passionately-curious-pip-blog - Tumblr blog

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It’s unfair that you expect yourself to be able to do more than your very best. We all have a limit, we can’t do more than our very best. Be kind to yourself

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i hope you heal from the things no one ever apologized for

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TW: discussion of mental responses to abuse

The Fawn Response

Most of us are familiar with the fight or flight response but not many talk about the Fawn Response.

"Physiologically, a fawn response involves reading the social and emotional cues of others to attend to and care for their needs. Fawning also involves disconnecting from body sensations, going “numb” and becoming “cut off” from your own needs." (https://drarielleschwartz.com/the-fawn-response-in-complex-ptsd-dr-arielle-schwartz/#.YUXJ1bcpCh8)

I am a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. I used to think that because I received intensive therapy and have a strong support system that I was "healed" and had nothing more to "complain" about when I hit middle school and started the "who am I?" process of self discovery. My mother instilled upon me the idea that I was not to be victimized. I was strong and capable and refused to let them "win" by letting it affect me now.

I didn't realize that being strong and capable doesn't mean you are not affected by what has happened to you. This determination to not let what happened when I was so little influence me now was a point of pride for me.

I didn't realize that despite my support network, I was still being impacted by what happened to me and would be for a very long time. I had cultivated a strong fawn response early in life due to my abuser. This fawn response has rested in the foundation of how I react to others. I try to anticipate needs, become on high alert when I am around anyone angry or upset and feel very guilty when I can't make it better (even if it doesn't have anything to do with me).

I unknowingly carried this fawn response to college where it pushed me through several other traumatic situations. No matter where I was, a small part of me was in survival mode and this mode was triggered and intensified when I was with anyone else.

I'm only now starting to realize how my fawn response has contributed to my decisions and mistakes. It's hard not to hate it and hate my abuser for giving it to me. It's hard not to wonder what I would be without it. But looking back is for reflecting, not changing what has already happened and learning about my fawn response is helping me to heal and forgive myself in ways I didn't realize I needed.

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TW: Discussion of feeling after abuse

Your pain isn't unrelatable...neither is mine. But growing up, it sure felt like it. I felt like I was holding this dark secret and people could see me and just know that I was off or wrong. There was something about me that was shameful because of what had happened to me. I felt guilty for existing and taking up space. I felt like I needed to earn my place in situations and had a hard time asking for anything for fear of taking too much or being a burden. I still struggle with these feelings daily, but identifying them has helped me to take a small level of control over them.

I can reflect like this now after years of therapy but it has taken 10 years of on and off therapy and some serious work to reach this point alone. Everyone says "you are not alone"... but I always felt that I didn't belong in a category with anyone else. I am only now starting to realize what not being alone actually means.

You aren't alone in your pain. As isolated and strange as you may feel ....as wrong and out of place...as unrelatable and lost as you may feel, you aren't alone. Although there isn't anyone in the world who has experienced exactly what you have and done what you have done, there are many people out there that can relate. There are many people who have had similar experiences and can understand where you are because they are, or have been there too.