Fight, Flight, Freeze and Fawn

Trauma is not just an emotional experience; it’s a physiological one. When we go through trauma, it can profoundly alter how our brains and bodies function. This isn’t about being “weak” or “damaged”; it’s about how human beings are wired for survival.

Unfortunately, the traditional medical model of trauma often overlooks four key truths, as Dr. Bessel van der Kolk so eloquently points out:

1. Our capacity to harm is matched by our capacity to heal.
2. Restoring relationships and community is central to restoring well-being.
3. We can learn to regulate our own physiology through practices like breathing, movement, and touch.
4. We can create safer environments where people can truly thrive.

When we ignore these dimensions of healing, we risk keeping people trapped in cycles of dysregulation and disconnection.

How Trauma Changes the Brain

Van der Kolk uses a really useful metaphor in The Body Keeps the Score to explain how trauma impacts three key brain systems:

• The cook: Your limbic system, especially the thalamus, gathers sensory information and tries to make sense of it, like a cook assembling a recipe.
• The smoke detector: Your amygdala quickly scans for danger and sounds the alarm when a threat is perceived.
• The watchtower: Your medial prefrontal cortex gives you the ability to observe, reflect, and regulate your responses.

When trauma occurs, this system breaks down:

• The amygdala becomes hypervigilant, seeing danger everywhere, even when it’s not present.
• The medial prefrontal cortex struggles to maintain perspective and self-regulation.
• The limbic system struggles to integrate and organize new experiences, particularly memories.

“When the alarm bell of the emotional brain keeps signaling that you are in danger, no amount of insight will silence it.”

Why Memories After Trauma Feel Different

When we experience trauma, stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline flood the body. These hormones:

• Ramp up the amygdala (the smoke detector), making it more reactive
• Suppress the hippocampus, which is critical for forming coherent, time-stamped memories.

This is why traumatic memories are often fragmented. They show up as images, sounds, or sensations without a clear narrative. It also explains why a seemingly unrelated trigger (a smell, a sound, a glance) can suddenly send someone back into a trauma state without knowing why.

The Survival Responses: Fight, Flight, Freeze, and Fawn

Most people are familiar with the fight-or-flight response. When the brain senses danger, it prepares the body to either confront or escape the threat. However, there are two other important responses to be aware of: freeze and fawn.

Fight Response

When you enter fight mode, you may:

• Yell or argue
• Physically lash out
• Experience intense anger

Flight Response

When you enter flight mode, you may:

• Fidget or shake
• Feel restless or trapped
• Zone out or avoid confrontation

Freeze Response

When you enter freeze mode, you may:

• Feel numb, heavy, or disconnected
• Experience a slowed heart rate
• Mentally “check out” or faint

Many people feel shame when they freeze in a traumatic situation and wish they had fought back. But this is not a failure of character; it’s an adaptive survival response. Your body made the choice that it believed had the best chance of keeping you alive.

Fawn Response

Fawning is another survival strategy, especially common in those who experienced trauma in relationships where fighting or fleeing wasn’t an option, such as in childhood abuse or neglect. In the fawn response, you:

• Appease or placate others to avoid conflict
• Abandon your own needs or boundaries to keep others happy
• Become hyper-focused on others’ moods and needs

Fawning can look like being overly accommodating, people-pleasing, or lacking a sense of self. It may have helped you survive a dangerous relationship dynamic, but when it persists into adult life, it can leave you vulnerable to further harm.

It’s crucial to recognize fawning as a survival response, not a personality flaw. Like all the other trauma responses, it is a sign that your nervous system has adapted to keep you safe.

Why Trauma Keeps Us Hypervigilant

After trauma, the brain can get stuck in survival mode:

• The amygdala remains overstimulated, looking for threats everywhere.
• The hippocampus shrinks, making it more difficult to distinguish between past and present dangers.
• The sympathetic nervous system stays activated, leading to fatigue and emotional reactivity.

This is why people with trauma histories often struggle with anxiety, hypervigilance, relationship difficulties, and emotional regulation.

Not All Emotions Are True Messengers

You may have heard the idea that “all emotions are messengers.” That is largely true, but with an important caveat:

If you are struggling with anxiety, PTSD, or depression, your emotions may sometimes send distorted messages. Hypervigilance wires your brain to see a threat where there is none.

The Spider Example

If you’re afraid of spiders, you may start seeing “spiders” everywhere, even when it’s just a speck of dirt. Your body responds with a racing heart, sweating, and panic. If you then analyze this response without first calming your body, you might convince yourself that the world is full of danger.

In trauma recovery, learning when to explore your emotional messages and when to ground yourself first is essential.

Before constructing a narrative about what’s happening, your first priority should be to regulate your nervous system and assess whether the threat is real.

How to Begin Healing

Here is one simple body-based approach to use when you feel triggered:

1. Notice: What sensations are happening in your body?
2. Assess: Are you safe in this moment? Is the threat real or imagined?
3. Regulate: Use grounding tools, such as breathing, movement, and co-regulation with another person, to calm your body.
4. Reflect: Once calm, you can choose whether or not to explore the meaning of the emotional message.

If you try to interpret your emotions when you’re still stuck in fight, flight, freeze, or fawn, you risk reinforcing distorted beliefs and deepening your distress.

Remember: Not all emotions are facts. The body cannot always tell the difference between a real threat and an imagined one, especially after trauma.

Moving Toward Empowerment

Healing from trauma is not about getting rid of your survival responses; it’s about giving them new context and flexibility.

When you understand how your brain and body adapt to keep you safe, you can bring compassion to your responses, whether they show up as fight, flight, freeze, or fawn.

And with the right tools, like nervous system regulation, safe relationships, and therapeutic support, you can begin to reclaim your sense of choice and agency.

Healing is possible when we restore connections to ourselves, to others, and to the community.