Are You Mad at Me?: How to Stop Focusing on What Others Think and Start Living for You

Josephson introduces the fawn response, a trauma response characterized by appeasing and pleasing others to feel safe. Unlike the more widely recognized fight, flight, and freeze responses, fawning involves moving toward threats rather than away from them. The term was coined by psychotherapist Pete Walker in 2013, making it a relatively recent addition to trauma literature. Josephson argues that fawning often develops in childhood when children learn that aggression escalates danger, freezing offers little protection, and fleeing is not feasible. Instead, children discover that becoming helpful and agreeable provides relative safety.

The author contextualizes fawning within broader social dynamics, noting that society often rewards this behavior through promotions for people-pleasers and praise for those who sacrifice their own needs. This social reinforcement is particularly significant for women, who have historically needed to please men for basic survival—Josephson notes that women could not even own credit cards independently until 1974. Similarly, people of color have needed to fawn to navigate white-dominated systems, often internalizing “model minority” narratives to appear acceptable to gatekeepers. LGBTQIA+ individuals and people with disabilities also frequently adopt fawning as a survival strategy in environments that demand conformity.

Josephson distinguishes fawning from genuine kindness by examining motivation. While compassion stems from an authentic desire to be kind, fawning involves abandoning oneself to avoid conflict or gain approval. A key component is hypervigilance—constant scanning of others’ emotional states to preemptively adapt. Unlike animals who return to baseline once threats pass, humans can replay scenarios endlessly, keeping their bodies in survival mode even when safe.

The author emphasizes that trauma need not be a single catastrophic event. Complex trauma accumulates through repeated small moments of feeling unsafe, unheard, or unseen, particularly within relationships that should provide security. Importantly, Josephson acknowledges that fawning is sometimes necessary for survival within oppressive systems, and healing involves recognizing when fawning serves genuine protection versus when it perpetuates unnecessary self-abandonment.

Chapter Lessons

• The fawn response is an unconscious survival mechanism involving appeasing others to feel safe. This is distinct from genuine kindness, which stems from authentic compassion rather than fear of rejection.
• Hypervigilance—constant monitoring of others’ emotional states—is exhausting and often unnecessary, keeping the body in survival mode even when actual threats are absent.
• Complex trauma develops through accumulated small moments of feeling unsafe rather than requiring one catastrophic event, making it valid even when childhood appeared outwardly unharmed.
• Fawning has been a necessary survival strategy for marginalized groups navigating oppressive systems, and healing involves discerning when fawning is genuinely protective versus when it reflects outdated patterns in safe environments.

Reflection Questions

• When you look back at your childhood, can you identify moments when you learned that being agreeable or helpful kept you safer than expressing your true feelings or needs? How might those early lessons still influence your relationships today?
• In which areas of your life do you find yourself constantly monitoring others’ moods or reactions? Are there relationships or situations where this hypervigilance genuinely protects you, versus contexts where you might actually be safe to relax this vigilance?