Is People-Pleasing Actually Survival Mode? Unmasking the Fawn Response
We are taught from childhood that putting others first is the ultimate virtue. Society rewards the person who never thinks of themselves, wearing selflessness like a badge of honor. It sounds noble, right? Not exactly.
The High Cost of "Selflessness"
When you constantly prioritize everyone else’s needs—when you have to be the good one, the helpful one, the one who keeps things peaceful—you are running on fumes. How long can someone sustain that level of giving? Not long, because eventually, you have to suppress everything happening inside of you.
And that suppression? That’s where the real trouble starts.
Ignoring your own internal world doesn't make your emotions disappear; it forces them out sideways, often in ways that actively sabotage your life:
- Maladaptive Coping: This looks like turning to substances, overspending, excessive shopping, or using food/sex/gambling to numb the noise.
- Mental Health Symptoms: Chronic anxiety, the heavy blanket of depression, and the constant feeling of being on edge.
- Physical Manifestations: Unexplained or chronic health conditions, such as IBS or Crohn's Disease, often show up when stress has nowhere else to go.
Kindness vs. Fawning: The Trauma Connection
Many genuine people-pleasers mistake their reflex to accommodate for deep empathy. While you likely have a huge heart, that intense need to manage everyone else’s emotions is often a highly developed trauma response known as Fawning.
This response is learned, often very early in childhood. You learned that your emotions were too big, too inconvenient, or simply didn't matter. What did matter was managing the feelings of those around you—a parent, a sibling, or a caregiver. Making yourself small or focusing on others became your primary strategy for survival.
Your kindness is real, but the compulsion to people-please is often a long-running defense mechanism. The good news is that recognizing this pattern is the first step out of it.
We don't need the graphic details of the past event to start working. We need to dismantle the damaging beliefs that arose because of the past. We work on: Do I feel fundamentally unworthy? Can I trust anyone? Am I safe now?
So, no, you absolutely do not have to talk about the trauma to heal from it. But you will need to bravely feel and work through the tough thoughts and overwhelming emotions that have been hiding behind the need to say "yes" to everyone else.