Hi all,
If you’ve ever gone blank, frozen or shutdown in a presentation, confrontation or high pressure moment, you’re not alone.
If this has got worse since you got long Covid, you’re also not alone.
And it’s not you failing, being weak, being awkward.
It’s simply biology.
Here's what’s actually going on:
You’re actually experiencing something called orientation collapse and dorsal vagal freeze - and here’s what to do about it.
- TPJ (orientation) collapse
The temporo-parietal junction quietly tracks:
• where you are
• where your body is
• your boundaries in space
• your social position
• “I am here” presence
Under sudden stress, shame, or social threat:
• the TPJ drops offline
• you lose orientation
• “self-location” weakens
• you feel detached or “not in your body”
• thoughts scatter
• words disappear
It’s the start of that blanking moment and the same mechanism behind dissociation, head pressure, fog etc.
2. Pre frontal cortex shut off
When the tpj collapses - the prefrontal cortex goes offline. You literally can’t think. So you freeze, go blank, can’t access memory.
Again, a deeply physical process, not psychological feature.
3. Survival energy surge
The jolt you feel, the heat, the tension, the shaking, sweating, the hotness through your head, the flushing.
The sympathetic system is firing, but you can’t move, and the energy gets stuck.
4. social threat module
We're tribe oriented beings.
So shutting down in this way is another biological response and necessity. We’re wired to fear shame, embarrassment and rejection.
The more ‘identity threatening’ the moment - the stronger the freeze.
“My mind goes blank, I freeze, and I feel like I go offline.”
Yes.
Because that’s literally what happens.
And it’s the SAME mechanism as your symptoms.
It’s also the reason your symptoms fluctuate so much. It’s why when you’re away on holiday - you feel better.
And when you return home, surrounded by people and stimulation that these mechanisms get disrupted more.
The freeze/blank mechanism CAN absolutely be rewired.
You fix it by strengthening the five systems involved that have become dysregulated:
1️⃣ Orientation (TPJ)
Exercises that bring your brain back online.
2️⃣ Vestibular system
Gentle balance + head movement = clarity + grounding.
3️⃣ Interoception
Learning to feel your body safely again.
4️⃣ Social safety system
Tone of voice, face, breath — stabilises vagus nerve.
5️⃣ Emotional tolerance
Feeling sensation without shutting down.
How we address all this:
1. ORIENTATION (TPJ)
What goes wrong:
When the nervous system is overloaded, the orientation hub in the brain (TPJ) goes “offline.”
You feel foggy, detached, spaced out, “not here.”
How we fix it:
We use orientation-based techniques including:
- EMDR-style bilateral stimulation
- visual orientation
- grounding through the room
- somatic tracking with external awareness
- movement-based orienting (Hanna + somatics)
These practices bring your “I am here” system back online so clarity returns, fog reduces, and you stop going into shutdown.
2. VESTIBULAR SYSTEM (Inner Ear / Balance)
What goes wrong:
Long COVID and chronic stress weaken the balance/orientation system → dizziness, fog, fatigue, “wobbly” sensations.
How we fix it :
We use gentle, graded vestibular activation, integrated into:
- somatic movement sessions
- EMDR + eye tracking
- orientation drills
- slow head/neck mobility
- walking + grounding practices
These safely wake up the balance system so you feel more grounded, clear, and steady.
3. INTEROCEPTION (Internal Body Awareness)
What goes wrong:
When the body feels unsafe, you disconnect internally.
You lose access to subtle sensations, emotions, and internal cues → leading to overwhelm or shutdown.
How we fix it:
We build safe internal awareness through:
- somatic tracking
- Hanna Somatics
- breath-based grounding
- slow sensation awareness
- micro body scans
This reconnects you to your body in a safe way so you stop feeling overwhelmed or disconnected.
4. SOCIAL SAFETY (Ventral Vagus Nerve)
What goes wrong:
When your system feels alone, judged, or under pressure, it flips into survival mode fast — causing panic, shutdown, or freeze.
How we fix it:
We activate the social safety system through:
- group somatic sessions
- connection-based work
- warm voice cues
- gentle co-regulation
- relational repair themes
- guided visualisations focused on safety
These re-teach your system that you are safe, supported, and not under threat.
5. EMOTIONAL TOLERANCE (Feeling While Staying Present)
What goes wrong:
When big sensations or emotions rise and the system can’t stay present, it flips into freeze, dissociation, panic, or shutdown.
How we fix it (in the program):
We rebuild capacity using:
- Allowing
- EMDR + bilateral stimulation
- pendulation
- micro-movement during sensation
- titrated emotional processing
- somatic emotional release work
This teaches your nervous system:
“I can feel this AND stay safe.”
This is the heart of why your symptoms reduce over time.
I cannot express how broken and defunct I've felt when this freeze state happens.
It's the worst - full of fear, dread, shame, embarassment, all mixed into one.
But there is a way out, there is a way to address whats going on, and a way to start to feel better.
Love to you all.
