What is fawning? Signs to look out for

When we are brought up in dysfunctional homes, we often go in the fight or flight mode as a response to the chaos and conflict around us. This happens because the mind and the body constantly feel threatened. In such cases, often we go into the state of appeasement as a defense mechanism of responding to the constant fear around us. This response is known as fawning – it is a trauma response to fearful parents and overwhelming sense of threat. “Fawning is not unlike fight or flight. Somewhere along the way your body learned that the most useful response to have in moments of overwhelming threat is that of appeasement. To care about everyone else and to just make sure you are liked and seen as useful,” wrote Therapist Morgan Pommells as she explained fawning and how it affects us.

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Here are a few signs of fawning, pointed out by the therapist:

Agreeing at all times: Even when we sometimes disagree with people, we pretend to agree with them because we think if we raise the voice, it may lead to a conflict.

Diffuse conflict: As a sign of fawning, we become over-accommodating to people – even when there is a sign of conflict happening, we downplay and try to diffuse it instead of accepting and addressing it.

Boundaries: The sense of boundaries is almost non-existent for us since we try to keep our needs and expectations far down in the priority list. We always cross our own values and ethics to accommodate other’s needs.

However, when we grow up with these practices, in adulthood we often feel drained, frustrated and being taken for granted. There are ways to get out of fawning – the first way is to observe the nervous system and see the ways we get triggered. “Of course, this trauma response is likely no longer serving you in a variety of ways today. But that doesn’t mean we shame ourselves and see ourselves as defective. Quite the opposite actually. One of the best ways to soothe a trauma trigger and begin to work with our trauma responses is to validate our fear and thank our bodies for always trying to keep us safe,” added Morgan Pommells.