What is a Trauma Response?
Everyone endures potentially traumatic experiences. At least 70 percent of us will be traumatized by these events. How we respond in these instances can shape our lives for years or decades. A trauma response is an automatic, often unconscious reaction designed to keep us safe. Unfortunately, such coping mechanisms can be dysfunctional, which can stand in the way of us living a meaningful, healthy life.
Responding to trauma — via fight, flight, freeze, or fawn — can leave someone stuck in a perpetual state of high alert. Even when no danger is present, we may believe it is. Therefore, it is important to understand more about this self-protective reflex.
A Trauma Response Can Be Immediate and Chronic
This concept can relate to how someone responds in the face of a traumatic event. It also connects to those moments when we’re faced with situations that trigger traumatic memories. When dealing with a threatening experience, we may not have the awareness to decide how we’ll respond. However, after the event or series of events, we absolutely can learn to identify patterns that are impeding the recovery process.
A useful starting point involves learning about the 4 F’s of trauma and trauma responses. Fight, flight, freeze, or fawn can linger as a counterproductive attempt to protect oneself.
Trauma Responses and the 4 F's
Fight
It can be a healthy and wise option to respond to risk with aggression. You may find it deters the cause of danger and offers much-needed protection. In cases where fighting back doesn’t work or the traumatic input is ongoing, the fight response can stay in effect and leave you dealing with:
Persistent muscle aches and pains
Aggressive posturing and angry staring, teeth grinding, and clenched fists become your default setting
Misguided attempts to take out your pent-up anger on weaker targets
Digestive problems
Frequent and sudden emotional outbursts — from crying to anger and beyond
Flight
More often than not, fleeing a risky or frightening situation is the safest choice. As logical as flight may be, it’s not always possible. To feel unable to escape can provoke a trauma response that feels like it might increase the odds of being hurt. Someone living in a relentless state of flight reaction will feel high anxiety and display many common anxiety symptoms, e.g. fidgeting, shaking and trembling, an unwillingness to make eye contact, shallow breathing, rapid heart rate, sweating, and a general sense of avoidance and withdrawal.
Freeze
Some experiences are so jolting that they will induce the survivor to shut down. Rather than face the reality of the situation, they alternate between symptoms like:
Difficulty breathing
Physical and emotional numbness
Feeling cold and stiff
Brain fog and memory loss
Dissociation
Fawn
This is a behavioral trauma response. When victimized by a trauma — especially when there is an obvious perpetrator — you may seek ways to appease the person or persons responsible for your suffering. In the fawn state, you become a people pleaser — engaging in behaviors like flattering others, avoiding conflict, apologizing even if you did nothing wrong, never setting boundaries, and neglecting your own needs.
Resolving and Moving Forward From a Trauma Response
Such a goal is not attained via self-help steps alone but it helps cultivate relaxation techniques and build a support system of people you can trust. You’ll also want to connect with a trauma-informed therapist to:
Identify your triggers
Control symptoms
Address the root causes of your distress
Slowly replace dysfunctional coping mechanisms with productive changes in your everyday life
Trauma of all types can be processed and resolved. Let’s connect and talk about trauma treatment soon. I’d love to help you attain a new F: freedom.