Most people don’t wake up deciding to abandon themselves. They learn to do it over time-because it was safer to appease than to upset, easier to please than to risk rejection.

This is called the fawn response. And it’s not about kindness. It’s about survival.

The fawn response is a trauma-informed term for a survival adaptation where a person automatically appeases, pleases, or accommodates others to stay emotionally or physically safe.

Coined and popularised by therapist Pete Walker in the context of Complex PTSR

(C-PTSR), fawning is not just ‘being nice’-it’s a deeply ingrained strategy often rooted in childhood relational trauma.

Children are hard wired to attach. When connection is conditional, inconsistent, or threatening, they adapt. If love came with strings attached, if calm depended on keeping someone else happy, or if emotional needs were met with criticism or withdrawal, the child may have learned: “I’ll be OK if I make you OK.”

That becomes the internal rulebook:

  • Don’t rock the boat.
  • Don’t ask for too much.
  • Don’t be a burden.
  • Don’t be angry, sad, or real.
  • Just be easy, helpful, invisible- even if it costs you.

 

Fawning can look like:

  • Chronic people-pleasing and over-apologising
  • Difficulty saying no or setting boundaries
  • Feeling guilty for having needs
  • Hyper-attunement to others’ emotions
  • Suppressing your truth to avoid conflict
  • Feeling ‘liked’ but not truly known
  • Rescuing or fixing others, often at your own expense

Fawning isn’t a personality trait – it’s a learned defence mechanism. There’s a difference between politeness and fawning.

Politeness is rooted in choice and mutual respect, whereas fawning is rooted in fear and appeasement.
Politeness maintains self and others – Fawning abandons self to preserve connection.
Politeness allows boundaries –  Fawning suppresses them to stay safe.

Fawning is often a blended nervous system state-a mixture of: –

Sympathetic arousal (urgency, hyper-vigilance) and Dorsal vagal shutdown (self-abandonment, loss of voice) with an attempt to engage the social engagement system (smiling, soothing others, appeasing).

It’s a brilliant adaptation to early environments where being your full self wasn’t safe.

Healing doesn’t mean becoming selfish-it means becoming sovereign.
Here’s how we begin:

1. Somatic Awareness: Notice when your body feels tight, small, breathless, or fake.

Ask: What do I really feel?

2. Safe Boundaries: Practice saying no in low-stakes environments.

Try: ‘Let me get back to you.’

3. Inner Child Reassurance: Fawning often

comes from the child self.

Gently say: ‘You don’t have to shrink to be safe.’

4. Voice Work: Speak up, hum, or sing. It activates the ventral vagus nerve and supports regulation.

5. Relational Repatterning:

Seek relationships where your ‘no’ is honoured and your presence is valued.

In conclusion,
The fawn response is not a flaw-it’s a wound. A strategy. A child’s best attempt at love and safety.

Now, as adults, we get to update the story: ‘I am allowed to take up space.  I don’t need to abandon myself to be loved.’ And that’s not selfish. That’s sacred.