The Fawn

 

The Fawn. It’s a less-discussed “4 F” response to trauma. We have all heard of the commonly discussed, “Fight or Flight.” “Freeze” is yet another response when our brain tells us we are in danger.

But “Fawn” doesn’t get as much coverage. Still, how many of us practice this coping mechanism with regularity? How many of us choose this option as the desired approach to try to stay safe?

Fawning is when we give in; fawning is when we acquiesce. Again, its motivation is to attempt to stay safe when we’re in danger. “Playing Possum,” if you will.

It especially come into view within the context of abuse. Our abusers, whether they be parents, spouses, life partners, friends, bosses, or co-worker, for instance, are the Sabertooth Tigers our primal brain and nervous system feels endangered by.

And the fawning response made me think of a childhood experience, one with an actual fawn.

Being Rescued is “For the Best:”

When I was eight years old, my dad brought home a fawn from behind our grove. Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite as simple as that. For wildlife experts strong assert that, many times, when a fawn is resting, by itself in its environment, the young creature is simply waiting for the return of its mother.

And that was the case here.

My dad didn’t understand that; he just saw an opportunity to take a baby deer as a pet. In his mind, he was “rescuing” the fawn. He couldn’t see any other explanation worthy of considering.

And that seems to be a common first point theme when it comes to fawning. Whether it is the toxic person or we, the targets of abuse and dysfunctional patterns, there appears to be an agreement on one concept; being rescued is the goal. The abuser may assert that he/she knows “what’s for the best.” Therefore, a Machiavellian “ends justify the means” takes over, deciding that the abuser needs to have control over another person, no matter what that entails. This is what is “for the best.”

And, for the person who is abused, the fawning often results, because he/she believes that being overpowered and controlled is “for the best.” The abused often agrees with his/her oppressor, while simultaneously being afraid of that oppressor. The fawning response exists because we want to stay safe, and we believe that only by giving in, surrendering, and acquiescing, we will able to remain that way.

However, what is often more accurate of our lives is much like that little fawn. We don’t need to be rescued by the dysfunctional person who can harm us. Sometimes, we just need to be left alone in the grove, with all parties minding their own business.

That seems to be a common challenge to those of us fawning types. We don’t believe in our abilities to take care of ourselves; we fear what will happen if we are alone. Yes, often, we need help outside of ourselves. But we also need to remember we have autonomy that we must strengthen, like a muscle, over the course of our lives. Many of us have not gotten the permission we need to do that strength training. We are shamed for being our individual selves, for having dissenting opinions and thoughts, for looking or presenting ourselves differently from “the norm.”

So, we throw the baby out with the bathwater, all because someone conveyed to us that we, in and of ourselves, we not enough of this or that. We needed them, therefore, to be who we are supposed to be and, of course, to be safe in the world. We need to fawn, or we will die. Just give ourselves up, piece by piece.

Perhaps, the first part of our healing we need to employ is adjusting to it being just us, by ourselves. That is the scariest thought for many of us. But we already are hanging out in the proverbial grove, with our spotted selves, camouflage for what we need to protect ourselves. If we could “just be,” maybe the camouflaging white spots would work in our favor. Just start being, resting in that grove, not dependent or stressed that some “other” will come and rescue us, meeting our needs. We are safe on our own, perhaps.

Imprinting:

Once my dad scooped up this fawn and brought it home, eight-year-old me experienced this little fawn viewing me as “mama.” The sweet spotted creature followed me everywhere; it imprinted on me. If I walked too fast ahead of it, I’d hear this insistent bleating coming at me.

I could relate to the deer. For me, fawning was my own version of bleating, again, an effort to stay safe. I had “imprinted” on the dysfunction, believing I needed it just to survive.

It started with my family of origin. Then, it spread into my friendships and other personal relationships. It hinged on dependency, mainly, I needed them, regardless of how harmful they were towards me.

I was in a begging position of bleating, of chasing, of crying, “See me! Love me!” I determined I needed to do whatever I could do just to make that reality happen. I would run harder and faster. I would put someone else’s wants and expectations ahead of mine. I would defer to their superiority over my inferiority.

I’d pant, “Is that good enough? Will you accept me now? Will you take care of me?”

This is a most insidious form of imprinting, internalizing the message that we are that dependent upon others, harm or no harm, violent rage, anger, abuse, or neglect, included within the spectrum of our life experiences.

Somehow, we believe there is something fundamentally wrong with us, as individuals, so much so, we need to accept, beg for, tolerate, chase, bleat a screaming bleat, and modify ourselves for someone else.

We believe we need to adjust for them, instead of a mutually give- and- take component to the relationship. We decide getting the love, the commitment, the approval, and the safety are solely dependent upon us, not them. This is a dangerous trap.

Many of us have only taught only this “truth” from harmful others. Many of us have been stunted developmentally because of it. Many of us feel like dependent infants, like my young Bambi, as if that is the best, and the most, we could hope for out of life.

It is not.

Whether or not you and I feel like a helpless, spindly fawn, it doesn’t change the reality that we are not entirely the sum total of what we feel, even as stunted as that experience may be. We are more than this.

As you read these words, they are not being read by a clueless, helpless child. You are an adult right here, right now, regardless of how proficient you are at “adulting.” You survived your warzones. You survived the instances when you were left for dead: emotional, physical, mental, sexual, spiritual near-death experiences. You made it through them all to read these words now.

Give yourself some credit for that!

Imprint on that, while you recover from your own brand of toxic imprinting. You are doing better than you think you are.

Really.

Coping:

As the days rolled by with Bambi, my family and I did what we could to take care of the little thing. The small critter slept in my room; we bottle fed it cow’s milk. I snuggled with its spotted self. We kept it warm with blankets.

I wasn’t a mother deer, but I tried to create a reasonable facsimile. We were all coping, doing what we could to keep the fawn alive. No, it wasn’t the perfection of nature, sustaining this wild animal, but it was something, right?

It was something.

Something. It’s a loaded word.

And its loaded quality extends to the “F” response of fawning for those of us who need to practice it.

For, let’s examine the mechanics, perhaps, of an abusive, dysfunctional situation.

Is it ideal, representing what a family, a marriage, a friendship, etcetera, should be?

Answer: No. It is not. Sometimes it’s dangerous. Life-threatening. It certainly is not healthy or happy.

Yes, for many of us in abusive dynamics, we feel under threat. Unsafe. Many of us are confused, as we have probably been gaslit about our own experiences by our abusers.

Off-kilter, insecure, and lacking in confidence, we can reach the conclusion we have no other recourse, except to appease and please. Fawning is the less-than-ideal- choice for a less-than-ideal circumstance. We don’t have the inherent right of autonomy, personhood, contrary belief or opinion. We have “my way or the highway” instead.

So, with that, we do whatever we need to do to survive. We can sometimes do things that would get us judged and shamed by outside parties. Sometimes, we violate our consciences and moral codes of conduct.

But much like war, we are in combat. We do things, in the name of surviving wartime.

If we had other options and circumstances, we would choose those avenues.

But we don’t have them at our disposal.

We are cornered. Trapped. Fending for ourselves. Raising ourselves. Surviving.

Let’s let ourselves off the hook. We did the best we could.

And remember, we are still here.

Triumph.

Release the Fawn/Release Control:
After one full week of “Life with Bambi,” things changed.

Because my family was in uncharted territory, housing a wild animal, even through it was a baby animal, my mother sought advice from a game warden of a wildlife refuge. Not surprisingly, he told her we could not keep the fawn; we needed to turn the creature over to people who knew how to take care of a fragile, wild fawn.

And that’s exactly what we did.

I didn’t want to let Bambi go. I wanted the fawn to continue being “my pet.” But I was eight years old. I didn’t understand we were out of our depths here. I didn’t understand that Bambi would grow up, with long, powerful legs that could kick me into a new galaxy. I didn’t understand that keeping this adorable fawn was not only not for its own best interest, it was also cruel. There was a hard truth I needed to face: we could not give Bambi exactly what it needed for a happy and healthy life.

The Significance of the Fawn:

Years later, I applied my experiences with the baby deer towards the healing from my own abuse experiences. And, of course, the coping strategy of “fawning” was not too far away from that work.

As painful as it was handing over that baby deer when I was a child, releasing the fawning behavior, as an adult, not surprisingly, was more complicated.

After all, I had Bambi for only one week. I had my fawning behavior for a lifetime.

So, I have since learned a few things which have helped me in my recovery from abuse.

First, Fawning IS a Real Thing:

The old saying goes, “Knowledge is power,” or, more specifically, “the application of knowledge is power.” Whatever the case may be, possessing the knowledge that fawning behavior is a legitimate coping strategy many of us have had to use in our lives can give credence to our experiences. Being in warzones, such as we were, we needed to survive them. We may not have been as skilled at fighting or fleeing; maybe we didn’t try to freeze and blend into our surroundings.

But we learned that that appeasing could take the heat off from us, at least, temporarily. Fawning could save us some pain, terror, and conflict. As the targets of abusive situations then, we didn’t have the language to know what we were doing. But we were doing it, nonetheless.

And that needs to be acknowledged and respected, first by and within us. We survived. With the extreme conditions that these dysfunctional situations often bring, that is, indeed, high praise.

So start giving yourself some of that praise for, again, surviving.

You did it! That’s powerful.

I am Safe:

Equally powerful for me personally is the realization that I am safe.

For those of us who have been abused, it is not such a no brainer.

Many of us have been in danger. Many of us have lived that way since childhood.

Some of us, as adults, have found ourselves in unsafe situations and relationships.

And now, as the adult, you and I can be empowered to make another decision.

Once, I needed to fawn in every situation because every situation had threat built within it. But, once I left that situation, I was now faced with a reality that not everyone was coming to get me. A shocker to my system. It prompted me saying to myself, “I am safe.” And it prompted me believing it, which I did, gradually, more and more.

Getting safe help is a large component to the safe reality. Support groups, therapy, and seeking trusted people who are not the familiar, but toxic, loved ones is key. And it is different, on a different timetable for each person. But discovering what that looks like for that individual is the important first step. Taking it can start the freeing course of life changes.

And yes, it is scary. But safety is worth it.

I Deserve To Be Safe:

Again, we are back to “knowledge is power,” or, “the application of knowledge is power.” In tandem with the knowledge that I am safe was also the realization I deserved safety as well.

Many of us have been told and have believed the lie we deserved harsh treatment in life. We believe we are created just to be tortured, abused, neglected, and in danger. It’s all about the low self-esteem that has been forced upon us, again, many times, in childhood.

But anyone can tear down another person at any time. And it’s all inexcusable to do that.

Each human being is sacred, and worthy of dignity, respect, and love. Each person has the right and the need to be safe.

That includes you; that includes me.

There is no preferential treatment here.

All means all.

Limits, Boundaries, and No:

Once we have embraced our value, our right to be safe, loved and treated well in life, once we are working on our self-esteem issues, again, what next follows is what that looks like for each one of us. That means we must decide what limits, boundaries, and the word, “no” means to and for us.

For me personally, those limits, boundaries, and the very word, “no” were “Anti-fawn”- and completely unacceptable to enforce. Yet enforce is exactly what I needed to do.

Where I once just automatically cooperated and surrendered, I now ask more questions, discern each situation, and open myself to, yes, conflict and uncomfortable moments with people.

Yes, these moments are uncomfortable. There’s no way around that fact. But that discomfort is not the end of the world. It’s no big secret that people would much rather hear “yes” than “no.” But the truth of a circumstance must always win out. If it is not authentically a request or a situation that I feel good about, or feel “a yes” about, I have every right and responsibility to honor that reality for myself.

Even if that displeases others.

I have learned that, while “yes,” is easier conflict-wise, “no” is ultimately, more satisfying to each of us as individuals. We may have to fight harder with saying the more unpopular “no,” enforcing limits and boundaries, but, more than likely, we will sleep better at night for it.

Cliché Imperfection In Time:

Not a fun fact concerning fawning… or most other things, for that matter: none of this is instant. It takes time, within an imperfect setting.

Yay.

Bambi, hopefully, led a full, happy, and healthy life at that wildlife refuge. But I will never know for sure. Even if that were the case, this fawn would not experience a perfect life. There would be some things that happened, because of, well, life.

“…time and chance happen to us all.”

Ecclesiastes 9:11 

Even a little deer, I suppose.

I have learned, over time, I need to increase my patience with myself. Because of abusive dynamics, I was subjected to the hurrying pressure of doing things perfectly, constantly. There was no acknowledgment of human limits, and certainly, no tolerance of imperfection. It took me escaping my childhood to realize how imperfect life is, by design. And no one is to blame for that.

It is what it is.

Bambi gave me multiple lessons, beyond its mere fawnhood.

That small deer, in the span of seven days, taught me the power represented in something that appears to be powerless. Perhaps, that may be a fitting way to describe the coping strategy of fawning. On the surface, engaging in this behavior may look weak, pathetic, and as helpless and fragile as a young fawn.

But looks can be deceiving.

Nature, in full force, has a way of fighting for survival. Each one of Bambi’s spots and bleats is an example of nature’s survival mode. Now, translate that to our mercenary choices to do whatever it takes to stay safely alive. “Giving in” is not simply that. It goes deeper and stronger. It is how we stay alive; it is how we fight.

And I believe that needs to be recognized and respected.

Copyright © 2021 by Sheryle Cruse