Peter Walker On Fawn

[Badmemories]

I shorten this by copy and pasting this so the information is easier to understand.I then divided it into each response.

http://www.pete-walker.com/fourFs_TraumaTypologyComplexPTSD.htm

This model elaborates four basic defensive structures that develop out of our instinctive Fight, Flight, Freeze and Fawn responses to severe abandonment and trauma. Variances in the childhood abuse/neglect pattern, birth order, and genetic predispositions result in individuals "choosing" and specializing in narcissistic
(fight), obsessive/compulsive (flight), dissociative (freeze) or codependent (fawn) defenses.

Habituated 4F defenses offer protection against further re-abandonment hurts by precluding the type of vulnerable relating that is prone to re-invoke childhood feelings of being attacked, unseen, and unappreciated.

FAWN TYPE

DEFINED
Fawn types avoid emotional investment and potential disappointment by barely showing themselves - by hiding behind their helpful personas, over-listening, over-eliciting or overdoing for the other - by giving service but never risking real self exposure and the possibility of deeper level rejection.

ACTIONS
Fawn types seek safety by merging with the wishes, needs and demands of others. They act as if they unconsciously believe that the price of admission to any relationship is the forfeiture of all their needs, rights, preferences and boundaries. They often begin life like the precocious children described in Alice Miler's The
Drama Of The Gifted Child, who learn that a modicum of safety and attachment can be gained by becoming the helpful and compliant servants of their parents. They are usually the children of at least one narcissistic parent who uses contempt to press them into service, scaring and shaming them out of developing a healthy sense of self: an egoic locus of self-protection, self-care and self-compassion.

TREATMENT
Fawn types typically respond well to being psychoeducated in this model. This is especially true when the therapist persists in helping them recognize and renounce the repetition compulsion that draws them to narcissistic types who exploit them. Therapy also naturally helps them to shrink their characteristic listening defense as they are guided to widen and deepen their self-expression. I have seen numerous inveterate codependents finally progress in their assertiveness and boundary-making work, when they finally got that even the thought of expressing a preference or need triggers an emotional flashback of such intensity that they completely dissociate from their knowledge of and ability to express what they want. Role-playing assertiveness in session and attending to the stultifying inner critic processes it triggers helps the codependent build a healthy ego. This is especially true when the therapist interprets, witnesses and validates how the individual as a child was forced to put to death so much of her individual self. Grieving these losses further potentiates the developing ego.

[Badmemories]

I feel I also have compnents of this catagory. I have always been a people pleaser and trying to help everyone at MY expense.

. This is especially true when the therapist interprets, witnesses and validates how the individual as a child was forced to put to death so much of her individual self.


I feel My NPDM was so Dominating, that I did lose Myself.

From Information form OOTF I have been setting boundaries. I notice my mood has improved significantly with setting boundaries.

[Kizzie]

I agree BadMemories, sorting out what personality disorders (PDs) are all about and then using the tools from Out of the FOG really helped me to notice if/when I was fawning and instead try to be more authentic about what I think/feel.

So far the only problem has been with PD FOO -- they do not like it when you don't feed their need and don't behave as you once did do they lol? 

[Badmemories]

Boy are you right about that! I started setting Boundaries on on NPDSis.The boundaries I set are.

• I am not going to give you money to borrow. You make more money than I do (I knew I was shielding her from being responsible for her own problems.)
• When She would talk about all her problems and unload on me the I started saying I don't have the answers You need to find a T.
• When She started talking and browbeating others, I told her I was not going to gossip about anyone any more.
• I told her to get out of the house or Pay RENT that she is living in that is mine. I told her I would evict her. She was supposed to give me rent and NEVER paid it for Over a Year.
• I started Telling her what I thought when she was playing me.

I am feeling Good about the boundaries that I have set. However she is quit MAD about it. IN fact she has gone No Contact with ME! i have been goggling about the silent treatment. It has me really suffering. In fact It put me on another depression (freeze) I tried to calmly and Nicely tell My nephew how I was feeling and Now He is NO contact with me also. I have done nothing bad to that child. In fact for many years he was dumped at MY HOUSE for weeks at a time while NPDSis was traveling around the country.. Since he is her Mirror, never telling him what he thinks, when she craps on him..
So, I am processing this among other things. No wonder I am a basket case with all the Personality disorder people I am dealing with!!

[pam]

I can relate to this Fawning. Any progress I have ever made has involved self-expression! and to a lesser extent, but still important, asserting myself, and putting some kind of boundaries in place with others.