Fight, Flight, Freeze, or Fawn
Updated: 9 hours ago
What is your go-to when your loved one is emotionally dysregulated?
Fight is driven by anger and a belief that you can overpower the threat. Flight is the classic fear-based response to avoid or escape the threat. Freeze may be severe dissociation, including fainting, or it may be avoiding engagement and hoping the threat passes by. Fawn may arise from fear as well, but there is likely to be guilt involved as you find yourself trying to soothe your loved one.
Your emotional reaction to your emotionally dysregulated loved one matters. It probably controls what you say and do. It may be a long-standing pattern that accommodate your loved one's dysfunction behaviors and reinforces the problems that you have in this relationship. Taking the time to bring this into awareness and naming it will give you more control over the words and actions that follow. You will be more in control of your words and actions and more able to stop accommodating and reinforcing your loved one's problematic behaviors.
Pause to recognize what you are feeling before you speak or act may help you to hold space for a moment. Then you are likely to respond in a more effective and stable manner. If you really want to get a deep dive how to do it, listen to the 10-minute guided meditation that invites you to reflect upon a recent time when you gave or gave in instead of saying no.
Approaching your feelings helps you stay present and connected without letting fear and guilt drive your decisions. Each time you feel the urge to give in but instead stay present with your feelings, you learn you can bear it. And you give your loved one the chance to learn the same.
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