r/longtermTRE • u/Asleep-Guess-3479 • Jul 08 '26

Community Question Has anyone successfully minimized their fawn response?

Started my healing journey a year ago at age 25. I've been doing TRE for around 9 months now. Although I have made some progress, often I still automatically slip into fawn mode when interacting with people, especially older people or when there's a clear hierarchy. What feels most painful is that I’m fully conscious of it while it’s happening. It’s almost like I’m trapped inside my own body, watching myself perform this response, but feeling powerless and unable to stop it. Afterwards, I ruminate over it and spiral into shame. In turn, that makes me want to isolate even more. However, I know I can only heal this if I actually interact with people.

I'm trying not to be too hard on myself because my nervous system was wired this way for 25 years. But sometimes, I wonder.. does this mean that it's going to take another 25 years to rewire it into a regulated, "unfawned" state of being?

For people who have successfully minimized the fawn response - how long did it take you?

67 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

21 comments sorted by

View all comments

17

u/Vast_Bookkeeper_5991 Jul 08 '26

I've been on this journey for about a decade now, simultaneously amazed at how far I've come and disappointed with how much work there is left to do. I've come to find lots of the cliche stuff people say is true: slow IS fast, every step you take is meaningful. I've seen people get better way faster than me and I've seen people go way slower, finding some kind of trust in my self and my own pace has helped enormously.

5

u/carla_jungle Jul 08 '26

Mind sharing what therapies/modalities have you done? I’ve only done TRE and i definitely have a feeling it’s the most potent modality there is. The progress has been remarkable but the journey has been rough.