🎥• Freeze Response (VERB). Definition; To enter a state of temporary mental and/or physical paralysis in response to intense fear, threat, or trauma, characterized by stillness, dissociation, and an inability to act or speak, despite conscious awareness. Often involuntary and rooted in the nervous system’s survival responses.

It was an ephemeral feeling—it was a feeling that lasted for so little it felt pernicious.

JJ could give you a million words, and still be unable to describe what exactly she meant when she said she felt all these…things.

All because she didn’t know how to react to the fact her husband of 18 years had suddenly dropped dead from a rare artery rupture.

She didn’t even get to say goodbye.

It had been a single day since he passed. Not even a full 24 hours. It had been Rossi and Emily who told the boys their dad was gone—it was Luke who sat with JJ, not saying a word.

Never had her shocked state lasted this long. It was almost like her brain didn’t want to process it—or comprehend it.

He was dead now—but it didn’t feel…right.