It seems hard to believe that over a year ago we had little to no idea really what a fight, flight, freeze, fawn or flop response was. Our daughter was displaying one or more of these responses almost daily but we did not know their names, let alone the reasons why they happened.
Survival Mode
Demands, direct or indirect are extremely challenging and J's extreme avoidance is, I would say, triggered into survival mode whenever her environment challenges her or when other peoples responses to her stop her from feeling a sense of calm.
Fight
This survival response occurs when J feels frightened/trapped. Again, it happened when she was at school and it also happens at home. The reponse just totally overrides everything else going on and is triggered unconsciously and unintentionally. Sometimes it almost seems like her 'default setting' is fight ... and boy she fights hard at times! She gets a glazed look in her eye, her body posture changes, she will snarl, growl and hiss resulting in lashing out with, what seems, real intent to harm.
Flight
The flight response occurs in J when she feels she has been threatened. She will then feel the desperate urge to flee. I've lost count of how many times this has happened in the past. Not only did it happen when at school, but also occurred at home too. Many a time she would take off up the road and eventually we ended up locking the doors and hiding the keys. Awful times thinking back.
Her urge to flee the situation she perceived as dangerous or threatening was too strong to do anything but run. I have read that some children, when feeling threatened, will just immerse themselves wholeheartedly in an activity. J has never, ever done this ... she just needs to run ... and fast!
Freeze
The freeze response is only triggered when J feels that a perceived threat placed on her is one that she just cannot respond to. She will sort of go into shutdown mode. This does occasionally happen and it's a strange thing to witness. She is just literally unable to respond to anything we say or do. The last time it happened she sort of just laid on the sofa, moving her legs gently, eyes tightly shut for a very long time. Quite unnerving to watch to be honest
Fawn
I had no idea about fawning until we went to a seminar and listened to Harry Thompson.
When the fawn response is triggered, J enters into what I would describe as 'people pleasing mode'. This is quite an interesting one and one in which I have only really picked up on recently when observing her playing with friends. When things get a little heated, she will comply with something to avoid any form of conflict.
This has also happened whilst playing on the Xbox with someone. She will come off, in a right mood, saying someone had done x, y or z and when I say, "you should have told them that wasn't fair", or whatever the situation is, and J will respond with, "I didn't want to make them feel sad or upset!". I guess it boils down to her being uncertain and unable to predict whether a person would get angry if she fails to please them. As she is so young, and naive, this often poses a problem for her.
Flop
Again, a word I used to use to explain how I felt at the end of the day, when all I wanted to do was 'flop' into bed(!), but obviously it has more than one meaning!
Flop is a shutdown mode and is by no means a chosen response. It's a trigger to safeguard, much like the freeze response.
Confusion
One thing that confuses me, and probably will continue to do so, is how can J follow some demands, for some people, some of the time? I think it comes down to the fact that her responses are clever, adaptive and ever changing. Plus she has this amazing thing going on called ... masking!
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