Moreover, additional studies highly implicate shame as an obstruction to leaving violent and abusive partnerships (Buchbinder & Eisikovits, 2003), and correlate shame, more so even than dissociation, with the long-term continuance of PTSD symptoms (Andrews et al., 2000; Kessler & Bieschke, 1999). In other words, recent empirical studies suggest that threats to a person’s self-appraisal through a public^{Endnote 16} appraisal of incompetency, such as Baxter experienced and survivors of domestic abuse attest, can induce a shame painful enough to warrant avoidance by any means, consciously or subconsciously.

Although I cannot remember any avoidance of driving, the strength of Baxter’s avoidance behaviors—attempts to escape pain—increased with time. At first, she avoided thinking or talking about her job loss, then avoided her coworkers, and then could not think of or drive by her former place of employment without panic. The panic, an arousal symptom that alternated with her avoidance behaviors, yielded to numbness and feeling dazed or confused early in the evolution of her PTSD. This numbness, referred to commonly as “shock,” was her body’s response to being overwhelmed by the stress reactions and constituted an early, subconscious, avoidance maneuver. Gavin de Becker (1997), expert on the prediction and management of violence, explains the “shock” or “avoidance behavior” as the body’s freeze response to fear, a response that proved beneficial on an evolutionary time scale when stationary prey received far less attention than moving prey. He argues that the freeze response, coupled with the heightened arousal and alertness resulting from cortisol circulation, provides a person with greater physiological ability to evaluate incoming sensory data. Those benefits can be seen as Baxter calmly took the news of being fired and later asked her supervisor to clarify her work assignment. De Becker explains that the initial stress response prepares the body to take action—but it does not mandate action.