The fawn response involves trying to please or appease others in an effort to avoid shame. This can manifest as people-pleasing, codependency, or sacrificing one’s own needs for the sake of others. While it may temporarily avoid shame, the fawn response can lead to the erosion of one’s sense of self and the development of unhealthy relationships.

The freeze response involves shutting down or numbing out in the face of shame. This can manifest as dissociation, avoidance, or a lack of emotional response. While it may provide temporary relief, the freeze response does not allow us to process or address our emotions, leading to a buildup of unresolved trauma.

If any of these behaviors resonate, it can be a hint toward the kind of trauma response you’re most likely to engage with. It’s important to be gentle with yourself as you work toward healing and resolving any underlying emotional trauma. These responses are not inherently bad or wrong. They are natural survival mechanisms that can serve a purpose in certain situations. However, when they are fueled by toxic shame, they can become unhealthy and destructive.

While these trauma responses can be helpful in protecting you in the short-term, they can also be damaging if they become habitual or if you are unable to resolve the underlying emotional trauma that is driving them. When you are constantly in survival mode, it can be difficult to live a healthy and fulfilling life, as your energy and focus are constantly directed toward avoiding danger or conflict.

Another way you might manage the internal conflicts around connection and acceptance is by developing an insecure attachment style. As a child, you were completely dependent on your caregiver for survival. This created an attachment bond that formed the foundation for all your future relationships. If the bond was strong and secure, you would have developed a healthy sense of attachment that would allow you to feel confident and secure in your relationships.

However, if this bond was disrupted or broken, it could lead to unresolved attachment trauma. This might have occurred if you had a caregiver who was consistently unavailable, inconsistent, or neglectful. As a result, you may have developed one of four attachment styles: secure, anxious-preoccupied, dismissive-avoidant, or fearful-avoidant.

When you struggle to manage trauma responses and insecure attachment styles, you focus less on connection and more on transaction in order to get your needs met. Relational trauma disconnects you from your core emotional needs around emotional safety, consistency, validation, and connections that are authentic, healthy, and conscious.

What this may look like for you in the present is a lack of boundaries; you might be people-pleasing and over-functioning in relationships by seeking your partner’s love and approval because you’re anxious and preoccupied with the fate of the relationship. You equate your partner’s love and approval with safety.

Let’s look at this hypothetical example: your partner is late picking you up from the airport. You feel extremely anxious, or even rageful, since their tardiness reminds you of the chronic lateness of your caregiver in picking you up after school. It goes deeper than just being late. This experience conjures the anxiety around feeling abandoned and uncared for, a feeling that stemmed from your childhood, when you didn’t have a voice or even feel that you had a right to express these feelings. Today, this shows up as a fight response, along with an anxious attachment style.

You might think nothing of this, but your brain continues to live in fear of abandonment. Being disconnected from a parent, caregiver, or secure attachment figure due to inconsistent care, absent validation, or emotional neglect can feel like death. As an adult, you will unconsciously frame your partner as a secure home base. When they show up with behavior that feels like abandonment, you might experience a trauma response.

Someone with a secure attachment style might note the reaction, self-soothe, and consider the possibility that their partner might simply be stuck in traffic. With a fight response, you might resort to yelling in an effort to control your partner’s behavior. You may not intend for this to be hurtful, but in order to ensure that you don’t feel abandoned again, you might do this thinking it’ll guarantee they’re on time in the future.

Your relationship then becomes a hotbed of emotional volatility teeming with resentment, anger, and frustration, with neither partner’s needs being met. In part, this is because you’re not aware of why you feel the way you do, and thus you’re unable to have the difficult conversations around your attachment styles. It isn’t that a secure and consciously loving relationship won’t have issues. They do have issues, but as you dive deeper on your healing journey, you gain the tools to address them in a manner that isn’t harmful or threatening.

It’s important to recognize that these attachment styles are not set in stone and can change over time with the right support and healing tools. Empathy, validation, and having difficult conversations is an important part of the repair process in relationships, and it requires insight into how your past shows up today. Otherwise, your relationships exist solely as a means to avoid unresolved emotional issues from the past. This is how living in survival mode gives birth to other toxic situations, like codependency and transactional relationships. But most people—like most relationships—are not straightforward. Trauma responses can intersect with attachment styles, leading to many complex combinations of behaviors and reactions. But even these “cocktails” can be figured out with enough attention.

THE COCKTAIL OF TRAUMA RESPONSES AND ATTACHMENT STYLEs

There are several possible permutations of trauma responses and attachment styles. These combinations will impact how you understand what’s actually creating chaos and confusion in your relationships (often not what you think it is!), how to recognize the patterns before they turn things upside down, and why the romantic situations you’re in can feel unpredictable and tumultuous. These are typically the main categories:

Fawn-Anxious: May have learned to cope with trauma by prioritizing the needs and desires of others, often at the expense of their own well-being; highly empathetic and attuned to others’ emotions. This type may struggle to set boundaries or assert their own needs.

Freeze-Anxious: May have learned to cope with trauma by dissociating or “checking out” from their environment; struggles connecting with others emotionally, appearing detached or aloof.

Flight-Anxious: May have learned to cope with trauma by avoiding or fleeing from situations that trigger anxiety or fear; highly avoidant of conflict and struggles to confront challenges head-on.

Fight-Anxious: May have learned to cope with trauma by becoming highly reactive or defensive in response to perceived threats; quick to anger. This type has difficulty regulating emotions in stressful situations.

Fawn-Fearful: May have experienced trauma that has left them feeling powerless or vulnerable; may have feelings of inadequacy and low self-worth. This type is highly dependent on others for validation and support.

Freeze-Fearful: May have experienced trauma that has left them feeling overwhelmed or unable to cope; feelings of helplessness or hopelessness. This type may withdraw from others as a way of self-protection.

Flight-Fearful: May have experienced trauma that has left them feeling unsafe or threatened; may be highly avoidant of situations or people that they perceive as potential sources of danger and struggle to trust others.

Fight-Fearful: May have experienced trauma that has left them feeling powerless or victimized; highly reactive or defensive. This type may have difficulty regulating emotions in response to stress or conflict.

Fawn-Dismissive: May have learned to cope with trauma by avoiding emotional intimacy or vulnerability. This type prioritizes independence and self-reliance and may struggle to form deep, meaningful relationships with others.

Freeze-Dismissive: May have learned to cope with trauma by emotionally disconnecting from others; doesn’t like to rely on others for support or comfort.

Flight-Dismissive: May have learned to cope with trauma by avoiding emotional connection or commitment; highly avoidant of situations that require emotional vulnerability. This type may prioritize their own needs over the needs of others.

Fight-Dismissive: May have learned to cope with trauma by becoming aggressive or dominant in social situations. This type might prioritize power or control and struggle to connect with others emotionally.

Fawn-Disorganized: May have experienced trauma that has left them feeling confused or disoriented; struggles with emotional regulation, exhibiting unpredictable or contradictory patterns of behavior.

Freeze-Disorganized: May have experienced trauma that has left them feeling disconnected or alienated from their environment; struggles to maintain a sense of self or identity. This type may feel detached or numb.

Flight-Disorganized: May exhibit erratic behavior and emotional dysregulation, often using aggression or impulsivity as means of control. This type is characterized by a blend of avoidant and anxious behaviors, leading to difficulties in forming stable, secure relationships. It results from a mix of the disorganized attachment pattern and a flight response to perceived threats, manifesting in inconsistent and unpredictable behavior.

Fight-Disorganized: May have experienced trauma that has left them feeling overwhelmed or threatened; may exhibit aggressive or impulsive behavior as a way of asserting control over their environment. This type may have difficulty with emotional regulation and consistent or predictable behavior. They also might struggle with attachment and forming stable relationships with others.

Let’s take a look at some examples of how these combinations might play out in real life:

The Fight-Anxious Archetype

When the fight trauma response and anxious attachment style combine, this can create a specific way of behaving in relationships. The fight response often manifests in aggressive or defensive behavior and is triggered by feeling threatened or vulnerable. With an anxious attachment style, you crave closeness and intimacy but also fear abandonment and rejection.

When these two parts combine, it can look like constantly seeking reassurance from your partner, while also being quick to anger or react defensively when you feel insecure. You may become jealous or possessive, demand constant attention or affection, and become angry or aggressive if you feel like your needs are not being met. Consequently, this can lead to a lot of conflict and tension in your relationship, as your partner may feel overwhelmed or suffocated by your constant need for reassurance and reactivity.

This was the case with Ava, a client of mine who struggled with the fight trauma response and anxious attachment style. She began by telling me about a recent fight she’d had with her partner. “It was like everything he said just triggered me,” she explained. “I felt like he was attacking me, and I had to defend myself.”

As she spoke, I could see the tension in her body, the tightness in her jaw, and the anger in her eyes. I knew that this was a common experience for Ava. She had a tendency to see everything as a potential threat, and her fight response would kick in before she had a chance to really think about what was happening.

I asked her to describe the fight in more detail, and she shared how she had accused her partner of not caring about her and threatened to leave the relationship. When I asked what had triggered her, she revealed that her partner had been spending more time with his friends lately, and she felt like she was being pushed to the side.

We talked about how her anxiety around abandonment was driving her reaction, and how her fight response was making the situation worse. As we explored Ava’s childhood experiences, she shared with me that she grew up in a household where her parents fought constantly. This created an environment of instability, and she often felt anxious and on edge as a child.

Additionally, Ava’s parents were emotionally unavailable, and she felt neglected and unimportant. These experiences left Ava feeling like she always had to be on high alert and fight for attention and love. As she grew up, she internalized these experiences and began to believe that the only way to get what she wanted was through fighting and creating chaos.

Ava’s attachment style was also heavily influenced by her childhood experiences. She had an anxious attachment style, which meant that she craved closeness and validation from her partner but also felt a constant fear of abandonment. This made her prone to reacting strongly in her relationships, especially when she felt that her partner was pulling away or not giving her the attention she desired.

All of these experiences and patterns in Ava’s life created a self-perpetuating cycle. Her anxious attachment style made her more likely to overreact in her relationships, which then fueled her fight trauma response, making her more reactive and aggressive.

As we delved deeper into our sessions, Ava and I started unearthing layers of her past, sifting through memories that had long been dormant. The journey was akin to piecing together a puzzle; with each memory, the picture became clearer.

“You know,” she began one day, her voice reflecting a mix of apprehension and curiosity, “I remember how my father would raise his voice over the smallest of things. And every time he did, I would shrink into my shell, hoping to become invisible.”

I nodded, urging her to continue.

“And then there were the times my mother would shut down completely, not speaking to anyone for days. It felt like walking on eggshells around her,” Ava added, her eyes distant.

Drawing the parallels became an enlightening experience for her. Ava’s partner had certain habits that inadvertently mirrored those of her parents. A loud tone or a period of silence, even if it wasn’t directed at her, would catapult her back to her childhood, triggering feelings of insecurity and defense.

“It’s like I’m that little girl all over again, trying to shield herself from the chaos around her,” she remarked. This realization was poignant. Ava’s reactions to her partner were, in many ways, a defense mechanism she’d developed as a child to cope with the unpredictable environment she’d grown up in.

We spent time reflecting on these patterns, discussing how the child in her was still trying to protect the adult Ava. “But I’m not that helpless child anymore,” she said determinedly in one of our sessions. And she was right. Recognizing the origin of her reactions was the first step. Now, she had the tools and awareness to reshape them, to respond rather than react, and to build bridges instead of walls in her relationship.

This newfound understanding was transformative for Ava. It not only provided clarity about her past but also illuminated the path for a more conscious and intentional future with her partner.