Fawning is most commonly associated with childhood trauma, relational trauma, and complex trauma—such as ongoing partner violence. Complex trauma can become even more problematic when coupled with the collective trauma that occurs from experiences like the COVID-19 pandemic.
Fawning or people-pleasing can often be traced back to an event or series of events that caused a person to experience PTSD, more specifically Complex PTSD, or C-PTSD. Fortunately, C-PTSD can be approached and treated through comprehensive therapy.
Anxiety: Some people may attempt to please others because they feel anxious about fitting in, rejection, or causing offense. For example, a person with social anxiety may feel they must do whatever their friends want in order for people to like them. It can be a subtle attempt to control others' perceptions.
The tendency to please is related to Dependent Personality Disorder. While the people-pleaser may not need others to do things for them, they do have a need for others, regardless. The pleasing personality is also related to the Masochistic Personality type, which also corresponds with Dependent Personality.
A fourth, less discussed, response to trauma is called fawning, or people-pleasing. The fawn response is a coping mechanism in which individuals develop people-pleasing behaviors to avoid conflict, pacify their abusers, and create a sense of safety.
It is a natural human instinct to want to please others and to present oneself at one's best. It is, in fact, a very positive quality to consider others' feelings and be emotionally intelligent.
A people pleaser is typically someone everyone considers helpful and kind. When you need help with a project or someone to help you study for an exam, they're more than willing to step up.
Because of their innate sensitivity to emotional pain, people with ADHD might become people pleasers, always making sure that friends, acquaintances, and family approve of them: “Tell me what you want, and I'll do my best to become it.
It is not. The neglect of others (narcissism) is selfish and causes unnecessary distance, confrontation and lack of intimacy. The neglect of self (people pleasing) creates unwanted exhaustion, increased anxiety and also contributes to a lack of intimacy.
People pleasing isn't a mental illness, but it can be an issue that adversely affects how many people, with or without mental illness, relate to others. Most of all, people pleasers try to nourish other people without adequately nourishing themselves.
Intrusive memories
Recurrent, unwanted distressing memories of the traumatic event. Reliving the traumatic event as if it were happening again (flashbacks) Upsetting dreams or nightmares about the traumatic event. Severe emotional distress or physical reactions to something that reminds you of the traumatic event.
The responses are usually referred to as the 4Fs – Fight, Flight, Freeze, and Fawn and have evolved as a survival mechanism to help us react quickly to life-threatening situations.
However, excessive people pleasing has the potential for numerous negative consequences. They may experience fear of rejection and disappointing others, have low self-esteem, difficulty making independent decisions, and difficulty setting healthy boundaries.
ADHD meltdowns are sudden outbursts of frustration and anger that seem to come out of nowhere. If your child is struggling to control their emotions, there are ways to help them. For children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), impulsivity can present in many ways.
Differences in emotions in people with ADHD can lead to 'shutdowns', where someone is so overwhelmed with emotions that they space out, may find it hard to speak or move and may struggle to articulate what they are feeling until they can process their emotions.
Another key component of OCD is the mistrust one has of themselves and who one is at their core. This is why people with OCD tend to engage in “people pleasing”: they may value other people's opinions above their own, and trust other people's opinions more.
People-pleasers strive to keep the peace and avoid conflict at all costs, often at their own expense. Fairly empathic, people-pleasers frequently place other people's needs first and are sometimes exploited due to this tendency.
It is true that opposites attract. People who like to please are frequently drawn to people who like to control others. Pleasers have certain personality characteristics that are developed in childhood. They are often perfectionists who were influenced by very demanding parental expectations and/or criticism.
People-pleasers and attachment
Of the three types of attachment (secure, anxious, and avoidant), people-pleasers who try to earn love through self-sacrifice often tend to have an anxious or avoidant (insecure) attachment style.
People Pleasing
Many who experience quiet BPD identify with people-pleasing behaviors, but what is often occurring is a fawn response. Fawning is a component of the fight-flight-freeze response that usually develops during childhood to evade abuse and mistreatment from adults.
People-pleasers have an innate sense of what others feel. They are naturally empathetic, and underneath all of their compliance with what others want, they genuinely care and desire to be kind.
Being a people-pleaser is an extremely stressful and frequently painful way to live. Because no matter how much they give to others they don't ever get what they are truly seeking. The real solution comes from within. As a result, people-pleasers frequently suffer from depression, stress and anxiety.