Freeze & sleep response to relationship conflict

Question

Does anyone else find relationship conflict debilitating?

I have been incredibly conflict avoidant and a people pleaser, coming from a childhood as a glass child sibling to a volatile, violent autistic older sibling, an unpredictable and explosive autistic father and an emotionally unavailable mother.

I have been working on this conflict avoidance but have been having trouble lately, as I’m currently having an increased amount of conflict in my social circles, including in close relationships. My anxiety response gets a lot more intense the closer the relationship is to me, and also increases when I feel less control or less self-determination within the context of the conflict.

I find that until these kinds of conflicts are resolved, I go into a low level freeze state. I have very low executive function, can barely feed myself, and basically want to sleep all the time. I have some coping mechanisms but they feel impossible to implement, and they only offer temporary relief until the conflict is resolved and I feel safe again.

Can anyone relate to this experience? Does anyone have any advice for coping, making these experiences less overwhelming, compartmentalising?

Posted Aug 5, 2025, 10:14 PM UTC

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