When Being Too Nice is Killing You: The Hidden Cost of the Fawn Response in Single Moms

Lisa Loree - The Rebel Ballereina. (Image:  https://denameederportraits.com/ )

 

I never realized being nice could be deadly until I read Pete Walker's book, Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving. That was after I'd already left my marriage and started working on my thinking through what I now call the Rebel Mind Rewire. As Pete described the fawn response, I saw myself on every page. And then it hit me. This pattern had nearly killed me.

But I didn't see it until I was already on the other side.

What is the Fawn Response?

You've probably heard of fight, flight, and freeze responses to danger. But there's a fourth survival response that's especially common in women and particularly devastating for single moms: the fawn response.

Fawning isn't just being polite or considerate. It's a trauma response where you automatically prioritize others' needs, emotions, and comfort above your own survival. It's chronic people-pleasing taken to a life-threatening extreme.

And here's what most people miss: Single moms aren't "falling into" this pattern. They're already there. They've been there their whole lives. That's why they're chronically nice in the first place. It's not just a personality trait. It's a survival mechanism gone terribly wrong.

The Cultural Glorification of Maternal Martyrdom

Society places ridiculous, absurd expectations on mothers, period. But single moms? The pressure multiplies exponentially. She must do all the parenting, or most of it, or undo the bad parenting the other parent does. Meanwhile, she's expected to work, volunteer at school, be everything to her friends... and on it goes.

The most damaging narrative keeping women trapped in this cycle is twofold:

First, the belief that this is normal. That this is just what motherhood is.

Second, the judgment. There's societal judgment that whispers, "You are less than." Employers hesitate to hire or promote single moms because they're "less reliable" (or so the thinking goes). There's community judgment, even from friends. And worst of all, there's the woman's own judgment of herself as a failure.

This judgment only perpetuates the cycle. She tries harder, does more to please everyone, to escape the judgment. But that's never going to be the solution. In fact, it's exactly what's killing her.

The Relationship Between Chronic Niceness and Boundaries

What's the relationship between chronic niceness and boundaries? There isn't one. There's no relationship because boundaries simply don't exist for someone in a fawn response pattern.

For a single mom's health and wellbeing, this lack of boundaries creates devastating consequences over time. Her health degrades heavily, often after already deteriorating for years due to lifelong patterns of stress hormones and cortisol flooding her system.

Now add the increased burden of single motherhood, the judgment that comes with it, and the extra responsibilities she must fulfill. The stress increases dramatically, creating a perfect storm for chronic illness.

It could be cancer. We see a lot of cancer because of this. It could be diabetes, though that might also connect to diet. Heart disease. A myriad of health issues leading to medications, then side effects requiring more medications, and on it goes.

I watched my own mother die when she was only 50 because of the stress she was under. During her last five years, when she was stressed because of my dad, her chemotherapy stopped working. When he stayed away for a while, it started working again.

I can say firsthand that this kind of stress can and will kill you in some way, far too soon.

10 Reasons Chronic Niceness is Unhealthy

1. It suppresses your immune system

Dr. Gabor Maté has linked autoimmune disorders to "the compulsion to be nice." Many of his cancer patients were lifelong people-pleasers. Constantly denying your needs floods your system with stress hormones, weakening immunity.

2. It leads to emotional burnout

The health consequences I experienced from a lifetime of fawning included massive anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation. I felt jittery, unsettled, had difficulty sleeping, and felt chaotic inside. While my body didn't develop disease as happens to many people, it went toward depression and anxiety to the point where I just didn't want to be here anymore.

3. It breeds resentment and self-hatred

You can only fake smiles for so long before inward anger turns into depression. Tina Turner, famous for enduring abuse while appearing "composed," eventually escaped and revealed decades of suppressed fury.

4. It attracts manipulators and abusers

Chronic niceness signals lack of boundaries to narcissists and users. Many clients in trauma recovery report having multiple toxic relationships in a row, all with partners who sensed their inability to say "no."

5. It silences your voice and leads to invisibility

You stop advocating for your needs at work, at home, and even with healthcare providers. You become invisible to yourself. I didn't even recognize I had no voice until my counselor pointed it out.

6. It causes psychosomatic illness

Repressed emotions manifest physically as migraines, IBS, fibromyalgia, and more. Louise Hay famously linked self-worth issues to chronic illnesses in her book You Can Heal Your Life.

7. It delays or prevents healing from trauma

Niceness can be a mask over unprocessed pain. Oprah Winfrey spent years pleasing and performing before doing deep inner healing work that transformed her life.

8. It erodes trust in yourself

You lose the ability to discern your real feelings and desires. Chronic people-pleasing disconnects us from our true selves by putting us in a role where we're acting instead of being.

I should have won an Oscar for the role of "Happy," because I played it so well that I convinced everyone around me that I was happy, even though inside I was dying. I wasn't BEING happy. I was ACTING happy. Those are two very separate things.

9. It prevents deep relationships

If you're always performing as "pleasant," people never see the real you. Robin Williams, beloved for his kindness and humor, silently battled depression. His death was a global wake-up call.

10. It leads to early death, literally

Chronic stress is one of the top silent killers. Women in high-stress caregiver roles die earlier on average due to cardiovascular disease and stress-related illnesses, per multiple CDC studies.

Breaking the Cycle

The first practical step I took after recognizing my fawn response pattern was making a decision after seeing the context of how I got where I was. I decided to create the life I really wanted.

It went hand in hand with realizing I create my own life. At first, that made me very angry. But after thinking about it, I realized it was true. Having context for how this whole process happened meant I could do something about it. I could change the course of my life, which is exactly what I've done.

That moment of recognition, saying to myself, "Oh my God, this is what happened," and piecing it all together helped me firmly decide what I wanted for my future. And it's nothing like what I've already lived. It's waaaayyyy better!

The Cost of Setting Boundaries

When I began setting boundaries, there was tremendous pushback. My boundary-setting even triggered my divorce. I lost probably 95% of the people I thought were friends because I was being judged so heavily. No one wanted to know my side or what was going on inside me. They just judged.

At the time, losing 95% of my friends seemed like a significant loss. But now I understand that wasn't a loss at all. It was clearing space for the waaayyyy better people who have shown up in my life since then, even shortly after.

If you're a single mom afraid of losing relationships by setting boundaries, you have three choices:

You can stay right where you are with the people who already surround you. We already know the outcome of that: more of the same exhaustion and people-pleasing.

You could try to do this on your own like I did. I succeeded, but it took me a long time and I was alone, and that was scary.

Or the best choice: have a community and go through a proven process. That way, you're not going it alone, and you're already surrounding yourself with better people.

Healing Takes Time

Based on my experience and research, there are terrible effects from chronic stress caused by people-pleasing and fawn patterns. And that's what it is, really: a lifestyle.

The real question isn't how quickly negative effects can be reversed. You've lived in this lifestyle for your entire life up to this point. Reversing something that's been in process for so long takes time.

If you have cancer from chronic stress and people-pleasing, that won't disappear overnight. Can reducing stress help chemotherapy work better, as it did for my mom? Absolutely! But it won't resolve overnight.

It's like when I tell my ballet students: "You can't order perfect turnout and expect it to show up in two days!" That's not how this works. It takes work, diligence, and undoing what you've done before.

There is a proven process, which is exactly what I teach, that starts the healing in many ways. You'll start to FEEL better quickly, and we accelerate the whole process compared to the 10 years it took me. Just like proper ballet technique accelerates your ability to achieve good turnout.

The Most Surprising Insight About Breaking Free

The most counterintuitive insight I've discovered about breaking the fawn response cycle is that being a fawn seems so normal. That's just how life works, right? There are givers like me, and then there are takers, manipulators, and exploiters.

Even though I wondered, "Why can't I have that happy life that I seem to see everyone else have? Will that ever be for me?" where I was, being a fawn, seemed normal. But there was this inkling that something better existed, nagging at me.

It's not until you go through this process that you see the true contrast between where you were and where you are now. Then you think, "Wow, this is amazing, the difference between life now compared to what it was!" There's such a contrast to all the anxiety, depression, turmoil, chaos, and exhaustion.

Who knew life could be this good?!

Creating Community Among Fawns

I don't think we can shift the cultural narrative that glorifies maternal self-sacrifice on a grand scale, but we can make strides amongst ourselves. At Rebel Fawn, we provide community that helps create that shift.

We need to step in for each other, and there are two sides to this. Fawns are notorious for not wanting to ask for help, perpetuating the isolation they already experience, especially single mom fawns. On the other side, other fawns don't want to intrude. So there's a lot of misunderstanding about how this really works.

Somehow we've been fed a lie that we should do things on our own, that we're weak if we can't handle life and need to ask for help. That's not weakness. That's just how life works. Human beings are community people by nature. There's no such thing as fully doing anything on your own. We need each other's help.

The quicker we understand that and get over this ridiculous lie, the faster we can actually help one another, build community, and foster giving. In our case, giving among fawns means the giving is safe because it's reciprocal.

We have a process for this. In today's world, it's easier because we have apps to help. We can do dinner swaps where five single moms take turns bringing dinner to each other, so each mom gets one night off from cooking each week. There's kid swap, errand swap, bulk visit oil change mobile service, library day swap... all kinds of things that can help each other while fostering giving within safe parameters. No one gets taken advantage of because we're all givers!

Rediscovering Your Voice

Chronic people-pleasing disconnects us from our true selves by putting us in a role where we're acting instead of being. Walking away from that acting and rediscovering my real voice was tricky at first because of all the insecurities, and I didn't even recognize I had no voice until my counselor pointed it out.

Gaining my voice back took work. It took growing antlers to actually speak my mind, have my voice, and BE myself.

If you recognize yourself in this article, know that you're not alone. The fawn response may have kept you safe once, but now it's slowly killing you. The good news? You can break free. It won't be easy, and you'll likely face resistance, but on the other side is a life you might not even be able to imagine right now.

A life where you're not just surviving, but truly living. A life where you're not acting happy, but actually being happy.

And trust me, it's waaaayyyy better than what you're living now!