High Functioning Outside, Cells Crumbling Inside
“I don’t understand why this is happening to me—I’m doing all the right things,” people say. But the body is now shouting louder, pointing to something that’s been going on beneath, that you’ve been disconnected from. This is often functional freeze 🥶
Functional freeze is a nervous system response where someone moves through daily life but remains emotionally and physiologically stuck in a state of immobilisation. They can still work, socialise, and get things done, but there's a disconnect from their deeper feelings, creativity, or bodily presence.
It's a subtle survival response, often tied to unresolved trauma or stress, and can be hard to spot because everything might seem "fine" on the surface. In this state though our cells beneath cannot properly heal, they get stuck in CDR…
The Cell Danger Response (CDR) is how cells protect the body when they sense a threat, like an infection or stress. Cells shift into survival mode, prioritising defence over normal function. Helpful short-term, but problematic when the CDR stays stuck in this mode. The body can’t fully heal because it’s still in a defensive state, even when the threat is gone, leading to chronic illness or inflammation.
Functional freeze (or disassociated states) are doubly tricky 🤔 because:
If we listen to the body’s signals and seek ways to thaw the freeze (i.e. somatics/breathwork), it can seem like things are getting worse initially. The true distress or emotional energy that’s been frozen starts to move and be felt. However, we must move through this activation after past immobilisation to then find regulation.
Disassociation is literally like a drug for your system. During times of overwhelming stress and unbearable emotions, internal chemicals such as analgesics and opioids secrete to help manage and disconnect from difficult experiences, which can then feel paradoxically euphoric. We can get accustomed and even addicted to that process of numbing out.
⚠️ LOOK OUT: when there’s little to no response (“it’s fine”)—but your body doesn’t match this narrative—it may be greater sign of functional freeze in your nervous system.
