Thawing the Freeze: Coming Back to Life After Dorsal Shutdown

Nervous System - Dorsal Dominant

Attachment Style - Flight or Avoidant

When you’ve been shaped by parents, caretakers, or leaders who triggered Dorsal Dominant responses in your body, your system doesn’t just cope—it evacuates. You learned to survive by hiding, disappearing, numbing out, or becoming invisible—not by choice, but by necessity.

Connection—though deeply craved—can feel like walking into a storm without shelter. A part of you may long for closeness, but your nervous system isn’t interested in your wishful thinking. It remembers everything, especially what your conscious mind forgot. And when connection feels like danger, your system will shut the door before you can even knock.

When someone in authority overwhelms your capacity, your body kicks in with the ultimate protectors: freeze, shut down, go blank, get out. These responses aren’t weaknesses—they are brilliance—a quiet, desperate brilliance designed to help you survive the un-survivable.

These are the children who didn’t know how to ask for help, because help never felt safe. Their nervous systems did what they had to do—vanish, withdraw, escape. And now, even in adulthood, when the threat is gone… the pattern remains.

But here’s the truth: what once protected you, doesn’t have to define you. There’s another way—and it begins by honoring what your body has carried all this time.

The Story of Eli: From Numb to Alive Again

Eli was quiet as a child—not the soft, observant kind of calm, but the invisible kind. The type of quiet that isn’t a choice. The kind that settles over a child when they’ve learned that being seen is dangerous.

His father wasn’t violent, not in the way people expect when you say something like “childhood trauma.” But he was emotionally absent. Dismissive. Cold. Every time Eli came forward with a need—a scraped knee, a proud drawing, a trembling confession—he was met with a sigh, a silent turn of the head, or a scolding about being too sensitive.

Eventually, Eli stopped trying. He became small, compliant. He learned how to disappear in plain sight.

This is what the Dorsal Dominant nervous system response looks like in real time. It’s the “freeze.” The collapse. When the body learns that no matter how loud it screams, nobody is listening, it whispers instead—or goes silent altogether.

As an adult, Eli often felt blank—not sad, not happy, just…gone. He avoided deep connections, not because he didn’t want them, but because they overwhelmed him. When others reached out, he recoiled—not because he didn’t care, but because he cared too much. But his nervous system was trained to equate closeness with threat. He shut down before he even had the chance to realize he was afraid.

How Eli Found His Way Back

Healing didn’t start with “figuring it out.” Eli had tried talk therapy before and found it helpful, but incomplete. It wasn’t until he began somatic work that the light started to return.

With a practitioner who honored his pace, Eli began learning to feel again, gently. He practiced breathwork, not to force a feeling, but to stay present in his body. He began to notice:

• The hollow feeling in his chest.

• The tension in his throat when he tried to speak.

• The flutter of panic when someone looked at him too kindly.

  
  

Instead of analyzing it, he stayed with it.

Sometimes, the sessions were tender. Sometimes, uncomfortable. But the magic was in the slowness. Each time he stayed present without judgment, the frozen parts thawed just a little more.

He used Internal Family Systems to connect with the child version of himself—the one who had learned that silence was safer than asking. He spoke to him with love, let him draw with crayons, and listened when he had something to say. For the first time in his life, someone didn't turn away.

And slowly, Eli began to come back to life.

The dorsal response had been trying to keep him safe. But now, he had other options. He was no longer a helpless child. He was an adult with tools, with awareness, with compassion.

And that? That’s what heals the freeze:

Presence. Choice. Safety. Love.

The goal isn’t just to survive anymore—it’s to feel alive.