Survival Stories: Understanding Fight, Flight, Freeze, and Fawn in Everyday Life
We often think of trauma responses as something that happens after a big, life-changing event… war, assault, disaster. But in reality, our nervous system is constantly scanning for safety or threat, and when it detects danger (real or perceived), it responds instinctively. These responses fight, flight, freeze, and fawn aren’t chosen consciously. They are hardwired strategies to help us survive.
And they work. Or at least, they worked once.
The trouble is, when we continue to live from these patterns long after the danger has passed, or when the “danger” is baked into our everyday environments, they start to shape who we believe we are. They start to define our relationships, our work, our sense of worth. They become invisible scripts we follow without realising we're performing.
In my work as a therapist, and from my own lived experience, I see how these responses play out in subtle but powerful ways:
The manager who’s quick to anger, always needing to win an argument. (Fight.)
The overachiever who never rests, always working to stay one step ahead of failure. (Flight.)
The friend who shuts down when things get emotional, or can’t make decisions. (Freeze.)
The caregiver who sacrifices their own needs, always smiling, always agreeable. (Fawn.)
None of these behaviours make us broken. They make us human. They are survival stories… sometimes inherited, sometimes rehearsed, sometimes so deeply entrenched that we confuse them with our personality.
This blog series is an invitation to look more closely.
Over the next few posts, we’ll explore each of these responses, not just what they are, but how they show up in everyday life, in the workplace, in relationships, in parenting, even in therapy. We’ll look at how culture rewards or punishes each response. We’ll talk about what healing looks like, not as a quick fix, but as a gentle practice of noticing, reclaiming, and choosing again.
You don’t need to have a diagnosis, a label, or a dramatic origin story to relate to this. You just need to be someone who has felt the pressure to perform, to please, to prove, or to disappear.
Maybe you'll see yourself. Maybe you'll understand someone you love more deeply. Either way, I hope this series offers some compassion, clarity, and permission to begin again, from a place of safety, not survival.