Sidération traumatique

Sidération traumatique, or traumatic freezing, names the involuntary state in which Mila Wizman says fear left her unable to speak or act during the assault she describes. The concept is central to how her experience is presented: her outward stillness does not signify consent, but a trauma response that shaped both what she could do in the moment and how she later recounted it.

The response during the assault

At the hearing, Mila explains that she was afraid and could no longer speak. She describes feeling detached from her body, as if watching it while no longer fully present. Her account makes the freezing response more than an absence of resistance: it is an altered state produced by fear, which separates awareness from the ability to act.

The clinical account offered by the psychologist who examined Mila six months after the events gives this response a medical frame. The psychologist says Mila appeared to have been in a state of traumatic freezing that prevented her from defending herself. This assessment is presented alongside the account of a reserved, introverted person who had difficulty expressing her feelings, but it does not treat her silence during the assault as evidence of agreement.

Fear, apparent compliance, and agency

Mila’s account also describes her attempts to stay safe within a situation she experienced as threatening. She says she feared that speaking or struggling would provoke further danger, and that she tried to appear agreeable so that the ordeal might pass more quickly and she could escape. The narrative thus distinguishes apparent submission from willingness: in her account, it was a constrained strategy for survival, not consent.

This distinction is reinforced by the sequence of her testimony. Mila says she had made clear that she did not want sex and had shown her fear, yet the other person did not change his behavior. The freezing response therefore appears within a broader account of ignored refusal and perceived danger, rather than as an isolated symptom detached from what was happening around her.

Aftermath and narrative significance

The psychologist describes severe psychological consequences following the events, including anxiety, panic attacks, disturbed sleep, nightmares, intrusive memories, and difficulties in social relationships. The assessment also notes changes in Mila’s relation to her body and a loss of trust in others. These effects establish that the response was part of a continuing trauma, not simply a momentary inability to act.

By placing Mila’s own recollection beside the psychologist’s testimony, the novel shows how the experience is both lived and interpreted: her account conveys fear and constrained agency, while the clinical testimony names the freezing response and its consequences. The distinction matters to the story’s treatment of consent. Involuntary silence or inability to resist cannot, in this account, be taken as willingness.