Fawning

· One ·

The Fourth F

What Is Fawning?

When I was thirteen years old, I loved sitting outside in the hot tub at night. We lived in Aspen, Colorado, and when the lights from the house were turned off, I could easily identify the constellations in the vast dark sky.

One night my stepdad Randy came to join me. His legs were like tree trunks as he stomped across the deck, commanding my attention. I watched as he stepped into the tub, his shorts puffing up with air before sinking into the darkness. Then I went back to stargazing, wondering which version of him I was getting: the one who seemed to despise me, correcting my every move, or the guy who gave off the appearance of being charming and kind.

Only a year earlier, Randy had gone from being my dad's best friend to my mom's husband, and shortly thereafter he had moved us to this remote mountain town. I was still absorbing the shock, isolated from friends and family in this strange new place. I quickly memorized the local tavern's phone number, as the bartenders often confirmed our parents' whereabouts. This allowed my brother, stepbrother, and me to prepare for the unpredictability that often erupted when they returned home.

The rules of this new household were arbitrary, based on Randy's mood and ever-changing. New standards erupted on the spot. No matter how hard I tried to follow them, it was impossible. And when I didn't, I was grounded-unable to leave the house for months while he gave me the silent treatment.

But now, in the hot tub, he wasn't ignoring or criticizing me. His mood seemed pleasant, and it was a relief. "I bet you wish you could live up there with the stars, huh?" Randy laughed a little, but he wasn't laughing at me. It was like he was acknowledging: I know you wish you weren't here-with me-and that's okay. Speaking to that truth was disarming. It felt like maybe we could be real with each other. My hard shell softened against the jets, and I gave a little giggle while poking at my braces with my tongue.

"Why don't you come sit on my lap so you don't have to crank your neck?" Randy motioned that I could rest my head against his chest while looking up at the sky. More than anything, after the precarity of the last year, I wanted to feel cared for. I wanted a happy family. I perceived his invitation as an olive branch of stepfatherly love.

I drifted over to his side of the tub, sat in his lap, and leaned back so that my head rested on his upper chest. My toes peeked out of the bubbling water, while his arms anchored me in place. My guard came down even further as I felt tethered, seen, and appreciated.

"I like being this close to you," Randy said as his hands lightly squeezed my hips. "I'm so glad you don't seem to mind."

My body tensed as my thoughts raced. Why would he say that? What does he mean? I immediately felt the implication of his words, hovering over the energy of his hands, and knew I probably should mind. But I also knew I had to walk a fine line. I didn't want to get in trouble-provoking the version of him that terrified me. So, I responded carefully, keeping my voice thin as the mountain air, "Why would I mind?"

As I waited for Randy's answer in the hot tub, the prickliness of his body hair felt like needles on my skin. The water was creating a suction between us, and I felt trapped. I held my body as still as possible.

"Some girls are uptight," he said. "They might want more personal space from the men in their lives." He paused and then continued: "I'm glad you aren't like them and that we can be this close."

This moment changed everything. At least it changed something in me. It was the first time I felt unsafe with Randy while he was seemingly being kind. All the other times I felt unsafe, he was aggressive and mean. It felt chaotic. But in this moment, his voice was soft and steady. He appeared gentle. Yet I had a conscious sense in my body that he wasn't saying the whole truth. Something was deeply wrong.

If I could slow it down, it's as though my psyche were split in two. On the one hand, I was afraid. I was thirteen, just a child, sensing a threat to my sense of safety. On the other hand, I had to filter my fear through the power dynamics in the hot tub. This was, after all, the adult authority figure in my life. From the minute Randy had moved in with us, my mom's small frame had slipped into his shadow. Her limbs moved only when his did, her words formed only when she'd heard him say them before. I was constantly wondering where my mom was, even when she was standing right in front of me. Randy was in charge, and we all needed to stay on his good side.

So what did I do next? While we typically think of fight, flight, or freeze as responses to threat, my body instinctively knew that these reflexes were not available.

Fighting wasn't really an option. First of all, Randy wasn't being overtly hostile, so there was nothing to fight against. Rather, he was grooming me-emotionally manipulating me-and it was effective. I began to second-guess myself, wondering if this was possibly as innocuous as he was portraying. Additionally, Randy was twice my size. Although I'd never witnessed physical violence between him and my mom, I'd seen her bruises. Fighting would have been dangerous.

Fleeing is, of course, also impossible for most children. Where are we meant to run? To whom? We humans are reliant on our caregivers for longer than any other species, needing the adults in our lives to survive. I was far from my friends and family. I had nowhere else safe to go.

Freezing is a common trauma response, but in this situation my body didn't freeze-at least not completely. I had to continue navigating this situation with some presence of mind. I sensed that if I followed his cues, I could likely maintain his affection without making things worse. I didn't feel safe, but I had to pretend otherwise. I did not like him, but I needed him to like me.

So my body found another option. In the hot tub alone with my stepfather, I was terrified, but I acted normal. I played it cool. I appeared agreeable, even ingratiating. My behavior communicated: nothing to see here. I lingered just long enough before saying I was ready to get out. Then I peeled myself off his lap and wished I could blink myself into my bedroom as I stepped onto the deck. I wanted to run but forced myself to walk casually, so that every step felt like it was in slow motion. A half-naked, soaking wet, slow-motion parade.

It would be thirty years before I'd understand what happened that evening, and how this event shaped my response to any sign of conflict going forward. It turns out there is a fourth F of trauma responses. It's called fawning.

Connection Is Protection

Until recently, when someone used the word fawning, what might've come to mind was an employee fawning over a boss for a raise or a girl fawning over a boy she wanted to like her. The definition in Merriam-Webster's dictionary is: "to court favor by a cringing or flattering manner." But that doesn't get to the heart of what fawning is in the context of trauma.

Pete Walker, a psychotherapist and the author of Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving, coined the term fawning after working with countless survivors of trauma and abuse. He defined fawning as "a response to a threat by becoming more appealing to the threat." Fawners mirror or merge with someone else's desires or expectations, to defuse conflict rather than confront it directly. Because it's their best chance to stay safe. At least for now.

When you're being hit on by an aggressive or unwanted suitor and you smile and giggle, that's fawning. If you don't stand up for your values in a toxic work environment to keep your job, that's fawning, too. When you continually dismiss a parent's abusive behavior to maintain the connection, you guessed it. Fawning.

In other words, fawning as a trauma response puts our behaviors in the context of disempowerment or maltreatment. It's not about brownnosing for an A or sucking up to people in power. Fawning isn't conscious manipulation. Rather, it's a way we seek safety in the face of exploitation, shame, neglect, abuse, or other harm.

Interestingly, fawning can be likened to a core principle found in the Japanese martial art of aikido, which means "way of harmonizing." Rather than attack or retreat, the goal in aikido is to move with one's opponent, mirroring their energy, their intentions. Connecting with an adversary allows you to sense their next move, to keep both parties safe while orienting toward a peaceful resolution.

This is what happens when we fawn in the face of danger. When we feel unsafe, we sync with our aggressors (or abusers) with the hope of emerging unscathed. We strive to stay connected because we are dependent on the person who is hurting us. If it's a parent (or stepparent), we are dependent on their care. If it is a boss, we are dependent on a paycheck or career advancement. If it's a partner, we are dependent on their income, the ability to see our children, the status that marriage affords.

With fawning, connection means protection.

While fawning is meant to neutralize danger (and it does), it has an invisible downside. Merging with others' desires means surrendering our own. When we fawn, we forgo assertiveness and become overly accommodating. We shapeshift to stay safe. We submit to the very person or people who have harmed us. Essentially, we abandon ourselves when we fawn-our needs, values, and opinions-and this reinforces our vulnerability.

Sometimes referred to as please and appease, fawning is often equated with people-pleasing or codependency. However, as I'll explore later, both of those terms imply that we have some agency in our actions. Fawning is not a conscious choice. It is a survival mechanism. In a nanosecond, the reptilian brain selects the response that offers the greatest chance for survival. Afterward, the body remembers what was successful the first time and repeats it in the future. The fawner's intentions then were never to please or compulsively caretake. We were looking for power in situations where we were powerless.

I'm Fine, You're Fine, Everything's Fine

Three years after that evening in the hot tub, as things with Randy continued to get progressively worse, he took me on a secret trip to Las Vegas. My mother was out of town with her dying father, and Randy concocted various lies to steal me away. When we arrived, he made me hold his hand throughout the casinos. He paraded me around as his girlfriend, saying we'd get in trouble if anyone knew I was underage. When we got back, my mom was still gone. It felt as though nothing had technically "happened." He didn't sexually abuse me. Yes, he checked us into a suite with a king-size bed and a mirrored ceiling. Yes, we slept in the same bed, him half naked, me in bulky sweatpants turned away from him clutching my side of the bed. But though my body knew it felt wrong, and I was terrified, what could I truly say happened?

I didn't say anything to anyone in authority until months later, after Randy left a sticky note on my pillow and it felt like I finally had something concrete. Though I no longer remember what the note said, it was enough to signal the dynamic of our relationship. I brought it to school, where I showed it to my school counselor. She looked at me with concern.

"Ingrid, we've got to talk about this." I shuddered as I knew it was time for someone to know the whole story. I told her about Vegas.

This was an example of a healthy fight response. I knew I needed help thwarting Randy's continued advances. I wanted my mother to know the truth, I wanted her to leave Randy, I wanted to be saved from this ongoing nightmare and intuitively knew that I needed someone with more authority to help me. But when my counselor arranged for social services to come to my school for us all to sit down with my mother, rather than being rescued by her, she stayed silent. My mom got a stoic look on her face and demanded that her husband be called to the school, not to "get in trouble," but to manage the narrative. When he burst into the room, it was to call me a liar. He blamed me for all the troubles in our family.

What ultimately hurt me the most was that my mom took his side-pursuing her own version of nothing to see here. What Randy did traumatized me, but I truly believed that when my mom heard what he had done, she'd take me in her arms, saying, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. And eventually, We're leaving.

Instead, I watched as the one person I thought would save me chose the side of my tormentor.

Many fawners have an experience like this in our backgrounds-something that shows us we can never wholly rely on anyone but ourselves. We've learned that interpersonal safety nets are for other people, that unconditional love is either a myth or our job to uphold. Consequently, we often become hyper-independent. Unable to lean into healthy relational support, we have to figure it out for ourselves. So we do. It's common that we don't even tell others when bad stuff happens. We swallow it down, pretend everything is fine, and continue fawning for perpetual safety-an exhausting and lonely endeavor.

Meanwhile, fawners often look perfectly fine, like we're managing well. We frequently are high-functioning, having successful careers or long-term relationships, but it's never the whole story. The truth is that we've accommodated so much for so long, we don't even feel new trespasses. We maintain the status quo through numbing ourselves or depression, aiming to "be better," as the solution to all relational difficulties. We actually believe our incessant self-gaslighting that tells us, Maybe it's not that bad.

Additionally, many people have learned to fawn in their families or their larger communities. Touted as simple "respect," fawning is an adaptive response to living in a hierarchal, patriarchal society. Persistent lessons have primed us to be fawners: