What to Do About Shutdown and Sexual Trauma

Most of us give up on healing sexual trauma and decide it's something we'll have to live with for the rest of our lives.

We might have been disappointed by intimate experiences and feel that the investment in effort and time to heal isn't worth it.

We might despair of being capable of healing, because years of talk therapy, meditation retreats, and self-help books haven't created permanent or even palpable shifts in how we feel in our bodies.

We might not want to go towards healing because we fear the journey might upset our relationships or make our high-performing careers difficult, fearing that the gravity of the past might pull us in, unable to escape.

It takes courage to heal and often, courage is the exact thing that sexual trauma robs us of. 

Our joy for life, willingness to take on challenges, and self-belief are distorted by what happened. Although it wasn't ever our fault, it's easy to take on layers of shame that rightfully belong to the perpetrators. We often blame ourselves in a downward spiral of decreasing self-esteem.

If we don't heal our sexual trauma, it tends to get worse.

The nervous system is in a constant state of change, and nothing remains the same for long. If we don't address the burdens we carry, our nervous systems gradually descend into a freeze response that can go on for months, years, and even decades. Gradually, we experience more and more numbness around our bodies until pleasure and intimacy are distant concepts and not something we want to risk or explore.

Deciding to never have intimacy again is more normal than you think. But where we don't want to go is often the place that most needs attention and healing.

If we're in relationships, and sexual trauma creates this kind of shutdown, it might seem easiest to override the shutdown and become sexually performative. We might mask our discomfort and lack of engagement because, conceptually, we want to have intimacy with our partners, and we don't know why the shutdown persists. We push through, but this doesn't help us heal.

When we cover up what's really going on inside, we miss the opportunity to connect and heal with our partners.

How Unresolved Sexual Trauma (PTSD or CPTSD) Creates Shutdown

There are many types of sexual trauma.

Single-incident sexual trauma creates PTSD (or post-traumatic stress disorder) because of the intensity of overwhelm and survival terror that happens in the body.

Multiple-incident sexual trauma creates layers and layers of traumatic stress that cause CPTSD (or complex post-traumatic stress disorder).

Even chronic "low-level" sexual trauma like daily sexual harassment on the street, at our workplace, or in our social group shows up in the nervous system as traumatic stress.

All these experiences of sexual trauma lead to an over-activated nervous system that is waiting for the next bad thing to happen.

The nervous system is so on edge that it loses the ability to self-regulate inside a normal "window of tolerance" (to use a term from neurobiologist Dan Seigel). Attempts to self-regulate from this over-activated state overshoot the mark and, instead of coming to a healthy baseline, we end up under-activated.

Over time, bouncing between over-activation and under-activation, in an attempt to stabilize, exhausts our biochemical hormonal reserves. We no longer respond the way we did before.

We become "stuck on" in over-activation, with symptoms like anxiety, panic, hypervigilance, and even chronic pain.

Or we become "stuck off" in under-activation, which looks like depression, exhaustion, disconnection, and chronic fatigue.

Symptoms of Un-Discharged Traumatic Stress as diagramed by trauma expert Peter Levine (and redesigned by me).

Feeling shutdown is a completely normal sign of being "stuck off" from unresolved trauma. Around intimacy, it shows up as physical numbness, low or no arousal, emotional distance, and a lack of interest.

Rather than bringing us closer to our partners, intimacy becomes a chore. We might even think we need to "get it over with."

Underneath this override of our traumatized nervous system is an implicit fear that if we don't show up for intimacy, it will impact our relationships with our partners.

If we don't have a partner, we might fear that shutdown from sexual trauma will keep us from ever developing a healthy relationship. 

Most people think that healing sexual trauma happens by challenging ourselves or sustaining a mindset shift. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) tries to correct our mindset about the experience. And in talk therapy, "exposure" to the traumatic material is supposed to make us feel less activated.

But CBT doesn’t work for trauma. Neither does exposure. Both approaches implicitly blame our bodies for the shutdown and treat the freeze response like we're doing something wrong.

We can't think or talk our way out of trauma. Trauma lives in an entirely different part of the brain and body, deep in the midbrain, brainstem, and peripheral nervous system.

Repeated activation through exposure only layers in more overwhelm and risks retraumatizing us further into shutdown.

"Fake it until you make it," is the worst advice here. Whenever we override our bodies' natural and understandable shutdown, we only create more reasons for numbness and self-defeat.

How to Heal Shutdown from Sexual Trauma (PTSD or CPTSD)

This approach works best with a partner who understands the basics of a trauma response and how to complete a stress or trauma cycle with you.

It can also be a solo practice because shutdown and freeze also arise as nervous system responses on our own.

One of the reasons I recommend and customize embodiment practices for all my clients is because, on our own, we're able to work with and reprogram our nervous systems. Embodiment practices help us prepare to be more present and responsive during partnered intimacy.

Whether partnered or solo, we can practice noticing when we're frozen, speaking up, pausing, and giving ourselves the space and grace to heal. Here's how.

1. Notice the freeze response.

Notice when you freeze and what that looks like in your body. If you're observing your partner, notice what happens in their body. There are telltale signs, like muscular tension, breath, and eye gaze, that will indicate that freeze and shutdown are happening. Often, speed is also a sign. Go slow enough that you’ll notice when the freeze happens. It can be subtle, but you’ll catch it if you go slow.

2. Name what's happening in the moment.

Make it okay to name that you're in a freeze response. Verbalize it to your partner, out loud. Be as compassionate and gentle as possible. Shame will likely arise to be welcome and held. This is a normal and sacred part of the process. Hold each other with no agenda and no expectation, as much as you possibly can. It’s a practice, not something you will ever get perfect.

3. Pause.

Stop what is happening, so that the nervous system of the person in freeze and shutdown is responded to. In that moment, they will experience how they matter. They are important. Their needs have value. Their needs are being responded to. Rather than acting like something wrong or bad has happened, this is a chance to heal. Taking a pause is a crucial, missing piece in sexual trauma healing. Even if you both decide to start again, give yourself space and grace in the pause.

4. Connect.

Remain connected in this vulnerable moment of healing potential. How you are, with each other, the quality of your presence and connection, is what matters. There's nothing to do or say, but to offer loving, compassionate presence. Rather than hide in shame, stay present and experience how it's possible to be in freeze and shutdown and still receive love, safety, and connection. This takes trust but it can feel miraculous.

5. Normalize the pace of healing.

This process cannot be rushed. It’s easy to put a timeline on sexual trauma healing, pressure ourselves, and think that we should be moving at a different pace. But that urgency is a symptom of over-activation. It's easy to push ourselves to go faster than the speed of our bodies' healing. When you're ready, your body will let you know. Until then, keep inviting, encouraging, connecting, and creating safety. I promise, the shifts will happen.

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I invite you to experiment with the sequence above and see if you experience more presence and less freeze and shutdown in your intimacy. The steps may seem simple, but they create a profound pathway for nervous system healing.

If you decide that it's easier to ignore your shutdown and push yourself into intimate situations that don't feel good, that's okay. I don't want you to judge yourself. Each of us have a different path towards healing. But whatever way you choose, I hope you find the support that works for you. I hope you commit to finding your way through to feeling aliveness and enjoyment again.

You deserve it.

If you do give this a try, I celebrate your courage and your commitment to healing. It is not an easy path, but it's nothing like the dull numbness of shutdown. It's nowhere near as hard as carrying unresolved trauma for years and years in the nervous system.

Whatever steps you take, now or in the future, I hope you stay gentle with yourself. Slow progress is the best and fastest way.

Reach out anytime if I can support your process.

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