Read Time: Est. 10-12 Minutes
A Better Understanding of Trauma Responses
Most people have heard of fight or flight-the body’s automatic reaction to danger. It’s often described as a primal survival instinct: when faced with a threat, we either stand our ground and fight, or we run.
But our bodies are far more complex than that.
During trauma-whether it’s physical, emotional, or psychological-our nervous system doesn’t just pick between fighting or fleeing. Commonly known as ‘The Five Fs of Trauma’, there are actually five possible responses: fight, flight, freeze, fawn, and flop.
These responses aren’t conscious choices. They’re deeply wired survival mechanisms, shaped by evolution, past trauma, and learned behavior.
When your body perceives a threat, your logical mind often goes offline as your survival instincts take over. You don’t get to decide how you’ll react-your nervous system makes that call before you even have time to process what’s happening.
And these responses don’t just disappear after the threat is gone-they can become ingrained patterns, shaping the way we react to stress, relationships, and even everyday life.
Why We React the Way We Do
Our nervous system is wired for survival. When we perceive a threat-whether it’s physical, emotional, or psychological-our autonomic nervous system (ANS) kicks in to protect us.
The sympathetic nervous system (SNS) activates fight-or-flight, pumping stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline through our body. But if fighting or running isn’t possible, the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) takes over, shutting us down through freeze, fawn, or flop.
Our nervous system constantly scans for safety or danger and adjusts our responses accordingly. The Polyvagal Theory gives context and deeper understanding of the mechanics behind why our bodies react the way they do. Read about it here.
Understanding our survival responses can help us release shame, confusion, or self-blame for how we reacted to trauma.
So let’s talk about each one.
1. Fight: “I Have to Overpower the Threat”
What It Looks Like: Anger, aggression, defiance, control
What’s Happening in the Body: Adrenaline surges, heart rate spikes, muscles tense for action
The fight response is exactly what it sounds like-your body gears up to confront and overpower the threat. However, this doesn’t always mean physical fighting-it can also look like:
- Arguing, yelling, or lashing out
- Becoming defensive or confrontational
- A strong need to control situations or people
- Feeling a rush of anger or irritation when stressed
How This May Show Up in Daily Life
It’s important to remember that the fight response isn’t always loud or obvious. Sometimes, it shows up as internalized rage-turning the aggression inward through self-criticism, perfectionism, or an intense drive to succeed at all costs.
Many people who have a dominant fight response struggle with feeling out of control, which can lead to controlling behaviors in relationships, work, or even their own emotions.
This response is helpful when a fight is necessary for survival-but in everyday life, it can turn into chronic anger, control issues, or difficulty trusting others.
2. Flight: “I Have to Escape”
What It Looks Like: Restlessness, anxiety, perfectionism, overworking
What’s Happening in the Body: Increased heart rate, shallow breathing, hypervigilance
The flight response means your body believes the best way to survive is to escape. If physically running isn’t an option, it can show up as:
- Feeling anxious, panicked, or restless
- Avoiding conflict or difficult conversations
- Overworking or staying constantly busy to avoid feelings
- Perfectionism or feeling the need to “outrun” failure
How This May Show Up in Daily Life
Flight isn’t just about physically running away-it can also mean constantly keeping yourself busy to avoid discomfort.
This might look like overworking, over-exercising, or even jumping from one task to another just to outrun your own thoughts. Many people in a chronic flight response feel an underlying sense of restlessness, like slowing down might make them vulnerable.
If this was your dominant response in trauma, you might struggle with chronic anxiety, avoidance, or difficulty slowing down.
3. Freeze: “I Can’t Move—I’ll Stay Still & Invisible”
What It Looks Like: Paralysis, dissociation, numbness, feeling trapped
What’s Happening in the Body: The nervous system overwhelms the body, shutting down movement and speech to avoid drawing attention to the threat
When the freeze response activates, your body locks up completely. Instead of fighting or running, your system shuts down, leaving you feeling paralyzed and disconnected.
- Your muscles tense, but you can’t move. You feel frozen in place, as if your body refuses to respond.
- Your mind goes blank. Thinking clearly or making decisions feels impossible, like you’ve lost access to your thoughts.
- You feel detached from reality. Some people describe it as feeling “unreal,” like watching themselves from the outside.
- You may become nonverbal. Words won’t come, and you might struggle to speak even if you want to.
This happens because your nervous system has decided that staying still is the safest option. Many survivors blame themselves for “not doing anything” during trauma, but the reality is, freeze is a survival instinct, not a choice.
This response is common in childhood trauma, abuse, or ongoing danger, where neither fight nor flight was an option.
How This May Show Up in Daily Life
Even after the danger is gone, freeze can linger, showing up as chronic numbness, procrastination, dissociation, indecision, or difficulty taking action in daily life. Many people who experience chronic freeze feel stuck in trauma, like life is happening around them rather than to them.
4. Fawn: “I’ll Make Myself Small & Keep the Peace”
What It Looks Like: People-pleasing, over-apologizing, struggling with boundaries
What’s Happening in the Body: The brain prioritizes connection over self-protection
When the fawn response activates, your body’s survival instinct tells you that keeping the peace is the safest option. Instead of fighting, fleeing, or shutting down, you become hyper-focused on appeasing the threat.
- You immediately try to pacify or appease the other person. Your brain scrambles for ways to de-escalate the situation, even if it means agreeing to things you don’t want.
- You suppress your own needs and emotions. Your body prioritizes safety over authenticity, making it hard to speak up, set boundaries, or say no.
- You feel an overwhelming need to “fix” the situation. This might mean apologizing excessively, caretaking, or shifting blame onto yourself.
- You hyper-focus on the emotions of others. Your nervous system tunes in to the threat’s mood and reactions, trying to predict what will keep you safe.
How This May Show Up in Daily Life
This response often develops in abusive or neglectful environments, where pleasing others was the only way to stay safe. If you relate, you might struggle with codependency, guilt, or a fear of disappointing others.
Even after the danger is gone, fawn can become a deeply ingrained pattern-showing up as people-pleasing, difficulty setting boundaries, or feeling responsible for others’ emotions.
Over time, it can leave you feeling exhausted, disconnected from your own needs, and unsure of who you are outside of what others expect from you.
5. Flop: “I Completely Collapse”
What It Looks Like: Limpness, fainting, exhaustion, extreme dissociation, giving up
What’s Happening in the Body: The nervous system shuts down completely, leading to loss of muscle control, neurological shutdown, or fainting
I would like to highlight that this state is not just “fainting.” Because your brain may still be processing on a basic survival level, a person in this state may be capable of following simple directions. However, they aren’t fully aware or engaged.
The flop response is the most extreme form of shutting down. It happens when the brain decides escape is impossible, and the body collapses in surrender, conserving energy through tonic immobility and reducing physical and emotional pain in preparation to endure a life-threatening situation.
In cases where survival is not possible, this state can help to ease the transition by dulling pain and detaching from the overwhelming sensations of the moment.
This can look like:
- Your body suddenly goes limp. You may fall, drop to the ground, or feel physically weak and unable to move.
- Your muscles feel heavy and unresponsive. It can feel like your body is shutting down entirely.
- You may struggle to speak or move at all. Some people become nonverbal or unresponsive under extreme stress.
- Your body may go into a state of “playing dead.” This is an evolutionary survival mechanism, seen in prey animals that collapse to avoid further harm.
- Because this state often comes with severe dissociation or mental detachment, memory encoding will likely be offline.
How This May Show Up in Daily Life
Even after the threat is gone, flop can show up as chronic exhaustion, extreme passivity, or struggling to take action in life. It can also develop in humans who experienced severe abuse, medical trauma, or neglect, especially in childhood.
If you’ve ever felt emotionally paralyzed, unable to make decisions, or like you “shut down” under stress, you may have experienced a lingering flop response.
Understanding Your Trauma Responses
If you’ve ever looked back on a situation and questioned why you reacted the way you did, I hope this helps you see that your body wasn’t failing you-it was protecting you in the best way it knew how.
Trauma responses aren’t conscious decisions. They’re deeply ingrained survival instincts that have been shaped by both evolution and personal experience. Whether you fought, fled, froze, fawned, or flopped, your nervous system was working to keep you alive in a moment it perceived as dangerous.
And here’s the thing: your nervous system doesn’t always get it right. Sometimes, it reacts to things that aren’t actually dangerous but feel that way because of past experiences.
This is why you might find yourself shutting down in an argument, avoiding confrontation at all costs, or feeling paralyzed when facing even minor stressors. Your body is still running an old survival program, even when you’re safe.
Healing starts with awareness-so the good news is, once you recognize these patterns, you can start to shift them. You can learn to soothe your nervous system, create new responses, and move toward a life where your reactions are shaped by the present rather than the past.
This process takes time. It takes patience. But every moment of self-awareness, every small step toward understanding your body’s signals, is an act of healing.
Final Thoughts: You Are Not Broken
If you take nothing else from this post, I hope it’s this:
You are not broken or weak. You are not “too much” or “not enough.”
Your trauma response is not a flaw-it’s proof that your body did everything it could to protect you, even in impossible circumstances. It’s proof of your resilience, even if it doesn’t always feel that way.
But survival is not the same as living. And you deserve more than just survival.
Healing isn’t about fixing yourself, because you were never broken to begin with. It’s about learning yourself. Understanding yourself. And gently teaching your nervous system that it is safe now.
You don’t have to have all the answers today. You don’t have to “get it right” all the time. The fact that you’re even thinking about this-reading, reflecting, wanting to understand yourself-is already a sign that healing is happening.
And that is absolutely something to be proud of.
Real-Life Example: Misunderstanding Trauma Responses
Content Warning: In this section, I mention a recent high-profile crime case in the context of how trauma responses are often misunderstood. While I won’t discuss any details of the case itself, I want to acknowledge that this topic can be sensitive. Please take care of yourself and skip this section if needed. 💙
I chose to write about this subject this week because I have been seeing quite a bit online about how many people don’t have an understanding of trauma responses, but also the fact that these responses are not a conscious choice. They are driven by complex emotional, psychological, and neurological survival mechanisms-not rational decision-making.
If you are interested in true crime, you have likely heard about the Idaho 4 case. As the trial nears, more information is coming out about the surviving roommates on the night of the event, as well as the following morning.
For context, the two surviving roommates of a brutal attack have faced intense criticism for the way they reacted that night. Some people question why they didn’t call for help immediately, why one of them froze in place instead of running, or why their actions didn’t “make sense.”
But trauma responses aren’t logical or predictable-they are automatic survival instincts, not conscious choices. And without understanding how trauma responses work, people have speculated that their reactions were “suspicious” or “illogical.”
The truth is, there is no “right” way to respond to trauma. When the nervous system perceives extreme danger, it acts on instinct, not logic. Some people freeze, unable to move or call for help. Others dissociate, feeling disconnected from what’s happening around them.
The Harm of Misunderstanding Trauma Responses
Truthfully, it has been beyond upsetting to see the severe criticism these girls are facing. As someone who understands firsthand the importance of releasing blame for trauma reactions, it is disheartening to see how many people are shaming and blaming the survivors because they misunderstand their reactions.
But if anything, this conversation highlights why this knowledge is so crucial. Because when we understand that trauma responses aren’t choices, we stop blaming survivors for how they survived.
Instead of judging trauma responses, we should work toward understanding them. When we do, we create a world with more grace and compassion-for ourselves and for others.
Sources
An Introduction to ‘The Five F’s’: 5 Physical Responses to Danger and Threat
ptsduk.org – Trauma: It’s more than just ‘fight of flight’
PositivePsychology.com – The Fight-or-Flight Response: Everything you Need to Know
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