Why the Fawn Response May Lead to FND: A Simple Explanation
What's Happening in Your Body When People-Pleasing Becomes Physical
Have you ever wondered why being "the nice one" or "the helpful one" leaves you so exhausted? Or why, despite doing everything "right" in relationships, your body seems to be rebelling with symptoms doctors can't explain?
You're not alone. Many women experiencing Functional Neurological Disorder (FND) share a common pattern that rarely gets discussed in neurologists' offices: the fawn trauma response.
Let me break down this connection in simple terms.
First, What Is FND?
Functional Neurological Disorder involves real physical symptoms—like seizures, tremors, weakness, or numbness—that can't be explained by standard medical tests. Your brain scans look normal, your bloodwork comes back fine, yet the symptoms are undeniably real.
FND affects about 4-12 people per 100,000, and importantly, about 75% of those diagnosed are women. This isn't a coincidence.
What Is the Fawn Response?
The fawn response is a trauma response (like fight, flight, or freeze) where you automatically accommodate others to stay safe.
It looks like:
Reading others' emotions before your own
Saying yes when you mean no
Feeling responsible for others' feelings
Freezing when asked what YOU want or need
Maintaining hypervigilance to keep everyone happy
This pattern often develops in childhood but can become so automatic you don't even realize you're doing it. It just feels like "who you are."
So How Does Fawning Lead to Neurological Symptoms?
This is where things get interesting. The connection happens in three key ways:
1. The Split-Attention Problem
Imagine your brain as a computer running two programs simultaneously:
Program 1: Constantly scanning others' emotions, anticipating needs, managing potential conflict Program 2: Trying to run your body's basic functions and respond to your own needs
When Program 1 constantly overrides Program 2, your brain creates a processing problem. Research shows this split attention actually changes how your brain's networks communicate with each other.
In FND, neuroimaging has found disrupted connections between brain regions that handle:
Emotional processing
Body awareness
Movement control
These are exactly the same connections affected by chronic people-pleasing.
2. The Body-Brain Disconnect
Every time you override what your body is telling you (hunger, fatigue, discomfort) to please someone else, you're teaching your brain to ignore important internal signals.
Over time, this creates what scientists call "interoceptive dysfunction"—basically, your brain loses accurate information about what's happening in your body.
When your brain can't properly sense and interpret bodily signals, it can't properly control bodily functions either. This can manifest as:
Unexplained weakness or numbness
Non-epileptic seizures
Movement disorders
Sensory changes
The very act of constantly overriding your authentic response literally disconnects your brain from your body.
3. The Stress of Constant Contradiction
Think about the physical tension of holding back your true feelings or needs. That's not just emotional—it creates real physiological stress.
Your nervous system gets caught in a contradictory state:
Part of you is activated (detecting a problem or threat)
Part of you is suppressing that activation (to maintain harmony)
This is like driving with one foot on the gas and one foot on the brake. Eventually, something in the system gives way.
Research has found that 85% of FND patients report significant stressors before symptom onset—many involving situations where they couldn't express their authentic needs or feelings.
Why Women Are More Vulnerable to This Pattern
Women aren't born people-pleasers. But many of us are raised to:
Prioritize others' comfort over our own
See anger as unacceptable or "unfeminine"
Derive worth from being helpful or accommodating
Fear conflict or abandonment if we express needs
We're socialized to override our authentic responses from an early age, creating the perfect conditions for this fawn-FND connection to develop.
A fascinating cross-cultural study found that in societies with stricter gender expectations for women, rates of functional disorders are significantly higher.
What This Means for Healing
Understanding the fawn-FND connection offers new pathways for healing that go beyond traditional treatments.
When you recognize that neurological symptoms may be connected to chronic override of your authentic self, you can approach healing by:
Rebuilding body awareness: Learning to recognize and trust your internal signals again
Practicing authentic expression: Starting with small, safe moments of expressing your true needs or feelings
Regulating your nervous system: Using techniques that help resolve the contradictory stress state
Addressing the root trauma: Working with the original experiences that taught you that pleasing was necessary for safety
This isn't about blaming yourself for your symptoms. It's about recognizing that your body might be telling you something important: that constantly abandoning yourself for others isn't sustainable, and that reclaiming your authentic voice might be essential for your neurological health.
What Real Healing Looks Like
Sarah, a client with non-epileptic seizures, noticed her episodes often happened after forcing herself to agree to something that felt wrong. Through our work together, she learned to:
Recognize the physical sensations that preceded her "yes" when she meant "no"
Create breathing space before responding to requests
Start with small, low-risk moments of authentic expression
Build a support system that validated her right to have needs
Within six months, her seizure frequency had decreased by 70%. More importantly, she described "feeling at home in my body for the first time."
This doesn't mean FND is "just" psychological. It means the mind-body connection is real, powerful, and a pathway to healing that many women haven't been offered.
Your Next Steps
If this resonates with your experience, know you're not alone. Many women navigating FND have found that addressing their fawn response creates improvements that purely medical approaches missed.
Some gentle first steps:
Notice when you automatically say yes, and practice pausing first
Pay attention to physical sensations when you override your needs
Start expressing small preferences in safe relationships
Find healthcare providers who understand this connection
For a deeper exploration of how the fawn response affects your nervous system and practical steps for reclaiming your authentic voice, join my upcoming masterclass: "When Pleasing Becomes Protection."
Because your neurological health and your authentic voice might be more connected than medicine has recognized. And reclaiming one might help heal the other.
If you're experiencing neurological symptoms, please know you are to alone, there is a collective of women going through a similar experience, and there is a way to recover.