A trauma response by definition is the repeated occurrence of a coping mechanism or behavior that helped you survive from trauma. The two that we think about most commonly are fight or flight, but these are not all. These are two of the main categories of trauma responses along with freeze or fawn. We are going to take a bit of time to dive into each of these responses. It is important to remember that everyone reacts differently to a traumatic event and the response may vary even between two people who experienced the exact same event.
What are the Four Main Trauma Responses?
There are four main categories of trauma responses: fight, flight, freeze, and fawn.
Fight- This trauma response looks like pushing back against danger. For example, hitting someone to protect yourself.
Flight- This trauma response looks like getting away from danger. For example, running away from a scary situation.
Freeze- This trauma response looks like not being able to move away from a situation. For example, playing dead to avoid being attacked/eaten by an animal.
Fawn- This trauma response looks like people pleasing. For example, doing anything to make an abuser happy to avoid conflict.
Important Things To Be Mindful Of
When we look back on a traumatic event, sometimes we might blame ourselves for our trauma responses. For example, I have felt ashamed of things that I did or didn’t do when my ex-husband was being abusive, especially when it comes to freezing or fawning. When my ex-husband was abusive I felt like I didn’t do enough to get away because I both froze and tried to make him happy.
What I have learned was that my body and brain were doing everything I could to survive. I had fought back with words and tried to run away from him. However, he had me cornered and was bigger/stronger than me and had a gun. It wasn’t safe or possible to run/fight him in my mind, so we tried anything else we could do to make it through and live. This looked like trying to make him overly happy and being as still and frozen as possible in hopes he would leave me alone. Then once I was safe, my flight response took over and allowed me to get away.
Give yourself some grace when it comes to your trauma responses. You are not directly in control of them in the immediate moment of a traumatic event. You are doing everything you can do to survive. When they become problematic is when these responses stay overactivated when you are no longer in a traumatic situation. That is something that you can work on navigating through therapy and with other mental health resources. It will take time and we do not want these responses to go away entirely because they are there with an important purpose. They have the purpose of keeping us safe!
