Shock is the opposite of play. If you think of play as exploratory and full of animating choices to interact with the world, then you can define shock as the total opposite. Play expands and shock constricts. 

Shock is having a startle reflex about anything that reminds you of an adverse situation. 

It is a collapse of trust. 

If we think of play as living in the here -and -now, the contrast would be to be frozen in time. Shock is described accurately in the poem. As McHugh writes,      It  (the tornado).    “ was over for maybe minutes / then it was never over.” 

The aftermath sensation is one of being stuck in a replay reel of the horrors you just witnessed.
Why is it on perpetual replay? The brain can not catch up fast enough to build a new pattern of reality. Life before is a phantom–  you cling to it, but it is a vapor.  The problem is that the future is just as elusive.  You are suspended in psychological limbo. You have never been at this crossroad and you feel ill equipped to step in any direction.

Feeling grounded about how life will be after the trauma is impossible.  Everything that  once was solid ground is shifting sand underneath you. 

The hours you are living through are full of dread and unexpected fragility. Minute by minute repetitive fears and intense emotions like grief, rage, and fear arrive unbidden during the phase of shock. 

One of the most frequent stumbles friends and family make is to ask the person in shock a series of rapid fire questions.  I would call this social stress.

Social stress is very difficult to manage on top of the fact that the physical core of your nervous system is melting down from a fire buried deep inside.  People describe this feeling as being “out of body.”  I believe some of that sensation is knowing that they are experiencing a melt down but they can’t locate within themselves the origin of the  implosion.  People describe this as their body, “having a mind of its own.”

Always keep in mind that the prefrontal cortex was off line during the event.  It was 100% invested in actions of survival and only one thing… survival.

As a listener you should not move towards logic or expect verbal clarity.  

This is the time to titrate.

You titrate information and keep executive function planning to a bare minimum when you  see a person staring into space and not able to speak or formulate answers.

Think of it as drip.     drip.    drip.   As one abrasive drip is given you let that short sentence settle. It blends and dilutes and then you sit with it.  You never go full throttle with expectations or new information. You turn the tv off if it is recounting the tragedy.  

A nurse would sense it literally but you can sense it intuitively.  If a dosage of reality is so strong that it is causing tissue damage you go slower.  Your movements are softer.  You might find it helpful to announce every thing that is about to change.  For example, in an very explicit way you might say,  “We are allowed to stay in the lobby of the ER for as long as you need.  I am going to stand up and walk across the room to get you some ice water.  I will bring back a blanket and it might be nice if we both sat here for an hour.”   Titrating might sound like asking a physician or police officer to break his or her news down into smaller bits.   It also might be turning off a cell phone or putting an ‘away’ message on it because it is over stimulating.  Often it is helpful to have one person take over as director of communications for the victim of a tragedy.

Many practitioners think of these actions as “parsing or separating.”    Facts will be teased apart (parsing) and this allows them to be processed in a sequence.  This sequencing regulates the nervous system.  

 NOTE: Taking the slow route also can keep a window open for reality checks regarding some of the beliefs that were attached to the story —these are probably errors.  These beliefs often have ties to shame and guilt.  You might  hear self incrimination sentences that try to prove the linkage that they caused the painful event.  They might say,  “they should have died.”  or “they should have rescued others.”  Victims are drawn to every chance they can find to take total responsibility for having prevented the event.  This feels good to them because it addresses their powerlessness.   (see Broken Efficacy blog post)