The Day I Out-Fawned a Deer

Yesterday a deer tried to attack me. I shit you not. A beautiful, wonderous, most gentle of creatures doe locked eyes with me in the park, snorted and then charged.

Luckily I was with my partner who is a firefighter, practical and reactive. He ordered me to calmly walk away and then proceeded to make a lot of noise at the doe thus preventing her attack. She stopped, regained her composure and went at me again! Again, he made some big noises and clapped his hands walking towards her until she ran off into the deer enclosure. A true hero! I don’t know what I would have done on my own as I did freeze and only him telling me exactly what to do snapped me into action.

What a weird experience! And of course I wanted to know why me? Oddly enough, we were walking in the park on Monday and a female runner stopped us to say a doe had tried to go for her too! It’s birthing season so the does are extra protective. I didn’t see a fawn nearby but that fierce mama may have had her baby hidden out of sight.

I googled why they attack women specifically and it may be the perceived threat level. Deer are prey animals and highly sensitive to body language, movement, posture, and tone. Women and children sometimes move more slowly, speak more softly, or freeze rather than act assertively, which may paradoxically make a doe feel able to “push” them away rather than flee. Combine that with being more protective in birthing season and it makes sense.

Now, my partner and I were laughing afterwards because I am so easily startled, known for my gentleness and sensitivity and fawn response (bloody childhood trauma!) I managed to out-fawn a bloomin doe.

But joking aside, it did get me thinking about nervous systems and our default survival responses. Most of us have heard of fight or flight, but there are actually four common trauma responses: fight, flight, freeze and fawn. None of them are “bad”. They are intelligent adaptations our nervous systems developed to keep us safe.

Fight says: I’ll protect myself through control, anger, defensiveness or confrontation.
Flight says: I’ll stay safe by staying busy, productive, over-prepared or by escaping.
Freeze says: I’ll survive by shutting down, going numb, getting stuck or unable to act.
Fawn says: I’ll stay safe by pleasing, appeasing, smoothing things over and prioritising other people’s needs above my own.

And the truth is, most of us have a default. A well-worn pathway our nervous system reaches for automatically when we feel unsafe, criticised, overwhelmed, rejected or under pressure.

Mine? Fawn with a side order of freeze apparently. Even in the face of an angry deer.

The important thing to understand is that these responses are not personality flaws. They are protective strategies. Often ones that made perfect sense at some point in our lives. The problem is that what once protected us can later start limiting us. People pleasing becomes resentment. Hyper-independence becomes exhaustion. Freezing becomes procrastination or self-doubt. Fighting becomes disconnection.

So much of the work I do with clients is helping them gently notice their default response without shame. Understanding when it shows up, what triggers it, how it lives in the body and what it is trying to protect. Because awareness creates choice.

We work on building nervous system safety first. Not just intellectually understanding patterns, but helping the body learn that it doesn’t have to stay in survival mode all the time. That might look like learning boundaries, tolerating discomfort without collapsing into people pleasing, regulating overwhelm, reconnecting with anger in a healthy way, or slowly building the capacity to stay present instead of shutting down.

The goal isn’t to become fearless or perfectly healed. It’s to become more flexible. To recognise when an old survival strategy has taken the wheel and gently choose something different.

Although if another deer charges at me, I’ll still probably be outsourcing regulation to my firefighter boyfriend.