Why Do Women Freeze During Sexual Assault?

It is heartbreaking to see so many reports of sexual assault in the news. It is even more painful to see how many commenters (blogs, social media and right beside you) say things like “I don’t get it, why didn’t she just leave?” “it’s not sexual assault if you stay.”
Trauma therapists, know that these statements are very far from the truth.
Victims of sexual assault are traumatized twice: first by their assault and second by the blame they unjustly receive after their assault.

For most victims of sexual assault, not being believed is almost as painful as the assault itself.

The Science of Trauma

Research has shown that the human nervous system has two modes. Safe mode and Danger mode
In safe mode, you feel calm. Your brain is calm too and is able to carry out the normal regular activities it does.
But when the brain leaves safe mode, it brain reacts by starting to shut down some non-essential parts of itself. This is one of the features of the fight-flight-freeze mechanism that helps us focus on surviving an attack.
Your brain shuts you out of some essential brain structures especially the areas that help you reason, sensing your own body and mind, planning, and speech production.

Have you ever noticed anytime you were so upset that you were literally unable to speak (or unable to speak coherently)? That happened because your brain entered the not-safe mode.
The explanation for this reaction is that when you’re in danger your brain wants to channel all of it’s focus or resources into keeping you alive. The brain takes blood flow and nutrients away from “areas that help you think” and transfers them to “safety parts.”
At this moment, the priority of the brain is not abstract thought or problem solving, it concerns itself instead with the input from your five senses and your emotions and the output to your body.

This explains why people can have some kind of superhuman strength or remarkable visual awareness when faced with extreme danger. When you feel terrified or overwhelmed, your brain would, by default, channel everything into keeping you alive without you necessarily knowing.

Freeze is Different!

There are situations when you get scared and you don’t think, you just react. If you’ve ever been startled and then found yourself running even before you start wondering which direction you’re running to exactly or if you’ve ever seen a group of people running then you join them before you start asking why they are running, that was your flight mechanism at work.
Fight and flight are both active defenses and are ways to stop something bad from happening.
Freeze is very different from the flight or fight mechanism. The brain freezes when there is no perceived way out of danger. The brain freezes in an attempt to reduce the chances or intensity of harm.
Just like a deer caught by headlights in the middle of the road, you are not sure what to do to escape danger so you freeze.
Everyone looks a little different when they freeze. The looks range from looking alarmed, numb, vacant or just frozen in time like a mannequin. When someone experiences repeated trauma, the brain often resorts to this mechanism from time to time. Since running or fleeing would not help in this situation, the brain starts to use freeze in an attempt to not excite the aggressor or predator more.

Freeze is one of the brilliant mechanisms that mammals have used successfully for ages in order to avoid attack. Unfortunatey, when victims of sexual assault experience freeze, it is misread by many as consent. But it isn’t!

Common Signs of Freeze

• Cloudy thoughts or a blank mind
• panic and confusion
• Feelings of hopelessness or being trapped
• A strong desire to get out of the situation or make something stop but not knowing exactly what to do
• Fear that any further action might worsen the situation and it seems better to do nothing

When a victim experiences freeze it is not and will never be consent. It is simply the body screaming for safety in the only way it knows how to. Freeze makes the senses become overwhelmed to the point of immobility. It is terror masked as numbness.
Freeze is much more likely to happen to people who have experienced trauma before.

Your Part In the Situation

Let’s change the dialogue about sexual assault!

Instead of asking victims the “Why” questions, we could use non-victim-blaming language. Tell them they did what they needed to do to survive.
Teach victims who are unaware of the reason behind the freeze that it is just another survival mechanism. It would reduce their feelings of guilt or blames on themselves as well as their shame.
Educate people on the effects of their victim-blaming speech. Find out more about enthusiastic consent and discuss it with people. We owe it to humanity to make things easier for victims, not worse.

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Authored by @Sussan

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