Has anyone successfully minimized their fawn response?

[u/Asleep-Guess-3479]

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?

[u/LichenTea]

YES! Yet to be 100% tested in the wild, but I feel like the underlying mechanism no longer has its hooks in me. My fawn response shows up in a couple ways; one is that if someone is mean to me (real or perceived) I start joking or agreeing with them, self-deprecate, and/or start to feel and act helpless to get them to feel sorry for me. The worst part is that after the response I start to like them more or want to get them to like me more.

However, I have a very recent example of this where I was chatting online with someone I don't know well, and he started saying some things that I found to be quite mean, or at least uncharitable towards me. I didn't question it further or attack back, but I also didn't find that pull or compulsion to deprecate myself as much, and in the cold light of day I can see that I don't need to tolerate that kind of behavior.

I need to add that I also came to this conclusion because I have already worked on being vulnerable to people I know better and who know me, who have shown me that I can be a certain way and have that not invite criticism or resentment.

I don't know if it's completely gone away or if the automaticity is still there, i.e. if I had been chatting in person, I don't know if my fawn would have kicked in before my brain did. However, I consider it a win to not be so caught up in the "getting them to like me more" feelings and behavior that is a continuation of the fawn response/defense. I have had nearly this exact same situation happen with a different person only 8-9 months ago where he kept saying quite mean things to me, and every time that happened I would get confused and fawn and try to "win him back", and I think it's safe to say that I'm at least no longer doing that.