Ah Catatonia, do you happen all at once? #catatonic

Added: 2026-05-04

[00:00:00]All right, let's talk about catatonia.

[00:00:02]So, catatonia is a wild symptom I get as part of my schizoeffective disorder where I cannot move, speak, or communicate in any way whatsoever.

[00:00:10]Literally an unresponsive potato just chilling wherever I was when I froze and then I'm stuck like that until my brain basically unfreezes itself. Um, so yeah, this person is asking if you don't mind answering. I definitely love answering these types of questions. Does the stuper happen all at once or is there a period of functional decline? What goes through your mind when if you notice you're freezing? H wow. Okay. So, the thing is is that like for me, uh I usually get catatonic at the end of an anxiety or panic attack. So, I know it's coming when it's about to happen, but it still is like still just goes like it it hits me like a ton of bricks. It just happens and then I'm frozen for like a while and I'm like I don't know when I'm going to unfreeze. And so, it's g for me it hits all at once. There's some people where it goes gradually, but for me it's all at once. I go from being animated and, you know, able to move around and stuff to just being literally unresponsive potato. That's the best way to put it. Um, so what goes through my mind when I notice I'm freezing is is that, okay, I'm about to be catatonic.

[00:01:12]Okay, I'm going to be catatonic. I don't know how long I'm going to be catatonic, but let's just take it as time to relax and just think about things because that's really how I view my catatonic episodes as like my body basically rebooting itself like turn it off and turn it back on again basically. And so I just kind of chill mentally in my brain and I'm I'm usually like if I know I'm about to be catatonic, I usually get to a safe spot, safe place. I tell people around me that it's probably about to happen. and usually pretty frantic, but I still tell people. And uh yeah, it happens. And I'm just like, "Okay, all right. Here we go. Time to do the reboot of the brain yet again." And I just kind of chill there. I'm not anxious in Catatonia anymore. I I kind of view it as a time where I can not do anything else. Like I literally can just think and in a way it's sort of relaxing, which sounds super messed up to a degree. Like I I'm aware that that sounds a little bit weird, but that is kind of how I do it. is just like, "Okay, I'm having a panic attack. All right, I'm going to get catatonic. The catonia is literally going to calm me down from my panic attack." And then boom, it happens. And then it lifts and then I'm good to go. And that is that is how it is for me.