Thread by @pwstranger

I listened to the most recent episode of @HiddenBrain today, and hearing some brave women share their stories made me think about how important it is to educate ourselves about trauma responses.

CW/TW: sexual assault

npr.org/player/embed/5…

It is very common for folks to hear someone share about abuse, assault, or other traumatic experiences, and then give some retort about how the survivor should have said no, fought back, resisted better, etc.

Essentially, what they're saying--among other things--is that everyone's trauma response should be "fight."

Almost everyone is familiar with the "fight-or-flight" response that our sympathetic nervous system engages in when we are under intense stress. But it is becoming better understood that there are more than just those two responses.

Pete Walker, M.A., MFT, has written about the "4 Fs": fight, flight, freeze, fawn. We often talk about how we can be "paralyzed by fear," which would be in line with the freeze response.

However, I think it's important to unpack the fawn response, since it seems to me that survivors who have responded to trauma in this way may be more so accused of being "willing participants."

Each person's in-the-moment responses to trauma are a complex combination involving factors of biology, personality, family systems, and larger societal systems.

How we respond to trauma is a mode of survival, and it is important to remember that whichever response is employed is serving that purpose.

Fawn responses are one way in which survival happens--by complying with what is happening in order to save yourself from the potentially more horrific consequences of fighting back.

For example, a child could quickly learn that it is "better" for them to submit to a parent's abuse after experiencing violent retaliation when they tried to fight back or say no.

A fawn response could also be the default for someone who has been in emotional dynamics fraught with coercion, manipulation, and control, in which they have been groomed to flatter and go along with their abuser.

I can imagine that a fawn response could also create extremely shame-laden and confusing narratives in a survivor's brain--that they were idiots for not saying no, that they were too weak for not fighting back, wondering if in some dark and twisted way they wanted it.

It is absolutely crucial that we see and understand the fawn response for what it is: the way in which that victim survived the trauma inflicted by their abuser.

It is no less "valid" a response than fighting or fleeing. And survivors with this trauma response, along with others, likely have had to overcome immense amounts of shame and terror to even name that what they experienced was abuse or assault.

We may tend to "prefer" survivor stories that have a narrative involving fighting or fleeing because such responses are more admired for seeming to be "valiant" or "brave" in some way.

But we must know that when you experience a near-death experience (and that is what our bodies experience in trauma) and live to tell of it, your story is worth the utmost dignity and respect, regardless of how you survived.