A Guide to Understanding Trauma and the Four Trauma Responses (Freeze, Fawn, Fight, Flight)

And how healing these can truly set you free

We often talk about feeling “stuck.” Stuck in the same patterns, the same fears, the same types of people, the same inner loops that never seem to end. But what if that stuckness isn’t laziness or lack of motivation? What if it’s trauma? Sometimes the very behaviors or feelings that frustrate us are actually rooted in past hurt. Understanding this can be a game-changer in healing and moving forward.

What Is Trauma, Really?

Trauma isn’t always a big, obvious event. It’s not limited to abuse, accidents, or war zones. Trauma is anything that overwhelms your nervous system and leaves you without the support or tools to process what happened. In other words, trauma is less about what happened and more about how it impacts you internally.

As trauma expert Dr. Gabor Maté famously explains, “Trauma is not what happens to you; it is what happens inside you as a result of what happens to you” theguardian.com. It’s the wound that’s left in your body and mind after an overwhelming experience.

This means trauma can come from everyday experiences that might not look “dramatic” from the outside, for example:

Emotional neglect in childhood: Growing up without affection or validation can silently wound a child’s sense of worth.
Living in a high-conflict or overly strict home: Constant shouting or rigid rules can put anyone on edge, making a child feel unsafe in their own home.
Chronic invalidation or criticism: Being told “you’re too sensitive” or “not good enough” repeatedly can make you doubt yourself and feel small.
Being bullied or excluded: Rejection by peers or harsh bullying at school can overwhelm a young person with fear and loneliness.
Having to be a caretaker too early: If you had to act like the “parent” for your siblings or even your own parents, you learned to stuff down your needs—an overwhelming role for a child.
Spiritual betrayal: Being hurt by a religious leader or community you trusted can shatter your sense of faith and safety.
Intergenerational burdens: Painful experiences can be passed down silently through generations. For instance, the anxiety or hurt your grandparents carried from war or hardship might live on in you (often called ancestral or generational trauma).
The absence of what you needed: Trauma can even stem from what didn’t happen. The lack of safety, love, affection, or validation when you desperately needed it leaves an invisible scar.

In short, trauma is not just the bad thing that happened. It’s the inner injury you sustained. Two people could live through the same event; one might shrug it off, and the other could be deeply scarred. The difference lies in the support they had and how their system coped.

Trauma is the imprint left on your body and psyche.

The Four Trauma Responses: Not Just Reactions, But Survival Strategies

When we encounter threat or stress, our nervous system automatically tries to protect us. Most people have heard of “fight or flight,” but there are actually four trauma responses: Fight, Flight, Freeze, and Fawn. It’s important to know these are not personality flaws or conscious choices; they are instinctive survival strategies your mind and body developed based on your unique life experiences.

Let’s break down four trauma responses and how it might be showing up in your adult life:

1. The Fight Response

When your system senses danger and chooses Fight, it prepares to confront or attack the threat. This response is driven by an unconscious belief that taking control or asserting power will keep you safe. You might have learned early on that to be heard or protected, you had to fight.

How the Fight response shows up in adulthood:

Quick temper or irritability: You go from zero to anger in a flash. Small frustrations or criticisms feel like huge threats, and you find yourself yelling or lashing out. This isn’t because you’re “bad” – it’s because anger once shielded you from feeling vulnerable.
Controlling tendencies: You feel compelled to manage every detail or direct others’ behavior. Having control gives you a sense of safety. Uncertainty equals danger in your body’s eyes, so you try to eliminate it.
Always “on guard”: A constant background tension, as if you’re waiting for the next attack or betrayal. You might struggle to relax, feeling that you must stay vigilant.
Defensiveness in relationships: Feedback or differing opinions feel like personal attacks. You might argue your point intensely or struggle to apologize, because on a deep level, admitting fault feels unsafe.
Overachieving or perfectionism: You work extremely hard and push yourself to be the best, possibly to prove your worth or to never be under someone’s power. The idea of failure might trigger fear or anger, so you fight to avoid it.

2. The Flight Response

This is the second of four trauma responses. When facing danger, another option your system might choose is Flight – run away or escape. If something feels too overwhelming or frightening to confront, your instinct says “Get out of here!” This could mean physically leaving, or it could mean mentally or emotionally withdrawing. Flight is fueled by the belief that safety lies in avoiding conflict or pain.

How the Flight response shows up:

Perfectionism and overworking: Busyness becomes an escape from uncomfortable feelings.
Anxiety and overthinking: Your mind is always running. You might obsess over decisions or worry about every possible outcome. In a way, your brain is “fleeing” to the future or the worst-case scenario, instead of being present where things feel out of control.
Difficulty relaxing or sitting still: Stillness might make you uneasy. You find it hard to take vacations, enjoy hobbies, or even watch a movie without also scrolling your phone or thinking of the next task.
Avoiding conflict at all costs: You’d rather leave a relationship, quit a job, or ghost a friend than directly face an argument or confrontation.
Escapism into work or hobbies (or even substances): Whenever life gets uncomfortable, you bolt – maybe not literally, but you escape into something that distracts you. This could be working 12-hour days, diving into video games or Netflix binges, traveling impulsively, or using alcohol/drugs to numb out. Anything to avoid sitting with the pain or fear.

3. The Freeze Response

This is the third of four trauma responses. When neither fighting nor fleeing feels possible, the body’s last-ditch effort is often Freeze. This is like the “deer in headlights” reaction – you shut down, play dead, or become immobile in hopes the threat will pass.

How the Freeze response shows up in adulthood:

Feeling numb or disconnected from your body: In stressful moments, you shut down emotionally or even physically feel paralyzed.
Procrastination and indecision: Important tasks or changes provoke a foggy, stuck feeling. You want to move forward but feel somehow immobilized. Others might label you “lazy,” but in truth you’re overwhelmed.
Chronic fatigue or brain fog: Your body carries the weight of unprocessed stress, and it’s exhausting. You might sleep a lot, struggle to get out of bed, or constantly feel drained. You shut down because life feels like too much.
Feeling like life is passing you by: Perhaps you let opportunities slip away because taking action (even for positive change) triggers that frozen state of fear.

Avoiding change or decisions: Even when you know you need to make a move (like ending a toxic relationship or applying for a new job), you remain inert. The unknown feels terrifying, so you stay with the status quo, frozen in place.

4. The Fawn Response

This is the last of four trauma responses.The Fawn response is the least commonly known, but very important. “Fawning” means people-pleasing or appeasing the threat to survive. Instead of fighting back or running, you essentially try to make the threat like you or at least keep it calm. Psychotherapist Pete Walker, who coined the term, describes fawn as a response where a person learns to pacify and please a perpetrator to stay safe. In childhood, this might develop if the only way to avoid a parent’s rage or a bully’s attacks was to keep them happy, cater to their needs, or become “invisible” and agreeable.

How the Fawn response shows up:

People-pleasing: You say “yes” to things you don’t want to do, and bend over backwards to avoid upsetting anyone. Your own needs and boundaries? They often get pushed aside. You might be known as “the nice one” who never says no.
Fear of conflict and always being agreeable: You’ll smile and agree outwardly, even when you inwardly disagree or feel hurt.
Seeking validation and over-focusing on others: Your sense of self-worth may depend on others’ approval. You take care of everyone else’s needs, hoping that if they’re happy, you’ll be safe and maybe loved. This can lead to attracting emotionally unavailable or even narcissistic partners.
Abandoning yourself: You might not even know what you truly want or feel, because you’re so attuned to what others want. Your personality can shape-shift to fit what you think others expect. This loss of identity is the price you pay to avoid rejection or anger.
Anxiety when someone is upset with you: Even mild criticism or the hint that someone is displeased can send you into a panic. You might rush to apologize, make amends, or fix the situation, even when you did nothing wrong.

A key point: You might recognize yourself in more than one of these responses. Many people do. We often develop a primary trauma response style, with secondary ones in certain situations. For example, you might generally fight in work conflicts but freeze in romantic conflicts, or fawn with family but flee when it comes to career challenges. There’s no “right” or “wrong” here – all these responses originated to protect you. They served a purpose in the past. The problem is when they become fixed modes of living, keeping you in survival mode even when you’re no longer in true danger.

What kept you safe as a child may be keeping you stuck as an adult.

Why Trauma Must Be Healed, Not Just Managed

Many of us try to simply cope with or manage our trauma symptoms, perhaps by avoiding triggers, staying busy, or using willpower to behave differently. While coping strategies can help in the short term, true freedom comes from healing the trauma at its source, not just managing the fallout. Why? Because trauma doesn’t only live in our thoughts; trauma lives in the body.

This means even if you tell yourself intellectually that “it’s over” or “I should be over it,” your body might still be stuck in survival mode. Trauma literally rewires your nervous system to be prepared for danger even when no real threat is present. You might think you’re just “an anxious person” or “a control freak” or “bad at intimacy,” when in fact these are trauma echoes. They are your nervous system’s attempts to protect you based on old information.

For example, unhealed trauma can make you constantly anticipate betrayal or disaster, even in safe situations. It can lead you to sabotage opportunities or relationships because some part of you is terrified of the unknown and would rather stick to familiar pain.

Unhealed trauma often whispers toxic lies in your mind, such as: “They’ll leave you.” “You’re not good enough.” “You’ll fail again.” “Better not try.” These are the voices of fear and hurt that originated in past experiences, not objective truths.

In this way, unhealed trauma keeps you in a cage, trapping you in repetitive cycles of behavior and pain. This is why healing trauma is so important. To truly set yourself free, you have to address the root wound.

Healing turns off the “false alarm” in your body that’s been signaling danger where there is none.

The Way Out: From Protection to Presence

How do we begin?
The first step is a mindset shift: Healing trauma is not about blaming your past; it’s about reclaiming your power from it. We can’t choose what happens to us, but we can choose to nurture the wounded parts within us.

It’s moving from living in protection mode to living in presence mode. In protection mode, you’re always bracing for a hit that isn’t actually coming (at least not anymore). In presence mode, you learn to ground yourself in the here and now, realizing that today you can be safe, loved, and free.

Getting out of perpetual survival mode requires creating a sense of safety and trust in your body and mind. It’s not as simple as telling yourself “relax.” Remember, trauma isn’t just a logical memory; trauma is a felt memory in the body. So healing often means working with experiences and tools that go beyond talk and intellect. This can include therapeutic techniques that involve the body, creativity, or guided revisiting of the past in a safe way. It’s often about gently teaching your nervous system that “the war is over” and it’s okay to let go of the armor.

Importantly, healing trauma is a gradual process – like peeling layers of an onion. You learn that you don’t have to fight everyone to be respected; or you don’t have to run from every conflict; you can say no and still be loved; you can face emotions without breaking.
Bit by bit, you shift from protecting your wounds to living from your wholeness.

Tools That Work

Healing from trauma often requires intentional techniques and support. In my work with clients, I integrate a blend of deep healing modalities to address trauma on multiple levels. Few significant ones are Graphotherapy, Inner Child Healing, Trauma Healing, and Karma Healing.

These approaches go far beyond surface-level advice. They require courage and vulnerability, but they work because they address trauma at its roots – emotional, mental, physical and even spiritual. My clients have experienced remarkably powerful visible shifts through this kind of deep work. If this resonates, you’re welcome to explore the Comprehensive Healing Program I’ve curated.

In conclusion, if you’ve felt stuck, small, or in pain due to your past, remember that your past does not have to define your future.