So long as shame was my reason for unlearning this, it was always going to register in my body as self-abandonment.

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When I first wrote about fawning — the “people-pleasing” trauma response that therapist and survivor Pete Walker described in his book, “Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving” — it felt like so many survivors online had a collective reckoning together, breathing a sigh of relief.

For a moment, it felt like we were onto something. Like we could see how far we’d wandered from our authentic selves, but at least that meant there was something to return to, maybe.

But in the years since, there’s been a flurry of cyclical discourse online about people-pleasing. Is it manipulative? Is it selfish? Is it bad?

So many creators lost the plot, at least in my estimation, because by shaming folks for a trauma response — and encouraging them to center the impact it has on others — they inadvertently reinforced the mindset of self-abandonment.

Which is to say, “How I feel and what I need doesn’t matter. All that matters is that I behave well enough to stay in relationship.”

If you’re trying to shift your people-pleasing from a place of shame — fixating on how it hurts everyone else — you might actually just… stay stuck there.

I should know, because I’m still in a process of trying to get unstuck myself.

Because fawning is rooted in a disconnect with oneself, the first step in healing is probably not to place even more emphasis on the impact you have on others, but rather, to first come into contact with your own needs, wants, desires, self.

But this has been an ongoing process for me, even years after I wrote that initial piece (along with so much trauma therapy and relational work).

That’s because, at times, so much of my own motivation to unlearn people-pleasing was a desire to be a “better person.” And while that’s a lovely sentiment, it kept me trapped in a cycle of fawning exactly because it was still rooted in fawning.

When I pulled back the curtain, there it was again: The desire to appease others, the fear of what would happen if I didn’t, and the avoidance of staying in contact with my authentic self.

This fawning part of me was still in the driver’s seat, believing that we couldn’t be safe or loved if we simply showed up as a whole person.

So long as shame was my reason for unlearning this, it was always going to register in my body as self-abandonment.

These three questions are what I scribbled in my journal the same night I experienced an abrupt and deeply painful breakup, upon realizing that even my most “healed” and “shiny” self still wasn’t enough to maintain the connection.

These questions — inspired by my love of parts work (also known as Internal Family Systems) — finally started to shift what had felt immovable for so many years.

While I use these questions to address fawning, they can be helpful for any trauma response.

1. How did this part of me help us survive?

You might write this out as a letter directly to this part of you, in the form of a thank you note.

Or, if you feel like getting a little artsy, you could draw little boxes representing the different ways that fawning helped you, and once you’ve written those, add little decorations as if they were gifts being presented to you.

Some examples of how fawning helped me survive (maybe you relate?):

• It gave me hope, so that I didn’t have to suffer under the weight of parents who couldn’t meet my needs or emotionally attune
• It gave me a sense of agency, as if I had some amount of power to change my situation in which I was being harmed
• It gave me a way of feeling skilled, so I could place my attention on improving myself instead of sinking into helplessness
• It helped me feel safe, because it convinced me that I could diffuse the threat of abuse and disconnection (and sometimes it actually did)
• It helped me feel connected, which was especially powerful during a time when I was experiencing profound neglect and isolation, and had no other healthy model for love and intimacy
• It made me feel adequate, because when love is framed as conditional when you’re a child, it’s hard to receive love in any other way than proving yourself first

My initial response to this list was something like, “Phew. Yeah. Of course.”

Of course this was how I coped, and what an incredibly clever way for a child to adapt to an environment in which affection was framed as a reward for good behavior, and abuse was framed as a deserved punishment.

I want to highlight the “both/and” of this, too.

Yes, fawning is a trauma response, and a way of getting our needs met that, as adults, may not be appropriate in contexts where we might otherwise be safe.

And, in such a traumatic environment, the fact that our younger selves found a way to access things like hope, agency, and safety — things that were not readily available or modeled to us — is also a miracle and a testament to our resilience.

Both are true. And we owe it to our younger selves to honor where this response came from and the important ways it supported us, instead of skipping to the part where we berate ourselves for not being “healed” yet.

2. What might I need to grieve?

I firmly believe that we will put down our coping tools that aren’t serving us when we’re resourced and practiced enough to do so.

I trust that my fawning part will show up less and less as I flex the muscles of vulnerability, rupture and repair, authenticity, and so on in safe relationships.

And, part of the emotional resourcing survivors often need when working through relational trauma is a grief process.

It’s not just intellectually grasping that this is a trauma response, or theorizing about where it came from. It’s feeling our way through, back to the present.

Grief in particular helps retrieve us from the past, where our younger selves are still living in the hope that this will secure the love we need, and shifts us away from the future, where our younger selves are still living in the fear that we’ll be abandoned in the end.

Grief is what brings us back to the present moment, by reckoning with what is here with us now.

Here’s some of what I’m grieving alongside my younger self:

• The irony that, if you’re constantly trying to earn love, any love you do receive is in the shadow of doubt that fawning creates, convinced that they only love the “shiny” version of you rather than your true self. This makes me feel disappointed.
• The reality that those who harmed me did so for reasons that had nothing to do with me, and for reasons that were outside of my control — there was nothing I did to deserve it, which means there’s also nothing I could’ve done or become to stop it. This makes me feel angry and unsafe.
• The fact that I can give as much of myself away as possible, and that still doesn’t guarantee that someone will stay or even like me. This makes me feel vulnerable.
• The realization that I wasn’t able to love people the way that I wanted to, in alignment with my values, because I was too scared of being seen and getting confirmation that I wasn’t enough. This makes me feel ashamed.
• The truth that I have inherited this trauma response and while it wasn’t my fault that this was how I survived, it’s my responsibility now to tend to this part of me, both because I deserve to feel seen and cherished as I am, and also because the people I love deserve my most honest, vulnerable, and genuine care. This makes me feel scared and intimidated.
• The fact that I abandoned myself — my desires, my needs, my values, my authentic and most essential self — because I was taught those parts of me were a liability rather than a gift. This makes me feel devastated and betrayed.

Oof. We’re in the thick of it now, aren’t we?

Notice I was intentional in identifying the feelings that came up in this grief, and not just the idea of what I was grieving.

If you’re someone that struggles to feel your feelings when answering prompts like these, you might pause and scan for any sensations that come up in your body. You could also keep a list of emotions or a “feelings wheel” nearby.

3. What parts of me did I leave behind?

When some part of us steps in to protect us, it’s often in service of other more vulnerable parts.

Over the years, when we defaulted to people-pleasing instead of bringing our authentic selves forward (which likely didn’t feel possible!), there were parts of us that were denied, suppressed, or tamped down on.

And part of shifting away from this response is reclaiming the parts of ourselves that, for too long, didn’t feel safe to come out.

Here are some parts of myself that my fawn response was protecting:

• My assertive self. Being assertive, saying “no,” and having boundaries would’ve been interpreted as disrespect or defiance in my household growing up. That part of me, understandably, was compartmentalized because it wasn’t safe to inhabit.
• My enraged self. Anger was similarly dangerous, both because it felt difficult to control, and because it was interpreted as another kind of “disrespect.” As a teen, I also engaged in self-harm when I was angry, and so it felt dangerous to feel even when I was by myself.
• My weird, goofy self. Being a neurodivergent teen but not yet realizing it meant that my playfulness, my sense of humor, and my theatrics were often framed as being cringe or embarrassing. I learned to tamp down on this, too, through masking.
• My joyful self. My mom used to say, “Too much laughing turns into crying” to discourage us kids from “rough housing” or getting “too silly.” I internalized this to mean that getting lost in a joyful moment was dangerous. So I learned in time to contain joy and minimize it, even denying it altogether, as not to get in trouble.
• My needy self. Having needs made fawning more difficult, because it meant that I was no longer focused on appeasing the other person. Over time, I worked really hard to dissolve any needs that I had, which resulted in this push and pull of being overwhelmed by my needs and being numb to them.
• My independent self. Diverging from my family in any way was threatening, because any disagreement — however minor — was often personalized as an attack. This meant that I struggled to individuate, to really get to know myself as an independent and autonomous person, and instead was often looking for myself in everybody else.

I could go on and on, but I want to leave you to form some unique insights of your own! (If you get stuck, I have some recommended books that can help you unravel things a little more deeply.)

That said, to make sure we don’t get lost in the heady stuff, I’d invite you to come back to feeling. In this case, you might come back to longing — allow yourself to miss and long for these parts of yourself.

They haven’t disappeared entirely. They just need to be remembered, welcomed, and nurtured.

Calling these parts back might sound something like:

• I long to be able to say “no” with all ten toes on the ground.
• I miss being angry without being scared that I might hurt someone.
• I miss being goofy with friends that got my sense of humor.
• I long for belly laughs that aren’t interrupted by fear.
• I want to be able to need things without feeling like there’s a limit, or that I’m already in debt.

With time, we can reclaim the parts of ourselves that we hid away.

It doesn’t always look like jumping immediately to saying “no” to everything, or fully unmasking and dancing like no one’s watching at the next friendly get-together — although if you can muster the courage for it, that’s wonderful.

What I’ve realized about fawning is that in order to feel that it’s safe to retire this part of ourselves, these other parts that were left behind need to also learn that it’s safe to come out and play.

And that often means taking tiny, tiny steps — micro-dosing safety, in a way — before the big boundary or confrontation. It’s “let me get back to you” rehearsed in front of your mirror, or even admitting to yourself and no one else that your feelings are actually hurt.

It also won’t be a linear process, which is sort of a recovery cliche at this point, but it’s so true.

Sometimes you’ll try something, and for reasons completely beyond your control, a relationship will rupture and someone may refuse to repair, or because of your own activation, you can’t meet them in this particular part of your journey.

But when you feel that fawning part rushing in to protect you, I hope that you can remember these three questions.

I hope that you’ll make room to honor how this part of you has kept you alive — and deserves your love and patience and respect. I hope you’ll grieve, holding all of the anger, disappointment, fear, and betrayal with compassion.

And I hope that you’ll call back the parts of yourself that were hidden away, letting them know that you — the adult that survived despite everything — are here. And that you’re dedicated to creating a safe enough life where those parts of you can finally be free.

I don’t know if this process is ever really “complete,” or if we just become a little more ourselves each day.

And after all that I’ve survived, I know that sometimes I may still lose myself when it hasn’t felt safe to be myself — and frankly, this world doesn’t do the best job of making us feel safe.

The cultural discourse may frame this as manipulation, but I know by now that shame is just another way I stay stuck in my intense regard for managing the feelings of others, instead of staying rooted in my self.

Perfection is just another performance, after all, so I no longer hold myself to that.

Instead, the one promise I try to keep, regardless of how I’ve shown up that day, is that I will keep returning to this. Which is to say: honoring, grieving, imagining, feeling, and remembering.

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Photo by kevin laminto on Unsplash.