FAWN: A People-pleaser PSA
Imagine this: you’re a deer in the Wasatch mountains. Munching on grass, living your best life. A rustle in the bushes alerts you to a stalking cougar. Immediately, your deer autonomic nervous system assesses the situation. Within milliseconds, a survival response will kick in, causing you to either:
Freeze. If you hold very, very still maybe it won’t see you.
Fight. Go for a hind kick to the snout.
Flight. Run for your deer life! (pun intended)
Now, imagine if that cougar does not immediately pounce, but instead says, “Shower me with praise, take responsibility for all of my problems, and nobody gets hurt..” Obviously, you won’t see a cougar doing this, but humans have more complex cognitive abilities than your average mammal. Thus, a third response option has entered the chat..
Introducing FAWN, fight/flight/freeze’s lesser known quadruplet.
Let’s get a definition going here.
"Fawning is the use of people-pleasing to diffuse conflict, feel safe, and gain approval from others. It is a learned survival strategy to avoid abuse or abandonment."
— Walker, Pete (2013), Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving
Did I just catch the attention of all my fellow people pleasers out there? Good, this one’s for those of us who find ourselves acting like we are cool with stuff that we are in fact, not cool with.
Why do we keep agreeing to this stuff? Why do our mouths say yes when everything else in us says no? This is a tricky thing to unpack. In short, our body is trying to protect us from something that feels even more threatening. Like a fight, or a withdrawal of affection, or disappointing someone. And remember, fawning is a stress response, not a higher/logical brain choice. When that’s activated, it’s in your nervous system’s hands. It happens quickly and often on an unconscious level. Milliseconds, just like the deer. Does this mean we aren’t responsible for our choices? Of course not. It does mean we should give ourselves compassion for those moments, and prioritize intentionally doing the work of healing when we aren’t activated.
Because we aren't doomed. We can identify what doesn’t feel safe to our bodies, process the unresolved trauma, and carve new neural pathways in our brains! Learn to advocate for ourselves. From one recovering people pleaser to another, it works. I hope you’ll decide you’re worth the effort. But not just because it will please me! 😉
Tasha Worth, CSW
For further studies on the subject, may I recommend the Being Well podcast episode called “The Fawn Response: people pleasing, self-abandonment, and standing up for yourself”