Fawning, Relational Trauma, & Neurodivergence Reclaiming Your Voice
For many neurodivergent women, particularly those with autism or ADHD, navigating a world that doesn’t always make space for difference can shape the way they relate to themselves and others. When your needs have been misunderstood, invalidated, or overlooked, it’s common to develop coping strategies that prioritize others’ comfort or safety over your own. One such strategy is the fawn response, a trauma-based survival pattern that shows up as people-pleasing, over-accommodation, and self-suppression.
Fawning often overlaps with masking, a behavior frequently seen in autistic and ADHD women, where social behaviors, speech, or body language are adapted to appear “normal” or safe. While masking can emerge from neurodivergence, fawning is rooted in relational trauma and the fear of conflict, rejection, or abandonment. Many women experience both simultaneously: masking to navigate social expectations and fawning to manage relational safety. Sometimes what starts as masking evolves into fawning without awareness, creating chronic exhaustion and disconnection from the self.
The consequences of these patterns can be profound. Chronic fawning can lead to feeling invisible, losing touch with your own needs, difficulty trusting your intuition, and confusion about identity. Research on masking and camouflaging in autistic adults links these strategies with burnout, stress, anxiety, depression, and a diminished sense of self. When relational trauma intersects with neurodivergence, fawning compounds the emotional toll, creating patterns of self-abandonment that are deeply ingrained yet understandable.
Polyvagal theory offers a helpful lens for understanding this. Developed by Dr. Stephen Porges, it highlights how the autonomic nervous system responds to perceived threat. The vagus nerve regulates our physiological state and social engagement through a hierarchy: the ventral vagal complex fosters safety and social connection; the sympathetic nervous system activates fight-or-flight responses; and the dorsal vagal complex engages in freeze or shutdown states when threats feel overwhelming. Fawning can emerge as a blend of sympathetic hypervigilance and dorsal vagal immobilization, where the individual is simultaneously attentive to perceived threats and suppressing their own needs to maintain safety.
Dr. Arielle Schwartz explores how fawning involves disconnecting from one’s own emotions to prioritize others, leading to chronic self-criticism and diminished self-regard. Dr. Ingrid Clayton also emphasizes fawning as a survival strategy in response to relational trauma, particularly in those who have grown up with invalidation, neglect, or misunderstanding. For autistic women who may not have been diagnosed or validated in childhood, these patterns often develop silently, yet profoundly, shaping relationships across the lifespan.
Healing and Reclaiming Your Voice
Healing from fawning involves reconnecting with yourself in a safe, compassionate way. In therapy, approaches like Internal Family Systems (IFS) allow you to explore the different parts of yourself, the people-pleasing part, the exhausted part, and the part longing to be seen and heard. Somatic psychology helps you notice where stress and tension are held in your body and supports nervous system regulation, while Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT) guides you in activating your inner compassion system, offering validation and care to previously silenced parts.
This work doesn’t mean forcing authenticity overnight. Rather, it provides tools to recognize when you’re in a “fawning state,” respond instead of reacting, and relate differently to the people around you. Over time, these practices allow you to show up more authentically with your spouse, children, colleagues, and friends, develop your own voice, and rebuild trust in your feelings and intuition.
The benefits of therapy extend beyond awareness: you can learn to navigate relationships without chronic self-suppression, honor your own needs, and cultivate safety in your body and nervous system. You begin to feel seen, heard, and validated from the inside out.
If this resonates with you, you don’t have to navigate it alone. Therapy can provide a safe space to explore these patterns, honor all parts of yourself, and begin to cultivate a life that feels authentic, safe, and connected. Together, we can help your nervous system feel regulated, your parts feel heard, and your authentic self-begin to emerge. If you’re ready to reclaim your voice and show up as yourself in the world, I invite you to reach out to schedule a session.
📩 You can learn more or explore the focus areas and approaches I use at dramandapress.com.
Cartoon illustration of different sides of a woman with a slightly forced smile and attentive posture, depicting fawning behavior or masking in social situations.
