The fight-flight-freeze response is your body’s natural reaction when you don’t feel safe. It’s a stress response that causes hormonal and physiological changes.

When circumstances remind us of something that happened years ago, we can go into a fight-flight-freeze response. Although the memory may not be conscious, our subconscious remembers and is trying to keep us safe.

Never fully “discharged,” the original fear or panic linked to that memory can cause us to react to the current-day trigger as though what happened in the past is happening all over again.

What was adaptive as a child, such as dissociating from an event that was just too big for us to deal with, can become frustratingly maladaptive as an adult.

If you find yourself being easily triggered, or if you are stuck in a fight, flight, or freeze state, you may benefit from therapy.