Dear LosingItAll:

I think you didn’t learn (your last sentence) not because you have a fundamental defect, not at all. I think we don’t learn (I haven’t) because we are afraid. We kind of go to a literal or figurative fetal position when we are afraid. We contract, shrink, minimize ourselves so to.. minimize our surface area that is in contact with the scary world out there. As we shrink, we don’t expand, we don’t experiment, we don’t explore, we don’t investigate, we don’t risk and we don’t learn. We just stay there, folded and frozen.

And fear is in every person and every animal, not a fundamental flaw but an integral part of being alive. Problem with so many of us is that we’ve been afraid for so long, and stuck in a scary situation (not fighting and not running away, fight/flight not an option) that we froze in fear.

What do you think?

anita

Dear LosingItAll:

Changing mode from Freeze to Fight, from being paralyzed by fear to being angry is part of healing. I have no doubt about it. Only such a change should be done with some guidance from a competent psychotherapist, most desirable, anyway. The change is good but you need not be overwhelmed by your anger and that is where guidance will be very useful. It is extremely difficult to go through this change of thawing from the Freeze reaction to fear and go to the Fight or Flight options. And it is the only way- in nature there are only these three options. Animals do well with Fight or Flight, they do either and continue their lives, unaffected. When they Freeze, it is only temporary, they thaw and continue to live unaffected.

So Freeze is supposed to be temporary and it is in nature, that is not in the complex human society.

I don’t remember now if we talked about competent psychotherapy, did we?

anita