What are the fight, flight, freeze and fawn responses to trauma?

 You’ve likely heard the terms trauma, trauma-informed, PTSD and trauma responses.  The words fight, flight or freeze are used a lot in our culture to describe how we respond to different traumatic events.  And yet maybe you’re not exactly sure how that might play out in your life or the life of a friend who has survived a traumatic event(s).  I’m going to try to help you understand how the PTSD responses fight, flight, freeze or fawn might show up in your life. 

Imagine you are in the parking lot of your favourite mall along with four of your best friends.  As you come up to your car, you notice someone standing between your car and the one beside it, and they are noticeably agitated.  As you come up to them, they start yelling at you, berating you, and calling you very mean names.   

This experience could be defined as a traumatic event.  How?   

It’s unexpected.  You just came out of a mall with your best friends!  That usually means fun, relaxation, and lack of danger. 

It’s overwhelming.  To go from being relaxed to being on guard or having to deal with another person’s emotions can be overwhelming and changes your demeanour almost immediately. 

It changes how you move forward.  Even if your response to this event is relatively minor, you’ll remember it the next time you go out into a mall parking lot, and quite likely will be looking around to ensure you’re not going to encounter that again. 

Now as you look around to each of your friends, you notice that everyone has a different response to this event.  Depending on your experiences in life, you will assume a stance in response to the person who represents danger to you in this moment. 

Your one friend, Lily, stands calmly by and lets the person express their anger.  Lily doesn’t really seem phased by this interaction, and proceeds to the car, just ignoring the person.  This isn’t because she’s having a trauma response, but rather her life experiences have built up a resilience in her that she knows how to keep herself safe emotionally and physically and she is able to utilize her coping skills in that moment.

FIGHT

Frank is exhibiting a much different response to this situation.  Frank grew up in a house where this type of behaviour was typical.  One of his parents was quite typically loud, threatening, and disrespectful, and he never really felt safe at that moment.  In order to keep himself safe, Frank learned to FIGHT.  There have been times when he’s been known to physically interact with someone who appeared to be a threat to him, but today he reverts to matching the other driver’s intensity.  Frank’s whole body gets tight, and while his arms aren’t up in the air, his heart rate has increased, his face shows tension and intensity, and he feels that in order to feel safe and protect himself, he needs to enter into a fight with this person.  It’s the only way out of this in Frank’s eyes. 

FREEZE

You look over, and see that Ariana has stopped in her tracks.  You immediately think that she looks like Anna at the end of Frozen after Anna had frozen her in place.  Ariana couldn’t move if she wanted to.  She has learned that in order to keep herself safe, she needs to stop what she’s doing and wait out the aggression that is being displayed.  When Ariana was 15, she had a boyfriend take advantage of her sexually.  When she tried to fight that person, he just got more aggressive and hurt her.  When she laid still, he finished faster and would leave her alone.  So when Ariana encounters a difficult and traumatic event, her trauma response is to FREEZE.  As you talk later, Ariana mentions that she felt like she literally couldn’t take another step.  Her ability to think also seemed to freeze, and she might have even felt cold.  She wasn’t able to speak up at that moment either.  

FLIGHT

Hazel looks terrified.  Her face shows that she is not okay with this act of aggression.  Unlike Lily who calmly walked to the car, Hazel literally runs to the car, jumps in, and slams the door.  Hazel does not like confrontation and will flee it at every opportunity.  Recently, Hazel has been experiencing bullying at the hands of a co-worker.  That colleague does not know how or when to back down.  Hazel has tried being nice, she’s tried fighting back, and the only thing that has worked for her is to avoid her colleague at all costs.  While that might seem like a natural and easy response to you, other experiences in Hazel’s life have taught her that conflict means that she is not safe in her physical environment or in relationship, so she tends to implement the FLIGHT trauma response.  Hazel experiences this as the need to ensure that she always knows her escape route.  Her body is literally ready to run any time things don’t feel safe, and while she might not always be able to do so, her legs get tight, she leans forward, and her eyes might dart around while she tries to plan her way out of a difficult situation.

FAWN

And then you reflect on how you’re responding.  You go to the person who is angry, and try to find ways to make them happy.  Your reasoning is that if they can be pleased, then they will stop being so aggressive and will be happy with you.  The threat will stop if they feel like they are important, and that nothing you want matters except to do what they want.  Your body might not even be something you are aware of in that moment.  When your friends ask you later how you felt, you might struggle to identify it, because nothing else matters in that moment than ensuring that you can accommodate the needs of this person who is threatening you.  Your trauma response is to FAWN over the person.  You’ve had a lot of experience with this because of the abuse that you are experiencing with your spouse.  You have learned how to read the room whenever your partner is in it.  Their needs are more important than yours, and they let you know that.  You have low self-esteem, and your partner continues to emphasize that you don’t have any rights or needs in this relationship.  So you’ve learned how to make them feel better about themselves so that they will stop attacking you. 

Each of these responses is valid.  Your response to trauma serves a purpose, and that is to keep yourself safe, whether that’s physically or emotionally.  As you start working with a trauma-informed therapist, you can learn how to have a different response to potentially traumatic events.  You’ll start to identify what your needs are and how to recognize your value.  They will help you begin to have a voice in your life and your relationships.  You’ll learn what healthy boundaries are and how to implement them so that you can have authentic relationships with your friends and family.  And most of all, you’ll learn how to care for yourself, and know what you need in order to keep yourself safe. 

If you would like to learn more about fight, flight, freeze or fawn trauma responses and how you might be using them in your life, contact us today to book an appointment with one of our trauma-informed therapists. 

Lisa Catallo is the Owner & Director of Panorama Wellness Group. As a trauma-informed counsellor, she is passionate about helping you find healing from the traumatic experiences you’ve had so that you can live authentically in relationship with yourself and others.