Freezing anxiety

Anyone dealing with this intense psychological and physiological freezing anxiety, where body seems to go into a lockdown/fetal position just because the stress feels so overwhelming?

 

I've had some success with calling a help line when this happens. And, whenever I am asked why I called, I say something along the lines "I feel frozen with panic, and talking to someone for several minutes somehow helps me unfreeze from this".

 

Has anyone else experienced this and employed any different strategies in dealing with this paralyzing/freezing panic?

Loreazapamfree,

 

I have not had the exact same but I have anxiety while tapering and a very low stress resilience and I work as a...guess what...counselor for people with disabilities, include behavioral health and anxiety. How ironic. Thank you benzos! Anyway, what I do when anxious is find a way to break the stress response- go to my car, look at photos of family, do diaphragmatic breathing, and pray. Prayer has been my lifeline. I'm sorry you are struggling. The reason I responded despite not having the same fetal position response as you is that while our respondes are different, the anxiety isn't- it's a limbic-based organic fear (as opposed to a worry-rumination anxiety) from withdrawal. I find when I tell myself this will pass, and I look at the good days on my excell sheet, that the fear has less power. Try and distract- it seems like talking to someone on the phone does just this. See if you can distract when you start to feel it come on too.  I hope this helps...

 

Sorry you are struggling...

 

Trust

Loreazapamfree,

 

I have not had the exact same but I have anxiety while tapering and a very low stress resilience and I work as a...guess what...counselor for people with disabilities, include behavioral health and anxiety. How ironic. Thank you benzos! Anyway, what I do when anxious is find a way to break the stress response- go to my car, look at photos of family, do diaphragmatic breathing, and pray. Prayer has been my lifeline. I'm sorry you are struggling. The reason I responded despite not having the same fetal position response as you is that while our respondes are different, the anxiety isn't- it's a limbic-based organic fear (as opposed to a worry-rumination anxiety) from withdrawal. I find when I tell myself this will pass, and I look at the good days on my excell sheet, that the fear has less power. Try and distract- it seems like talking to someone on the phone does just this. See if you can distract when you start to feel it come on too.  I hope this helps...

 

Sorry you are struggling...

 

Trust

 

Thanks, Trust. I just made a stressful phone call, and found relief in locking my hands in prayer position. Not necessarily praying, but sort of giving myself some grounding/stability that way when I feel very unstable. Yes. It didn't take me long to understand that this was not a normal fear. The thing is that once it manifested in this intensity, it became unclear to me how to proceed. Perhaps, it's my reason to utilize the anxiety section of this forum more in hopes of building up a list of skills to deal with the seemingly impossible.

I am frozen like a frightened animal. Do not want to even leave my bedroom, so I can relate. This started while I was still on K. Did not know I was in tolerance. Wish I could offer a solution, but I can at least say I understand. Esperanza

Thanks for understanding, esperanza. It is horrid. This is why I had to halt my taper temporarily because I realized I needed to deal with these fears going from one room to another, etc. It gets very crippling at times.

 

I hope it gets better for you. I'd noticed that calling someone from a cell phone (a help line, usually) tends to help me get through these fear shields. So rough.

I’m hoping that it abates or lessens as you hold. So sorry you’re suffering with this.

I have some questions. Did any of you have the freezing anxiety before you began your taper? I noticed it becoming more and more frequent as I became tolerant to Klonopin. I had never experienced this feeling prior to the Benzo. Also, do you have times, now, when you feel some better or have you been, as I have been for some months, unable to make yourself move throughout this whole process? I don’ know who much more of this I can stand. Thanks, Esperanza

I had freezing anxiety before taking Ativan, but it was far more tolerable and it only happened in certain situations where I felt trapped and I could not see a way out. Or it would happen after feeling anxious and fearful for a few days in a row. The freezing would get more pronounced and the panic attacks would hit.

 

I think the freezing anxiety started to get worse about a year before I started a taper. I think I got better at handling it, but it was happening more often (tolerance, chronic life stresses getting worse)

 

I started a taper at the point where it felt like it made no sense to start it. But I felt so unwell that I did not know what to do. Staying on the same dose felt like a mistake, updosing felt like a mistake, tapering felt like a mistake. My whole life started feeling like a mistake. I started to question eveything and nothing made any sense at all.

 

Several month prior to the updose (to keep my job), I started feeling depersonalization and derealization. I realized I was experience acute withdrawal symptoms and was still skipping days and not taking Ativan on those days. Something felt wrong. The word felt kind of scary. It wasn't as bad as it got the next year, but it was probably because I was still able to do things and work and have some sense of normalcy.

 

 

How very hard to go through! And sounds so much like what I have felt, thus far. Wishing you the best, Esperanza

Thank you. Wishing you the best, too.