Everyone talks about fight or flight. Nobody talks about freeze. The trauma response that shuts you down completely, makes you look checked out, and gets mistaken for laziness, indifference or not trying hard enough.

In this episode of More, Toby and Rudy get honest about the freeze response from lived experience. Both are recovering addicts, CPTSD and Big T trauma survivors, neurodivergent, and living with chronic pain. Both have spent years being misread as disengaged when their nervous systems were doing the only thing they knew how to do: SURVIVE.

They cover what the freeze response actually is, why it's the dominant trauma response for CPTSD sufferers, how it overlaps with ADHD paralysis and neurodivergent shutdown, what chronic pain has to do with stored survival energy in the body, and crucially...what actually helps you come back online.

This is a raw, unfiltered conversation between two men with lived experience of trauma, addiction recovery, neurodiversity and mental health. No clinical detachment. No tidy answers. Just honest talk about what it's like to be stuck on the inside.

In this episode:

• What the freeze response really is — and why it's not weakness or laziness
• How CPTSD, complex trauma and childhood trauma create a default freeze state
• The link between freeze, ADHD paralysis and neurodivergent shutdown
• Why chronic pain and nervous system dysregulation are connected
• How addiction can be the first thing that breaks through the freeze - and what happens in recovery when it doesn't
• Practical, honest tools for coming back online: somatic techniques, breathwork, movement, co-regulation and more
• What actually helps, from two people who've lived it

If you've ever been called lazy, difficult, emotionally unavailable or checked out — this one's for you.

More is a podcast hosted by people with lived experience of addiction, trauma, mental health and neurodiversity. Recorded in a single take, unedited and unfiltered.

Topics: CPTSD | Complex Trauma | Freeze Response | Trauma Recovery | ADHD | Neurodivergent | Mental Health | Addiction Recovery | Chronic Pain | Nervous System Regulation | Men's Mental Health | Trauma Podcast | PTSD | Somatic Healing | Polyvagal Theory | Lived Experience

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This is the second instalment from our very first guest, Charlotte.

Charlotte discussed her life, her journey and how she found recovery. We touch on boarding school, addiction, neurodivergence and mental health issues. A powerful and inspiring listen.

Show notes;
- Gabor Mate talks
- Life and Crime 1984-2020 (HBO Documentary)
- Recovery Capital

As always we would love to here from you - Hello@tobyandrudy.com

Send us Fan Mail

This episode we welcome our very first guest, Charlotte.

Charlotte discussed her life, her journey and how she found recovery. We touch on boarding school, addiction, neurodivergence and mental health issues. A powerful and inspiring listen.

Show notes;
- Gabor Mate talks
- Life and Crime 1984-2020 (HBO Documentary)
- Recovery Capital

As always we would love to here from you - Hello@tobyandrudy.com

Send us Fan Mail

Does a diagnosis liberate you - or just give you a new label to carry? Toby and Rudy get into their own late diagnoses, the years of masking that came before, and the complicated mix of relief, grief and anger that follows when someone finally tells you why life felt so much harder than it looked for everyone else. A honest conversation about what not knowing costs you.

Connect with us here, we would love to hear from you - Hello@tobyandrudy.com.

Please reach out if you are interested in coming on the show.

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Recovery? What’s that? In today’s episode we talk through what recovery means to us, the stigma around it and how we deal with the process.

Links -

Waking up App - https://www.wakingup.com/

Balance App - https://themindcompany.com/apps/balance

Trataka Meditation - Candle Flame Gazing

Hello@tobyandrudy.com - Say Hello.

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Rudy is one of your hosts, in this episode you will get to hear his lived experience and how he came to be with you today.

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This is part two of your host, Rudys story let’s jump straight back in - thanks for listening along.

If this story has touched you in anyway we would love to hear from you.

Get in touch, we would love to hear from you - Hello@tobyandrudy.com

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This is part two of your host, Tobys story, let’s get straight back into it! Thanks for listening along.

If this story has touched you in any way we would like to hear from you.

Get in touch, we would love to hear from you - Hello@tobyandrudy.com

Send us Fan Mail