From my journal for February 21, 1997. This is just after I’ve taken my first dose of Imipramine. The dose is too low to make any difference. It’s possible that the fear was triggered by my experience on Paxil.
And now the terror. As usual, I feel flattened by it. I know it would be good if I could walk the dog but it’s just too much. I remember feeling this way in Brunswick — I called it the “Fear Thing” and it came and went mysteriously. I also remember the time I went home in February — that would have been when I was living at Vaughan St. — and I was terrified for two weeks. I felt frozen and cold. That would have been in the early 70’s — so I’ve been dealing with this for a long time.
What I’m describing here is frozen fear, the fear felt by a someone who’s been traumatized. If they can’t fight or flee, the brainstem goes to the default which is freeze. “Freeze” is why I can’t walk the dog. The time I went “home” in February is when I went home to Cincinnati to visit my parents. I was there for two weeks and terrified the whole time. Tells me something about my relationship with my parents. I say I’ve been dealing with it “for a long time,” but I don’t realize that I’ve been dealing with it my whole life. I also have no idea that it’s an indicator of early trauma.