catatonic

1. (medicine) Of, relating to, or suffering from catatonia; having a tendency to remain in a rigid state of stupor for long periods which give way to short periods of extreme agitation.Examples: "However, he was looking a lot more catatonic and depressed before and sometimes we find that on the anti-depressants you remove the depression and uncover the paranoid stuff and we may have to give him larger quantities of tranquilizers just to tone this down."; "It was plausible that Cara became more catatonic in order to avoid a painful and overwhelming confrontation with terrifying but repressed memories of child abuse."

2. (figuratively) Motionless and unresponsive, as from shock; withdrawn.Examples: "He made Yossarian think of cripples and of cold and hungry men and women, and of all the dumb, passive, devout mothers with catatonic eyes nursing infants outdoors that same night with chilled animal udders bared insensibly to that same raw rain."; "Further and further he would withdraw from the world, becoming more and more catatonic — withdrawing completely from his hateful world to the only real and secure comfort he had ever known, the womb."; "The fact that he was not twirling his kiss curl underscored his catatonic state of mind. I didn't know who was more catatonic—Brentwood, the minister, or myself."figuratively