Navigating relationships while stuck in any of these Trauma-informed Responses can be marked by Trouble–with a capital T. I’m working on resolving my trauma and becoming a more informed and aware participant in my own relationships. Since I don’t know other people’s trauma, I can only speak from my own, so I will go there, share with you and allow you to form your own awareness–should you so choose.
First of all, I don’t think we react with just one type of response. I, in my lifetime, have fallen into all four of the scenarios offered here. For the most part, though, I freeze or Fawn. Even physically, I freeze. I am in the process of healing these responses, but it sure does take time. You can likely place yourself in some of these responses or, if you know someone well, maybe others; although, for us to attempt to heal these responses, we need to look at ourselves. But it is our relationships with others that bring them into our awareness.
How we respond in relationship to others really drives our lives. Casual acquaintances, best friends, immediate and extended family, authority figures and perceived enemies, all have a place in our communications with others. And we will respond differently to all of them–at least I do. For example, I used to completely cower under authority figures–a mixture of fawning and freezing–with fear controlling the majority of my reactions. I was sure I would do something wrong or not measure up. Perfectionism would creep in and I could drive myself insane with trying to achieve this. I would put pressure on myself that was inconsolable WHEN I failed. And failure was inevitable. I spent a lot of years feeling like a failure, a loser; even though I succeeded in a lot of things, I only saw failure. What’s it like hanging around with someone like this? Imagine the strain on myself, not to mention the strain on others having to live with a person so bent and determined on doing things perfectly that they are rarely satisfied with themselves or their work! I was annoying!
I had an intense fear of other people’s anger growing up. I would do anything to avoid it. Try to fix it, hide from it–disappear. If I kept my mouth shut and chose silence, I could disappear and remove myself from the anger. I disappeared so well that I would dissociate–separate from the entity that was me–or go inside myself and shut everything out. I still have remnants of this reaction within me because I was introduced to anger at a really young age with no way of escape–disappearing inside myself was my only resource and it led the way for nearly 60 years! This is how profoundly early relationships can shape our reactions to others and haunt us for decades.
For most of my life, I tried to control others’ reactions to me by people pleasing. If I could figure out how to make someone happy, I would. I figured out how to read people so well that I stepped on my own needs in order to make sure I never came across conflict, anger or any other negative reaction. This began when I was 4 and followed me through most of my adult life. I lost myself–completely. How did this show up in my life? Losing myself meant I was always acting, always being someone else, in particular, someone who everyone would like and not judge and criticize. Accepting criticism was so difficult that I would cry as soon as someone corrected me–even as an adult. This was constructive criticism, I’m talking about. I would know they were right and I knew I needed to change something in my behaviour, but I would just cry because I had FAILED to please them. That young part showed up for most of my life.
I felt I was a pathetic excuse for a human being. I learned to loathe myself so well that most of the time I didn’t feel like living–I was sure I would take others down with me and who wants to hang out with someone who doesn’t know how to be real? When the concept of authenticity came into my life, I was 58. I’d spent 54 years being something I wasn’t. My relationships were, for the most part, based on untruths and fake feelings. I couldn’t be trusted. I didn’t know, really, what love was because I had never loved myself. Love, to me, was giving up your own needs for the needs of others. I walked on eggshells in close relationships so as not to upset the boat. I felt these things so deeply that I failed to recognize their dysfunction. That’s how something that happened to me when I was 4, controlled most of my life.
This is just an example of what early trauma can do to affect relationships. I believe if you lose yourself for any reason, navigating relationships comes from a place of dysfunction. Finding yourself doesn’t always take such a long time and with the right guidance, you can definitely overcome trauma, but left unchecked? It will haunt us indefinitely. Finding myself has been the most amazing thing that has ever happened to me. Quite honestly, even finding God was never as enlightening as this. The results of finding and learning to love myself have tripled and quadrupled my love for others, but it is a real love not a fake one. And, although my behaviours sometimes seem to still be pleasing, they are not controlling. I don’t PRETEND to be good anymore, I am a good person because I am me and I am real…like the Velveteen Rabbit.
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Life's Lessons and Mental Health 