Dr. Ramani's fawn response

The End of the Fawn Response: Dr. Ramani on Trauma, Self-Betrayal, and Finding Your "No"

In this deeply personal video, Dr. Ramani Durvasula—a clinical psychologist and leading expert on narcissism—shares an intimate account of two traumatic events she experienced within a single month. Using her own "fall and response," she illustrates how the fawn response (a trauma adaptation rooted in people-pleasing) can place individuals in danger, how post-trauma invalidation can wound as deeply as the event itself, and how hitting a "fawn rock bottom" led her to discover a long-suppressed capacity to say no. The video is both a cautionary tale and a roadmap for survivors of narcissistic relationships.

The Personal Context: Two Traumatic Events

Dr. Ramani opens by acknowledging that she cannot share all the specifics due to legal and personal reasons. Over the past month, she endured two significant traumatic events, both carrying the risk of life-changing or even life-ending injury. One injury will require several months of treatment and has already altered the rhythms of her daily life.

• She describes the full spectrum of acute trauma responses: nightmares, flattened mood, changing appetite, panic attacks, hypervigilance, loss of meaning and purpose, and a strong desire to be alone.
• One nightmare caused her to wake up screaming—something she had not done since childhood. As a psychologist, she could ground herself and interpret it as her system "letting go" of encoded fear, but the experience was deeply unsettling.

Even a trained clinician is not immune to the physiological and psychological weight of trauma.

Understanding the Fawn Response 🧠

The core of the video is an exploration of the fawn response, which Dr. Ramani describes as an involuntary, reflexive adaptation to potentially harmful situations. Unlike fight, flight, or freeze, fawning manifests as accommodation, people-pleasing, and appeasement—behaviors designed to keep a person safe by making them agreeable and non-threatening.

• Many learn this response in childhood: staying close to abusers or invalidating caregivers, being "good," yielding, and never stepping away from uncomfortable situations.
• Over time, it becomes hardwired: we smile when we don't want to, give hugs we don't want to give, avoid taking up space, and endure invalidating conversations.
• Dr. Ramani distinguishes fawning from codependency: it is not a conscious choice but a survival strategy driven by the nervous system.

She admits that, despite years of professional work, she fawned in both recent circumstances—giving in, going along, and going places she should not have. In both cases, "bad things happened."

The Secondary Wound: Invalidation and Gaslighting After Trauma ⚠️

A second major lesson emerged in real time: the invalidating, minimizing, or gaslighting responses we receive after a trauma can feel worse than the trauma itself. People often say things like:

"Oh, is it really that bad?"

Such remarks lead survivors to doubt themselves and their reactions. Other common responses include:

• "Well, I didn't intend for that bad thing to happen to you."
• "We've never had anything like that happen before."
• People disappearing or withholding assistance when you become an inconvenience.

The unwillingness of others to bear witness to your pain magnifies the lack of safety and etches the trauma more deeply. Dr. Ramani had a unique dual experience: after one trauma, the initial response was deeply invalidating; after another, the responses were kind—but the narrative shifted to her being "a problem to be dealt with." She also pleads: stop asking trauma survivors to repeatedly retell their stories so others can decide whether they "deserve" to be upset. If someone says something bad happened, hold space for it and do not question it.

The Turning Point: Fawn Rock Bottom

The central thesis is what Dr. Ramani calls the "fawn rock bottom." The fawn response, meant to keep her safe, instead made her dangerously unsafe twice in one month. After the second event, something shifted: the fawning stopped.

• She describes feeling like a "new Dr. Ramani"—colder, more demanding, and less agreeable. She admits she is judging this new version of herself.
• She is saying no more often and becoming more discerning about where she goes and whom she trusts.
• She can now see the dynamics clearly: going "from supply to discard in six hours flat," being smiled at politely while not helped during a real crisis, and being stared at blankly when she told people what happened.

"Something sort of quietly snapped and broke inside of me," she says. She had to see the dynamics in concentrated form before the fawn response began to loosen its grip.

The Role of the Narcissism Framework 💡

Dr. Ramani emphasizes that she had experienced scary, dangerous situations earlier in life but lacked the narcissism framework to understand them. Without it, earlier traumas were folded back into her fawn response, magnifying self-blame. The "aha moment" is this: when you understand narcissism, gaslighting, invalidation, cognitive dissonance, enabling, and denial, you gain a lens to see events clearly. She uses the metaphor of glasses:

"Without wearing the glasses, things are blurry. But having the framework to see it for what it is—that may be what it takes to start to see everything a lot more clearly."

She does not wish for bad things to happen, but notes that survivors receive "small reminders" all the time. The advice: write them down, sketch out the patterns, and practice the techniques—discernment, not going deep, not sharing good or bad news, and learning to say no.

Lessons for Survivors of Narcissistic Relationships 🛑

Dr. Ramani connects her story to the broader experience of survivors:

• We cannot wait for disasters to occur before taking our patterns seriously.
• The body knows. In both dangerous circumstances, she felt the warning in her body, but the "polite, fawny, go-along-to-get-along" part of her overrode it with smiles and "of course, that's fine."
• The part of her that wanted to be "easy breezy," invisible, and need nothing had to be "scared to death" before the loud no could emerge.
• She recounts waking from a nightmare screaming "911" and "no"—a deep, unconscious declaration that marked the end of fawning.

She acknowledges that saying no may cost her relationships and the perception of being "easy breezy." Survivors care too much about what others think because attachment was crucial to surviving inconsistent or transactional love. But she warns:

"Unless you fully subjugate to the convenient reality of not only the narcissist but also the enablers, people may always see you as the problem—because it allows other people the luxury of keeping their unrealistic reality going. That is not your responsibility."

She concludes: antagonistic and enabling people teach us they are harmful twice—first they put us in danger, and then they leave us in danger. Integrating these truths is uncomfortable, but necessary.

Key Takeaway

Dr. Ramani's story is a stark reminder that the fawn response—while originally protective—can become profoundly dangerous when left unexamined. The path to reclaiming one's life is not about waiting for a crisis, but about finding your no, listening to your body, and tolerating the discomfort of being seen as "the problem" by those who benefit from your compliance. The framework of narcissism and trauma is the lens that makes these patterns visible; the practice of discernment and boundary-setting is what breaks the cycle. As Dr. Ramani puts it, "Find your no. Take your time. Listen to your body. And be okay with other people having their own narrative about you."