Meet My Fawn

Dysfunction Raised Fawn and Fight...But Where Am I?

Hi guys….it’s been a minute. I mentioned my Mom had visited….and quite honestly, it triggered an inner child of mine to heal at another level. I am sharing parts of this journey in hopes that someone may see themselves in my story.

I met a part of me that I have always known intimately, but hadn’t paid much attention to. One of the parts of me that has had to be strong for a very long time. She is the part of me that fawns with expertise. She has always known how to speak to my Mom. She always had the tools to thwart an incoming blow up.

When her tools didn’t work this last visit….she reacted in the exact ways she witnessed as a child. She yelled, she didn’t budge….meeting every word with a closed mind and a fierce wall. I didn’t recognize her.

She has had it. No more nice girl.

No more over functioning, over doing, over giving and over explaining. She has spent her whole life bending. Using her skills to not upset mom. Tiptoeing through mine fields, never knowing which words would be heard through a defensive lens…and always ready with five explanations of how her words were misunderstood and what she actually meant. Desperate to be understood.

Something snapped in me that day. It was my little girl inside. I had no idea what she was holding.

That part of me…has been trying to explain herself from as early as she has existed. She’s too loud. She has too many opinions. She thinks she’s so smart. She thinks her education makes her better than her Mom.

Except…she doesn’t feel that. She has always just wanted a mom. A mom that seeks understanding not defending. A mom that sees her and hears her. A mom that celebrates her light. Yet from her earliest existence, she was tasked with taking care of the little girl inside of her mom. She calmed, she soothed, she explained, she got small. She was trained to take care of her Mom’s inner children so well that one day….those tools were used as fodder against her. The very tools she was forced to create to survive her household, were used as evidence that her growth has created the distance her Mom loathes.

Her fawning wasn’t working and quite frankly she bristled at the very sound the effort was making.

It sounded desperate to be loved.

So I paused….and I listened longer and harder. This part was so great at fawning because she is my softness. She is the part of me that learned that in a dysfunctional home, softness is weakness. It’s vulnerability and that only allows the hurt inside. If she could use her softness to gain understanding….well that would be something worthy now wouldn’t it?!

So she did. In so many ways….with so many people. She made herself smaller, quieter, less educated, less curious…..any less she could find that would feel like love. Becoming less worked wonderfully. When she could expertly be less, she could be loved by both parents. Hell, she could even be liked during those moments. It felt worth it…back then. It felt worth it to get her needs for love filled.

During my Mom’s last visit….that part of me felt tired. She didn’t want to perform for love anymore, she just wanted to BE and have that be enough.

But it wasn’t. It won’t ever be enough for dysfunction. And because of that, that little girl inside will never have healthy love from her parents. She will never feel loved well by people who can’t love themselves.

Yet, she can still be loved by Self. And she is learning…and growing….and healing. She is letting that love in so she can return to her strength….which is her softness.

She doesn’t need to reflect anything back. She doesn’t need to make someone feel good about themselves first. She doesn’t need to regulate someone else before she can be regulated. She is worthy of being loved…..accepted…..understood and seen just by BEING who she IS. She doesn’t have to DO anything.

This growth doesn’t come without risk and loss as all growth does. By no longer fawning, has made a relationship with my Mom even harder. Understandably, she doesn’t know how to respond to me….because she doesn’t know the real me. She only knows the part of me that had to hide her softness with fawning. She only feels comfortable with the smaller version of me….the full version is triggering to her as it has always been.

I have held a whole lot of hands on this journey of parenting, including my Mom’s…..and now it’s time to hold my own.

This story doesn’t have a bow on it. It is not wrapped in beautiful packaging with a lesson at the end of how it all worked out. It didn’t for the fawn. Because the fawn was created for them. She was never mine to keep. The fawn was hiding the soft, vulnerable parts of me that love fully and can accept love fully. Boy is is that softness needed now that I’m guiding two young adults. That softness is necessary now that I’m in the chapter of an emptying nest. The part of the story where my husband and I fully turn towards each other again definitely demands softness.

So I am holding my own hand these days…..so fiercely that I am ready to hold yours again. In fact I need your hand again. Please reach your hand out if you can feel or see yourself in my journey. Your hand strengthens my hand….so much so that strength returns the softness.

~~ A couple of pics of healing and joy.