I want you to read this, listen to the instructions, and close your eyes…

I want you to visualize being in a group of people. You are all sitting at a round table. A lot of people are talking and saying things. Some people are saying things that you find very offensive, and it makes you angry. Some people are saying things you strongly agree with, and you have some facts to back up what they are saying. Some are seeking guidance, and you have the perfect advice. Finally, some are lying about you and what you believe in.

Once you have this messy scene in your head, I want you to close your eyes for a couple of seconds. Hear the noise, the chatter, some people laughing, drinks clinking… maybe like the sound in a busy pub. Then, I want you to choose what person or conversation you are going to respond to. Do you have it? OK, I want you to visualize that you open your mouth and start talking, and not one noise comes out, not a single word.

Close your eyes briefly and try to visualize what you would feel like. What feelings and where in your body…

Now open

I personally feel a constriction in my throat, a tightness that also tickles. I feel a tightness across my chest. I feel frustration in my hands, which involuntarily curl into tiny fists. I feel sick.

That is how I have felt for the past two years.

Oh, I mask it well—a trick I have perfected over the years. But the number of people asking me if I have stopped blogging is overwhelming—the number of people asking me where “I have gone.” The truthful answer is I haven’t gone anywhere….I have been right here….

Here is a link to explain a little about functional freeze, but you need to research it yourself to see if you want to know more or think you could be impacted by it.

I’m guessing many of you have heard of writer’s block, although I would say mine is a writer/creative block with a big side serving of functional freeze.

I wrote about my writer’s block in 2022—you can read it here. I only remembered it because I decided to look back on my blogs to see if I had tried to address this. And I had. I’m glad I read it today, as it reminded me how long this has been going on…and why.

The why will come over the next few months. As I start to write again. Start to reintroduce myself because I am a different person now. And I think when you’re going through growth, it can be like being in a freezing and long winter…you can’t see the end, and you don’t believe the stories about the sunshine that is coming. You feel like no one understands how bloody cold and windy it is. And then you think that the sunlight will never reach where you are Because it’s too dark.

So, I developed writer’s block—creative block. I sit here with all these amazing ideas but struggle to lift a pen.

Poems

Blogs

Books

Studies

New website

New training

Vlogs

Podcasts

It all stuck in my head. Because alongside the block is the functional freeze.

“When we experience a traumatic event or are triggered, we have a response that falls into the four categories of fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. These responses are set up within us to protect us from predators and danger”.”

“Functional freeze is when you are able to outwardly function and complete daily tasks such as going to work, seeing friends, and preparing meals, but psychologically, you are still stuck in this freeze mode. It is often described as being ‘tired and wired,’ feeling heightened anxiety levels, and lacking the desire to do things at the same time.”

So, this has been me for almost two years. I’m stuck. Still, I’m unable to move internally.

I have lived in fight mode for most of my life. Where I come from, it’s not advisable to ever be in fawn mode; fight mode works only for a hot second, and freeze mode…well… I have never been in a safe enough place…until recently, I guess.

Years of exploitation, abuse, lies, second guessing myself and others. Years of hiding who I am, masking, pretending,….

And then a sequence of events shattered that last little bit that was holding it all together …and I was left in freeze mode and didn’t even know it.

I forgot who I was and what I had achieved for a hot fucking second. It won’t happen again. Let me tell you that.

So, I am back…well…not back. I am…here to reintroduce myself and do what I do best….tell my story. And boy….have I got some big ones to tell…. Watch this space x