#Fight flight freeze fawn cptsd series

Different triggers bring on different, albeit harrowing EF's and I get stuck in all responses.

#Fight flight freeze fawn cptsd series

O n his website he wrote:įawn types seek safety by merging with the wishes, needs and demands of others. I’ve done therapy, somatic experiencing, hypnosis, meditation, nervous system regulation and there’s been very little change. Hi out there So with much sadness and confusion it appears as though I am ALL of the 4 F's - Fight, Flight, Freeze and Fawn. Flight, Fight, Freeze, and Fawn Responses in CPTSD Part of an ongoing series about life with complex post-traumatic stress disorder K. What Is the Fawn Response?įawning is perhaps best understood as “people-pleasing.” According to Walker, who coined the term “fawn” as it relates to trauma, people with the fawn response are so accommodating of others’ needs that they often find themselves in codependent relationships. What weve got here is fucking failure to communicate. “Freeze looks like spacing out or feeling unreal, isolating from the outside world, being a couch potato … difficulty making and acting on decisions,” Walden said.

The freeze response may also refer to feeling physically or mentally “frozen” as a result of trauma, which people may experience as dissociation. Survivors who tend toward the freeze response are often mistrustful of others and generally find comfort in solitude. “Fight looks like self-preservation at all costs,” Walden told The Mighty, adding that this trauma response can manifest in explosive outbursts of temper, aggressive behavior, demanding perfection from others or being “unfair” in interpersonal confrontations. Survivors who tend toward the fight response innately believe power will guarantee the security and control they lacked in childhood. If you find yourself “stuck” in one of the stress responses, and it’s affecting your quality of life, we encourage you to seek the help of a trauma-informed specialist. With the help of trauma-informed treatment specialist, Patrick Walden, LICSW, we’ve defined each below.Īs a note, most trauma survivors tend to lean toward one stress response. It’s important to remember no one response is “better” or “worse” than the others. Before we get too deep into the fawn trauma response, let’s make sure we have a good grasp on the other three commonly-recognized trauma responses: fight, flight and freeze.