FAWNING is a trauma survival response. People suffering from fawning want to please everyone, especially abusers to avoid mental, physical, and emotional harm. This behavior can disturb relationships, friendships, and damage an individual's overall health. It is extremely crucial to identify and overcome fawning at the earliest. Such actions, like fawning, can be misinterpreted as agreeableness and kindness. These individuals struggle to say “no” or express their true feelings, fearing rejection or anger from others. They fear punishment, rejection, or abandonment.

Curing "fawning" is commonly known for developing healthier patterns in your life. These patterns include building comfort while saying ‘No,’ recognizing triggers that lead to people-pleasing, seeking help from mental health professionals, and putting your needs first rather than others’ requirements. 

The study published in 2021, indicates the past trauma that can easily influence personality traits of an individual. Trying to fit in others’ worlds or trying to look good in other people’s eyes seem like harmless behavior but in this way you are killing your happiness and self-esteem. This fawn response will leave you emotionally exhausted, bitter, and chronically stressed. 

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4 Instinctive Responses to Danger 

1.Fight: This basically means confronting or resisting a perceived thread head-on.

2. Flight: In Fawning, the flight response indicates an individual to escape danger, physically or emotionally. 

3. Freeze: Freeze is a situation in which the body’s version of “playing dead.” In this mostly individuals emotionally shut down or dissociate.

4.Fawn: As mentioned earlier, fawning involves prioritizing others’ happiness and requirements at the expense of your own emotion and survival to avoid conflict and secure safety. The chronic fawning stems from the fear of rejection, abandonment, or harm.

Common Symptoms that triggers Fawning: 

1. You are a people-pleaser or caretaker: You always think about others and take care of other people’s expectations and requirements. You wanted to make them happy at any cost which is not right. Fawning is at the root of codependency which means seeking safety in friendships and relationships by giving up all your needs, requirements and trying to take responsibility for others behaviors. 

2. You avoid conflict: Those individuals who are suffering from fawning, avoid conflicts. Conflict can easily trigger an emotional flashback to a time when they faced extreme anger. As a result, those individuals immediately step into a peaceful situation and try to please the other person to avoid conflict. This provides short-term relief to the nervous system at the expense of long-term solutions to problems.

3. You tolerate toxic behaviors and struggle with boundaries: During fawning, people started tolerating toxic behaviors whether it would be anger, physical violence, or emotional torture. When you cater to everybody else’s requirements before yours, you risk depriving yourself of getting what you need in life. This can have serious consequences for your health as well as well-being.

4. You have trouble saying NO: People with fawning usually have trouble saying NO. If you say yes when other people ask you for help or make other demands on your time, it can become overwhelming for you. If you struggle while saying No then you must develop the habit of saying No without feeling bad or guilty. You must set boundaries. Having a hard time saying no is a sign that you can’t set healthy boundaries.

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5. Your self-worth is linked to others’ happiness: One of the most common symptoms of fawning is that your self-worth is linked to others’ happiness. Your self-esteem depends on how others’ are treating you. Sometimes you will feel completely worthless whereas on some days you will feel great about yourself. Stop comparing yourself with others’ actions and opinions.

How to stop being a people’s pleaser

If you want to manage fawning, start spending time with yourself and start prioritizing your emotions over others’ opinions and perspectives. Make a list of things that makes you happy, regardless of how they affect other people. Ask yourself what you want to achieve in your career, friendships, and spirituality. 

If you are dealing with fawning, then you must learn how to set strict boundaries. Take time to consider if you actually want to do the particular task or not. You can also keep it in your notes or reminders on your phone. If someone takes advantage of your kindness next time, decline when they make a request. 

Pleasing people is not a mental health problem, but it can easily toll on your emotional well-being which will affect you in the long run. This fawning trauma response is associated with mild anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Trauma is also connected with changes in brain activity. 

You should start practicing assertive communication as it will help you to overcome these situations easily, you can also take help from a therapist and a friend, whom you can trust. Express your needs and feelings clearly. You can do this without being aggressive. Monitoring your response is extremely crucial. Ask trusted friends or a therapist for feedback on your assertiveness.

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