"The 4Fs : Fight, Flight, Freeze, Fawn" Series

Post Title Posted?
1. The 4Fs : Fight, Flight, Freeze, Fawn (Introduction) Posted
2. Prometheus : You Don't Have To Please Others [ The Fawn Response In-Depth] This Post
3. Morpheus : Escape Your Dreamworld [ The Freeze Response In-Depth] soon
4. Ananke : Obsession and Perfectionism [ The Flight Response In-Depth] soon
5. Typhon : The Chaos of Control [ The Fight Response In-Depth] soon

"All I can do is follow my instincts, because I'll never please everyone." - Emma Watson

Introduction

In my previous post, "The 4Fs : Fight, Flight, Freeze, Fawn" we discussed the Fawn response, its dangers when used exessively, and what we call Oneitis is actually "a Fawn response on steroids". Also discussed was that the majority of beta behavior is to overuse the Freeze and Fawn responses, and underuse the Fight or Flight responses, when dealing with hot women. " Emotionally healthy individuals should be able to use all of the responses appropriately and not just rely on the Fawn response. Excessive fawn response leds to oneitis, people pleasing syndrome, and even Codependency. For others it leads to unrequited love and to have a Prometheus personality. This post will be a journey of discovery to the causes of an excessive Fawn response, and an in depth look at how to treat it.

The Fawn Response: To flirt, flatter, lie kiss ass to prevent a perceived threat or an abandonment. The belief that you have to please others to earn love.

THE FAWN TYPE – This type will often go out of their way to help others, perhaps by performing some kind of community service, but without building up emotionally close, or intimate, relationships, due to a fear,like the other three types detailed above, of making him/herself vulnerable to painful rejection which would reawaken intense feelings of distress experienced as a result of the original, highly traumatic childhood rejection.

Prometheus, The People Pleaser

In Greek culture, Prometheus was "a Titan who is credited with the creation of man from clay, and who defies the gods by stealing fire and giving it to humanity, an act that enabled progress and civilization. Prometheus is known for his intelligence and as a champion of mankind." Prometheus did not want to live amongst the clouds on Mount Olympus. He was too busy for that, and felt he was smarter than the other gods. While the gods were spending their time in laziness, drinking nectar and eating ambrosia, he was planning how to make the world wiser and better than it had ever been before. He told himself, " It is my destiny to save the world!". So instead of living on Olympus, Prometheus went out amongst men to live with them. He found them living in caves and in holes of the earth, shivering with the cold because there was no fire, dying of starvation, hunted by wild beasts and by one another; the most miserable of all living creatures.

Prometheus went to Zeus, the god of gods, begging him for permission to share the gift of fire to mankind. Zeus said " "Not one spark will I share with them! For if men had fire they might become strong and wise like us, and after a while they would drive us out of our kingdom. Besides, fire is a dangerous tool and they are too poor and ignorant to be trusted with it. It is better that we on Mount Olympus rule the world without threat so all can be happy." Prometheus didn't listen, and he felt that he had to go behind the back of Zeus and give mankind the gift of fire. A most dangerous gift.

What did Prometheus earn for giving mankind the gift of fire? Zeus was very angry and ordered that Prometheus be chained to the side of a mountain to suffer there for all eternity. An eagle would come every day and eat his liver until eternity helplessness in pain. Prometheus was a people pleaser who felt that he because he was smarter that all the gods. He had the worldview that he was destined to save the world, and had the ultimate Oneitis; mankind itself. He gave up his freedom and didn't get anything in return; only pain every day.

The Origin of Oneitis aka Super Fawn

Just like Promethus was abandoned on the cliff of a mountain for sharing the dangerous fire, we also get abandoned for sharing our whole passion-fire inside us.

Oneitis is "Fawn Superpower" or "Fawn on Steroids"; you just want to connect with someone special. Prometheus had the ultimate fawn response in that he felt he had to please mankind. I call Oneitis a super fawn response. Oneitis is a subconscious need to give our everything to another person. Throught history authors have told stories of oneitis from Romeo and Juliet to Paris & Helen, who causing of the Trojan War. Onetis is simply a supercharged fawn response in which billy beta feels helpless and in a stress response because that his crush will abandon him. It's a unconscious fear that your Oneitis will Billy beta feels that his Oneitis is so special that he must self sacrifice and please her to keep earning her love. In Friend-zoned situations Billy Beta has learned helplessness and is afraid of making a move. In conclusion, Oneitis is falling in love with an imaginary attacker that we think will abandon is; are greatest fear.

Symptoms of Oneitis aka Super Fawn

Symtoms Definition
Infatuation Falling in love with or becoming extremely interested in someone or something for a short time. It is also known as limerance.
Crystallization [Stendhal] A mental metamorphosis, in which unattractive characteristics of a new love are transformed into attractive characteristics. "She is rock salt, but I see her as a diamond".
Enmeshment Enmeshment is "relationship addiction". Its relationship between two or more people in which personal boundaries are unclear. This often happens on an emotional level in which two people “feel” each other’s emotions, or when one person becomes emotionally escalated and the other family member does as well. Both people lack a sense of individuality and usually are each others source of companionship and intimacy.
Oxytocin Addiction A powerful hormone that acts as a neurotransmitter in the brain. It regulates social interaction and sexual reproduction. It is known as the "love hormone". When the body is flooded with oxyrocin a love addiction occurs.
Erotomania Erotomania is a type of delusional disorder where the affected person believes that another person is in love with him or her. This belief is usually applied to someone with higher status or a famous person, but can also be applied to a complete stranger. Even though these advances are unexpected and often unwanted, any denial of affection by the object of this delusional love is dismissed by the patient as a ploy to conceal the forbidden love from the rest of the world.
Dopamine Overload You are in a state of euphoria when you get attention from your Onetis.
Ero Hypervilligence Always on guard of whether the girl actually likes you or on. For many this manifests as an anxiety or panic attack especially if the girl doesn't text back.

The Main Cause of Excesssive Fawn : Emotional Incest and Codependency

A strong fawn response didn't appear out of nowhere. You were taught to use it to survive and prevent abandonment. Many of the causes stem from our childhoods. Rather than Fight, Run, or Freeze on the spot, we decide to reason or rationalize the situation. This can be anything from flattering the abuser, cringing in obedience, attempting to please and seek favor, offering alternatives; doing whatever we have to do to save ourselves by talking our way out. For others the excessive Fawn response is a Promethean urge; we feel like we have to save others by providing enlightenment or our passion.

In my opinion the main cause of people pleasing syndrome and oneitis comes from emotional incest with our mothers during childhood. Emotional incest, is NOT physical sexual abuse, but a type of psychological abuse in which a parent looks to their child for the emotional support that would be normally provided by another adult. Emotional incest is extremely common in single mother households, and the eldest son usually takes the role of "substitute spouse".

Codependency plays a major role in the role people pleasers. Codependency is characterized by a person belonging to a dysfunctional, one-sided relationship where one person relies on the other for meeting nearly all of their emotional and self-esteem needs. It also describes a relationship that enables another person to maintain their irresponsible, addictive, or underachieving. The son becomes responsible for the emotional needs of his parent and learns to please the parents and others to earn love. People with an excessive Fawn response are way to close to their mother's emotionally.

In Emotional incest, you have no sense of individuality and believe you have to please your mother because she is the only source of intimacy and companionship. Usually if you have interest in women your mother makes you feel guilty for expressing your sexuality. Children put in this position of "the substitute spouse" may feel special or privileged because the parent is sharing adult information with them and/or is looking to them for support, creating a sense of closeness. However, given that the child’s needs are ignored in favor of the parent’s, there can be devastating long-term developmental consequences.

When people pleasers try to get with a girl, they are trying to duplicate an "emotional incest/ codependent" relationship and expect unconditional love. Just like Prometheus gave fire to mankind, people pleasers have the belief that if they give your whole self to the girl she will be in a better place and she will love them unconditionally. The problem is that the girl doesn't want your whole self, she just wants a part of you. She doesn't need or want a codependent relationship where you attempt to take care of her needs. She doesn't need you to steal fire for her to save her, but to just appreciate her and fuck her once in a while.

In friendships you are not responsible for most of the needs of another person to appear "cool" or "part of the group". You have to set personal boundaries and focus on your needs first before the needs of others. You have to satisfy your own sense of self love from your accomplishments and actions; not from the validation of others.

The 25 Causes of Excessive Fawn Response

Cause Definition
0. Emotional Incest Covert incest, also known as emotional incest, is a type of psychological abuse in which a parent looks to their child for the emotional support that would be normally provided by another adult. Emotional incest is extremely common in single mother households.
1. Atlas Personality You were trained by BluePill thinking that men are supposed to self sacrifice and be the "workhorse" in relationships.The work of the relationship belongs "on top of your shoulders" and you provide resources to earn love. You have to do the chasing and the maintaining of the relationship; the girls just has to lie in bed like a starfish sometimes.
2. Low Self-Compassion Others needs and feelings are higher priority than my own needs. My inner voice is negative and I am a failure. Expressing emotions is weak and unmanly. I talk about self-compassion in my post Self-Compassion : Become Your Best
3. Hero Syndrome / Whiteknighting You were trained that being a hero for everyone is masculine. The hero syndrome is a phenomenon affecting people who seek heroism or recognition, usually by creating a desperate situation which they can resolve. An example is helping a girl with her homework so you get attention.
4. Super Obedience "I must be a good boy" You were trained to always be obedient and never question things. Told that traditions must never be challenged and critical thinking is dangerous.
5.External Self Worth Flirting and complimenting others makes me feel good. I have to do do that because only other people can make me feel good about myself. They decide my self worth.
Saying No Is Bad "If I tell my dad No he will just hit me harder."You learns to fawn very early in life in a process to prevent further abuse. You have deleting the word “no” from her vocabulary and never developing the language skills of healthy assertiveness.
6. Parentification Children become the “parents” to their parents and younger siblings. These kids are referred to as “parentified children.” Indeed, these children do such things as: dressing the younger kids, house cleaning, preparing lunch and dinner for the entire family, caring for and supervising the younger children and, acting as parents to their own parents.
7. External Locus of Control You believe that other people or events control your life. An external locus of control blames outside forces for everything. You have no control of your actions or situation. You have to fawn to get what you want. This usually happens when you have narcissistic parents, and feel like you have to please them to get love and a sense of self control.
8. Learned Helplessness A behavior typical of an animal and occurs where the subject endures repeatedly painful or otherwise aversive stimuli which it is unable to escape or avoid. "Why try if I am not going to get a reward, maybe I can Fawn to get someone to help me do this"
9. Self-Perfectionism I must be perfect and have many accomplishments to get love back. My parents will only love me if I please them with my perfect grades and excellent behavior. Mom said to be perfect I must be a gentleman and keep her happy. Failure makes mom mad so I must be perfect.
10. Women Are Perfect Myth Men cause trouble and Women can do no wrong. I must Fawn to them because they hold all the power in our society. My mom controls the home, gives me food, and she tells my dad what to do. He listens to her always. In Tv shows and Movies, the men are aways the dumb ones and women are the smart ones so thats what I beleive too.
11.Naivete People are naturally good and only a few people are bad. The lack of experience, wisdom, or judgment to understand that most people are trying to manipuate you.
Emotphobia Fear of showing negative emotions or causing others to have negative emotions. Its normal for other people to be pissed or sad; you don't have to make them happy all the time.
12. Love Addicted Strong desire to be loved, and feel incomplete if you don't have someone to love. Usually stems have having parents that neglected you in childhood.
Engulfment Engulfment is to over-immerse yourself in relationships. You depend on the other to meet all your needs, even demanding that they do so. You have to please others because they are your only source of love.
13. Excessive Conscientiousness Excessive self discipline. In relationships, excessive conscientiousness is too overanalyze the relationship too much. You start thinking of ways to get the affection from another person. You overanalyze body language and Indicators of Interest. Excessive conscientiousness makes things more difficult. It slows them down. It adds more steps, more tasks. Things become more complex. In short, doing things right becomes more important than doing the right things to get good results. "Just kiss her already, stop fawning her by complimenting her so much"
14. Approval Addiction Similar to perfectionism, you need the approval of others to do things. You Fawn for approval because you feel guilty or insecure to do things. Approval Addiction is a form of servitude that can enslave you mentally, spiritually, emotionally, and physically, and destroy your prospects for self-respect and happiness.
14. Self Isolation Social isolation can lead to feelings of loneliness, fear of others, or negative self-esteem. Lack of consistent human contact can cause a person to please everyone just to get some form of attention.
15. Arrogant Altruism The need to save others because they are inferior. Common with whiteknights in that they feel they need to save women everywhere because they are weak and fragile.
17. Misguided Philanthropy Because of religion or moral compass the person thinks that he is chosen to save others from the evils and bad things of the world. Example is the guy who was heavily abused as a child and feels he must please others so that they don't feel any pain or suffering. He takes the burden of suffering so other people can have a normal life.
18. Over Intellectualisation You think you have all the answers and must please others so they become "enlightened". An example is being a wannabe therapist to a girl and fix all of her problems because you have all the answers.
19. Impressionable You are easily impressed with things. You please others because you are impressed with their accomplishments and want to be part of their life or their group.
20. Sexual Anorexia You have not had sex in a long time, (over ever), and were trained that pleasing women will get you sex. Your lack of sex has caused you to please women because they will satisfy your hunger.
21. Indentured servitude The Bluepill promised you that if you please others for a period of time, you will be rewarded with a Soulmate and both will live happy ever after. Also maybe your girlfriend promised you think the indentured servitude of pleasing her is worth the rewards that she grants you,(attention, status, sex).
22. Must Please to Survive You were trained that having boundaries is bad and must please a master to survive. If you don't please you will die, because you are too weak to deal with life by yourself.
23. Narcissistic Rebellion You told yourself that you will be kind to others always, and will never be self centered or selfish like your parents. The problem is that you took the kindness to the other extreme.
24. Utopian Kindness You have a mental idea that if everyone is nice to each other everyone will love each other. The there is a lack of immaturity in understanding that people exists to manipulate and that Machiavellian characters exist.
25. Separation anxiety When an individual experiences excessive terror regarding separation from people to whom the individual has a strong emotional attachment. In other words, you are afraid of being abandoned by those you love.

The BluePill wants People Pleasers

To be a beta is to people please, and the bluepill encourages you to please others under the disguise of "being a gentleman" and "acting like a hero" is a masculine. There are appropriate times to be a hero, and appropriate times to take care of yourself. To be Alpha is to have a strong sense of individuality and that goes against the Bluegill narrative because modern society needs men who self sacrifice for others. Modern society needs men who have low self compassion and put other's needs before their own needs.

The Antidote to People Pleasing is Self Compassion and Individualism

Note: For an overview on Self-Compassion see my TRP post "Self Compassion: Become Your Best".

Self compassion means that you love yourself aways, understand that no one is perfect, and that its okay to express your emotions. The fastest way to get over an excessive use of the Fawn response is to learn to have high self compassion. Other traits that are required is to have the ability to be alone, develop a DGAF attitude, develop personal boundaries, and create personal accomplishments. You need to learn to love yourself, and that your self love don't come from another person. Having high self compassion is an immunity to Onetis and People Pleasing Syndrome. You need to understand that you have control over your life and don't need to rely on others for your validation, confidence, self worth, self esteem, and self-compassion. You must work on not abandoning your own needs and to seek self love. That is the only way to prevent People Pleasing and Oneitis.

You may have to go into Monk Mode

"The biggest adventure you can take is to live the life of your dreams" -Oprah Winfrey

Sometimes an excessive Fawn response is only cured by going on Monk Mode. You have to self reflect and analyze the root cause of an excessive Fawn response. he reason is to truly cure an excessive fawn response is to learn to be by yourself. To live life on your terms you must learn to go on a journey of self exploration. You need to understand that you control your desitny and that you don't need validation from external sources; only from yourself. You probably have to go on Monk Mode whether you like it or not.

Conclusion

This wasa long read, so thank you making it this far. If you have questions please feel free to post in the comments. People pleasing syndrome is highly curable but takes alot of deep self work.

I high recommend you read the following books:

Title Author
No More Mr. Nice Guy Dr. Robert Glover
Human Magnet Syndrome Ross Rosenberg
The Emotional Incest Syndrome Book by Patricia Love
Adult Children of Immature Parents Lindsay C. Gibson
Codependent No More Melody Beattie
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck Mark Mason
Self Compassion Dr. Kristen Neff

Lets do this!