the danger has passed? 

Once the danger has passed, like all frozen things, we start to thaw out and return to what we were before the threat presented itself.

If a small child lives in an environment where danger is a regular occurrence for example an abusive or dysfunctional environment, then this thawing out will not be complete because the child will have become hyper-vigilant and remain on high alert for the next danger to occur. So they are equipped to respond quickly in the face of danger presenting once again. 

Can shyness be a trauma response?

Shyness is seen in a person’s behavioural traits, most often we will act awkwardly, have anxiety in social situations, or when meeting new people. We may also be suffering physical symptoms such as a fast heartbeat, stomach upset, nail biting or sweating.

Some people's shyness can be so painful they withdraw from and avoid social situations altogether.

In my experience, this can be mistaken for social anxiety, because it can look like it is social anxiety, but it can also be a trauma response and part of the freeze response to fear and threat. A sense of powerlessness can reinforce our response and keep its hold on the sympathetic nervous system, creating the freeze response in place although a weaker version of it. 

Shyness as a survival mechanism

My lived experience tells me shyness is a survival mechanism which works well, whilst it may seem a passive emotional state, because in shyness we don’t hold eye contact, because we simply don’t want to be seen or see just in case we are targeted or see something frightening. Others may describe us as “painfully shy”, “the quiet member of the family”, the “good girl or boy” or simply don’t describe or introduce us because we’ve become invisible in our quiet, shyness. We may blush, have shallow breathing and nervous body language all a sign of being on high alert. 

Behind the shyness can lay a mixture of emotional energy deflecting away from our ability to express the deeper emotions and memories that trauma leaves behind. These emotions and memories can be repressed. banished from the conscious mind into the subconscious but they never really go away altogether and leak out in the way we behave. We may get labelled all kinds of things but being shy is not seen as anything other than a quiet child. 

Many families have an acceptable range of emotions they can tolerate, and a range of emotions they can’t. For example, anger may be an acceptable emotion because it can be explosive and short-lived. Whereas sadness may not be allowed it is seen as depressing or pulling everyone else down and we may hear words such as “cheer up” “it’s not the end of the world” or “stop being miserable”. This is because people can tolerate some emotions and not others.

It may feel too dangerous for a child to express some emotions if the environment they grew up in was not an emotionally expressive one or didn't allow the emotions they were feeling to be expressed and their feelings got shut down before they had a chance to speak. Small children may express this through a tantrum or a meltdown because they can not longer hold the emotional tsunami in any longer.

Once the nervous system is on hyper-alert behaviours will correspond with the alert and be prepared and ready to go full-on once a danger presents itself.

This is where shyness comes in, instead of living in the full-on freeze response or dissociation away from situations altogether, shyness can be the acceptable mask that fear, trauma and anxiety live behind. 

The shyness mask enables the child to have some functionality in the world, shyness allows the child to be in life functioning to a degree, yet stuck, anxious living in constant fear, it’s a vicious circle to be living in.

If not healed, then as an adult we may fear public speaking, going to parties, and find it difficult to speak to new people. We may keep ourselves to ourselves most of the time, avoiding social situations altogether and, in turn, create low self-esteem, lack of confidence and insecurities that don’t need to be.