Fawn.

 

Let’s talk trauma response.
Particularly because it basically explains everything I do on a daily basis.

We all know fight or flight.

How about freeze or fawn?

I want to make this a 4 part series at some point…but I actually started this post to talk about fawn.

Personally- the name pisses me off because it is a baby deer…helpless and unable to fend for themselves.

What I think people forget is that all 4 of these trauma responses can consist at once. One human being can handle situations with all of these different responses.

I pride myself on being an incredibly strong woman that can care for my babies (and others) without needing help for myself. The idea of letting someone else help me sounds great…but I never feel safe enough to let them. If they do help…I then feel so incredibly guilty for letting them that it turns into an entirely different relationship. I will always feel like I owe them something. Meanwhile, I will kill myself to help someone else, and then feel guilty if they try to return the favor.

This response is an issue.

I know it is.

Yet, it is one thing I am still doing every damn day. I am bleeding myself as dry as I possibly can…but when I ask for help I feel so wildly guilty. I would like to say it is just another phase of life…one that we move out of and learn to prioritize ourselves…

But I realize this isn’t a phase of my life.

It’s a personality trait that I have allowed to fully consume me.

I take the act of taking care of other people…and I have turned it into a whole ass personality.

I can’t help you today? Clearly it is a flaw in my own personality.
(It could not possibly be that I am tapped out and wildly exhausted.)

You are frustrated with me or possibly just in a bad mood?
(Definitely my fault and my job to fix.)

I need something, you can’t provide it?
(My fault and I should stop asking for things.)

I want to be clear, I don’t believe the second half of those statements…
it is just what goes through my head constantly.

I do not know how to be mad in an appropriate way. I can make an excuse/a reason/an anything be completely fine if you give me a minute.

It should be an Olympic sport to justify any behavior of anyone around you to make it right or okay…despite the repercussions.

I posted a quote years ago that said:
“I’m drowning, and you’re describing the water”…

I nearly had it tattooed on myself to remind myself that our power resides in ourselves and not in anyone else. 

Instead I got...

“fear her, for she walks into fire and smiles.”

Because I didn’t want that tattoo to be about anyone else…only about the fact I will take any horrific situation and tackle it with a smile on my face. Maybe from exhaustion, maybe from anger…but it will get handled…and I will walk into whatever fire sits in front of me with a damn smile on my face.

Fawn.

No boundaries.

Loss of self.

Codependency.

People pleasing.

Chronic empathy.

Why is it that someone else’s bad decisions or lack of action are my responsibility?

I know they aren’t.

But I can also follow that statement of with 35 years of proof of how it’s actually all my fault.
Simply because I didn’t FIX it myself.

Fawn.