The Thaw

When you finally realize you have been living in a dorsal vagal shutdown for four decades, the immediate instinct is to try and break out of it. You want to shatter the ice, drop the armor, and finally feel the warmth of the world. But the nervous system does not respond to force.

If you melt the ice too quickly, you don't get freedom; you get a flood. For a neurodivergent body that has relied on a locked pelvic floor, shallow breathing, and core armoring to survive an overwhelming world, suddenly stripping away those defenses triggers massive panic. The system goes from a numb shutdown straight into a chaotic, terrifying fight-or-flight response.

I had to learn that thawing is not a sudden breakthrough. It is a slow, deeply intentional practice of titration—introducing tiny drops of warmth and safety, and then retreating before the system gets overwhelmed.

Rebuilding Interoception

The first step wasn't about feeling joy or connecting with others; it was simply about reintroducing myself to my own physical body. For years, my core had acted as a firewall against feeling anything at all. Finally, people around me at work suggested getting an ASD-ADHD assessment, which we started.

Because of my AuDHD and the alexithymia that accompanied my functional freeze, I couldn't just ask myself, "How am I feeling?" My brain had no connection to my body's signals. Instead, the first hint of what is waiting for me in the thaw began with a incredibly gentle, somatic event from a very unexpected source. An adjustable bed...

Opening the Door

Background information: I had locked psoas(flexor) muscles since I was 18, when I visited my doctor with my mum in tow, complaining about what I thought was my hips. Needless to say, the doctor couldn't help me, assured me that I was fit and not having a problem with my hips. I told him that I was having a problem sleeping more than 4 or 5 hours per night. After more gaslighting, I did not return to that doctor, problem unresolved.

Skip ahead 46 years of horrible pain and shitty sleep, and I was visiting a friend for a short vacation, someone who is also an undiagnosed ADHD individual. When I mentioned that I was having problems sleeping because of the pain, my friend mentioned how much they loved their adjustable bed. When I got home, I ordered an adjustable bed and it was finally installed in my room within a week.

I got on the bed, put it into Zero-G position where my head is lower than my legs. This is a great help for helping with my heart rate and blood pressure, but my chest felt tight because of my costochondritis and asthma, so I raised the head about 10 degrees. My legs felt really tight, so I lowered them a little. It felt good, so I dropped my feet a little more, and what came next was a perfect moment in time, where my psoas pain vanished in a temporary muscular release. That night I slept more than 9 hours, blissful uninterrupted sleep.

So, from 4-5 hours a night to 8 or 9 hours... I knew that there were going to be many more surprises, where some of my physical issues were going to fall by the wayside as the the frozen parts of my body are thawed out by the occupational therapy on my horizon. So much for waiting for therapy, which has been my plan for later this year or next year.

Unfortunately, this set off a cascade of issues, the foremost being wobbly legs. With my legs stiff and bracing for decades, splinted by my psoas muscles, now with the flexor lock released, and my glutes and back muscles atrophied from disuse, I was having a lower body collapse. I have been keeping a wheelchair around, actually being unable to walk unsupported for about a month now, having two falls before I bowed to the inevitable and arranged for the wheelchair.

Further Steps

As the somatic armoring slowly begins to soften, the numbness will crack. I know it is not always a comfortable process. As the ice melts, the stored pain, grief, and exhaustion of the last forty years or more will slowly come to the surface. But alongside that grief will come something else: sensation.

As the low hum of the freeze is gradually being replaced by texture, color, and a quiet, emerging desire to actually participate in my own life. The thaw is exhausting, it is nonlinear, and it requires tremendous patience. But for the first time in a very long time, I am starting to feel the sun on my face.