Fawning After Trauma: Healing the People-Pleasing Response
Photo courtesy of Robert Woeger @ Upsplash
The Hidden Cost of Being “Too Nice”
You’ve probably heard someone say, “You’re just too nice for your own good.” Maybe you’ve said it to yourself.
Does this sound like you? You say yes when you really mean no. You worry that if you speak up, you’ll hurt someone’s feelings or cause tension. You walk on eggshells, trying to keep everyone calm. You tell yourself it’s better to avoid conflict, but afterward, you feel invisible, resentful, or quietly drained.
This pattern—of keeping peace at your own expense—isn’t just “being nice.” For many trauma survivors, it’s part of a deeply ingrained survival response known as fawning.
Hi, I’m Diane Dempcy, a trauma therapist in Seattle, and a certified EMDR therapist. Along with trauma, I also specialize in anxiety and support for parents of children experiencing a mental health crisis.
When we think about how people react to stress or danger, we usually think of the fight, flight, or freeze responses. But there’s a fourth one that’s often overlooked: fawn.
Fight: confronting or resisting the threat.
Flight: escaping or avoiding it.
Freeze: shutting down or becoming immobile.
Fawn: appeasing the threat by pleasing or accommodating.
For many, especially those who grew up in unpredictable or emotionally unsafe environments, fawning became a reliable way to stay safe—by making others happy.
If you see yourself in this, you’re not alone. Healing from this pattern often means learning to reconnect with your own needs, limits, and voice. That’s the work many people begin in trauma therapy in Seattle, where the focus is not just on learning to cope, but on building an authentic sense of self where you can ask for your needs, voice your concerns, and set boundaries.
What Is the Fawn Response?
You’re not broken for fawning—you were brilliant for surviving. Now it’s time to feel safe being you.
The fawn response develops when your nervous system learns that staying safe depends on keeping others pleased.
In childhood or in chronically stressful relationships, your body might have discovered that the quickest way to avoid conflict or rejection was to appease. If expressing anger, sadness, or needs led to punishment, withdrawal, or criticism, you learned to suppress those parts of yourself. You smiled, agreed, or said what others wanted to hear—because it reduced danger.
What once kept you safe can slowly turn into a habit that blurs the line between kindness and disappearing.. Fawning might look like empathy or generosity on the surface, but underneath it’s often driven by anxiety, guilt, or fear.
The difference between kindness and fawning
Kindness is a choice—it comes from self-trust and genuine desire to help.
Fawning is a reflex—it comes from fear of disapproval or abandonment.
Kindness respects boundaries. Fawning dissolves them.
When your nervous system is stuck in a fawn pattern, saying no can feel dangerous. Even small moments of assertiveness can trigger guilt or panic. Healing means gently retraining your body and mind to see that you can be both safe and authentic.
How Fawning Shows Up in Relationships
One of the most painful places where fawning appears is in close relationships.
You may find yourself:
Apologizing excessively, even when you did nothing wrong.
Agreeing to things you don’t actually want.
Avoiding difficult conversations to “keep the peace.”
Taking responsibility for others’ emotions.
Feeling anxious when someone seems upset with you.
Over time, these behaviors create a cycle of overgiving and quiet resentment. You might do everything to keep others comfortable but end up feeling unseen. This emotional exhaustion can make you question who you really are outside of your relationships.
Nickie’s Story
(Fictionalized but Familiar)
Nickie grew up in a home where her father’s moods dictated the atmosphere. If he was angry, everyone was on edge. As an adult, Nickie found herself in relationships where she constantly checked her partner’s tone, trying to sense what was “safe.” When conflict arose, she apologized immediately—even for things she didn’t do—just to make the tension stop.
Every “yes” that betrays your truth quietly teaches your body that your needs don’t matter. Healing reverses that lesson.
In therapy, Nickie began to recognize that her people-pleasing wasn’t a weakness. It was her nervous system trying to protect her from danger it once knew too well. Through EMDR therapy in Seattle, somatic awareness, and boundary work, she learned to pause before apologizing, to notice the guilt that came with saying no, and to sit with it rather than rush to fix it. Healing didn’t mean becoming less kind—it meant becoming more authentic.
How Fawning Shows Up at Work
The workplace is another environment where fawning can thrive—especially for those who equate worth with performance or approval.
You might recognize yourself in patterns like these:
Saying yes to extra projects even when you’re overwhelmed.
Avoiding disagreement with supervisors or coworkers.
Staying late to compensate for others’ mistakes.
Feeling responsible for everyone’s comfort and morale.
Struggling to take credit for your own contributions.
While these habits can make you a “model employee,” they come at a cost: burnout and invisibility. When your nervous system is trained to keep others happy, you might equate calm with safety—but that calm often means silence and self-neglect.
Daniel’s Story
(Fictionalized but Familiar)
Daniel worked in a nonprofit organization where he was known as the dependable one. If someone missed a deadline, he picked up the slack. If a meeting got tense, he smoothed things over. Eventually, his coworkers started expecting it.
Daniel’s therapist helped him trace these patterns back to his childhood, where he learned that staying invisible and helpful kept him out of harm’s way. In therapy, he practiced noticing the anxiety that arose when he disappointed someone at work. Instead of automatically saying yes, he learned to pause and check in with his body.
As Daniel set boundaries, his performance didn’t decline—it improved. He had more energy, creativity, and confidence. Fewer people took advantage of him because he no longer signaled that his comfort was optional.
Photo courtesy of Jake Colling @ Upsplash
The Emotional Toll of Living in a Constant State of Fawning
Fawning might look calm on the outside, but internally it’s exhausting. Your body is constantly scanning for cues of disapproval, subtly adjusting your tone, expression, and words to prevent conflict. It’s an anxious kind of harmony that costs your authenticity.
Common emotional impacts include:
Anxiety: the fear of saying or doing the wrong thing.
Depression: the numbness that follows chronic self-suppression.
Disconnection: losing touch with your own preferences, opinions, or desires.
The good news is that this awareness is often the first step toward healing. When you recognize that your people-pleasing has roots in trauma, compassion replaces self-blame. What once felt like a flaw begins to make perfect sense.
Why Trauma Therapy in Seattle Targets Shame Directly
Here’s the good news: shame can heal. In trauma therapy in Seattle, we address shame head-on, but gently — not by ignoring it or pushing it away, but by bringing compassion and curiosity to the places it hides.
Depending on your needs, trauma therapy might include approaches like EMDR, Brainspotting, or somatic work. These methods help your nervous system release the burden of shame while creating new, more empowering patterns.
In therapy, you learn to separate your worth from your trauma. You begin to see that shame is not who you are; it’s something that was placed on you. And with the right tools, you can set it down.
Healing the Fawn Response
Fawning isn’t kindness—it’s survival. And survival patterns can be healed.
Healing from the fawn response requires more than logic. It involves retraining the nervous system to feel safe in authenticity. That’s the focus of trauma therapy in Seattle: helping you reconnect with your inner cues rather than relying on others’ comfort as your compass.
What trauma therapy offers
Somatic awareness: Learning to notice what happens in your body when you want to please or apologize. Therapy helps you notice the physical signs of fear or shutdown so you can respond with choice rather than habit.
Emotional regulation: Developing tools to calm the nervous system when guilt, anxiety, or shame arise around setting limits.
Boundary work: Practicing small, tolerable steps toward saying no, asking for help, or expressing preference.
Reconnection with needs: Relearning how to identify what you actually want, like, or feel—without judgment.
Many people in trauma therapy discover that as their nervous system settles, their relationships naturally become more reciprocal. They begin to speak more honestly, tolerate discomfort, and trust that others can handle their truth.
Healing doesn’t mean you stop caring—it means you care from a place of choice, not fear.
What Healing Can Look Like
As you move through the process of recovery, you might notice subtle but powerful shifts:
You can tolerate others being disappointed without collapsing into guilt.
You can express disagreement without assuming it will lead to rejection.
You start feeling warmth toward yourself, even when you make mistakes.
You begin to distinguish between helping and overextending.
You build relationships grounded in honesty, not performance.
Healing the fawn response is not about becoming assertive overnight. It’s about trusting yourself to handle authenticity. Over time, you may find that the people who truly value you don’t need you to perform for their comfort—they appreciate your truth.
As one client put it, “For the first time, I feel like I can breathe in my own life.”
Photo courtesy of Jeffery Erhunse @ Upsplash
Finding Trauma Therapy in Seattle That Feels Right for You
Healing is possible, and help is available locally. If you’ve recognized yourself in these patterns, working with a trauma-informed therapist can be life-changing.
When looking for trauma therapy in Seattle, consider a therapist who:
Specializes in trauma recovery using EMDR, somatic, or brain-based approaches.
Understands attachment dynamics and relational trauma.
Creates a space where you can explore guilt, fear, and self-expression safely.
You deserve support that helps you move from survival to connection. Whether your patterns show up at home, at work, or both, you don’t have to keep living in over-functioning and exhaustion.
Wrapping It Up
Fawning is one of the most misunderstood trauma responses because it hides behind kindness. But being “too nice” isn’t who you are—it’s what you learned to do to stay safe.
Through trauma therapy, you can unlearn the reflex of pleasing and rediscover the steady rhythm of your authentic self. You can build relationships rooted in honesty, work that feels sustainable, and a life that reflects your values—not your fears.
If this resonates with you, consider this a gentle invitation.
You don’t have to navigate this alone. Healing begins with a single, truthful yes—to yourself.
Diane Dempcy, LMHC
Diane Dempcy, LMHC, provides compassionate and evidence-based trauma therapy in Seattle. Through approaches like EMDR, DBT, and Mindfulness-based psychotherapy, she helps clients break free from shame, reclaim their self-worth, and create meaningful connections. Diane’s clients experience her as direct, empowering, warm, and accepting
She provides online and in-person therapy to adults in Seattle and surrounding cities.
