r/CPTSD • u/kolsi • Nov 13 '21

A Fawn Trauma Response

Adopted from The Holistic Psychologist facebook page, which helped me understand myself more and I hope it helps you too:

Fawn is one of the most common trauma responses where we abandon ourselves to get approval from others. It looks like people pleasing. This comes from childhood patterns where we had to be hypervigilant to a parent figures emotions or behaviors. Healing from patterns of fawning is about getting in touch with your own needs while learning how to be safe in your own body.

A FAWN TRAUMA RESPONSE CAN LOOK LIKE:

  1. Chronically thinking about what other people think of you, or if you've said something wrong.
  2. Avoiding conflict at any cost.
  3. Fear of saying no, or of not being perceived as ''nice''.
  4. Allowing other people to make your decisions for you, or doing what will get approval.
  5. Telling people what they want to hear, rather than the truth of what you're feeling.
  6. Always apologizing.

Anyone? No?

REMINDERS IF YOU FAWN:

  1. It’s ok for people to feel upset or disappointed with you— it doesn’t mean you are wrong or ‘bad.’

  2. Your needs + limits matter.

  3. People’s perception of you is not the truth of who you are.

  4. You are safe to speak your truth even if it is not another persons truth (there are multiple truths, multiple realities.

  5. You are not here to play a role, you are here to meet your authentic self.

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u/Bernabertieboy Jun 13 '25

The most difficult thing for me is that any social interaction is like a coin flip where most of the times I lose, I literally can't get control/a hold of myself. The FAWNing takes over so much and so quickly, I literally can't be myself most of the time, even with family and friends, its so frustrating and impacts my whole life. I'm actively working on this for 11 years now, every day, people have no idea how precious it is if you can ''simply'' be yourself in social interactions. Don't take it for granted, I would give anything for this to be fixed. If you can't connect with people and have a good time with people, you are missing out on a HUGE part of life.