Inescapable Pain & The Flop Trauma Response
You probably already know about the trauma responses of fight, flight, and freeze. If you watched my last interview, you might also be familiar with the fawn response. However, far fewer people know about the flop trauma response—which is what happens when you find yourself facing inescapable pain and your brain decides the only way to survive is to shut down completely. It is the body’s final survival mechanism when other responses are not effective.
Recently, I sat down with psychotherapist Nicole Johnson, author of the book Reparenting Your Inner Child, to discuss childhood trauma and healing, including this widely misunderstood trauma response. Nicole told me that when she started posting about the flop response on social media, she was shocked by the flood of messages that started coming in, and that two themes dominated the conversation:
“Oh my god, it has a name!” and “I always thought it was my fault!”
Johnson compares the flop response to the way a possum plays dead. When a possum’s nervous system detects a threat, it shuts down so completely its heart rate becomes nearly undetectable to predators. According to Nicole, the human flop response works in a similar way. Most commonly triggered during inescapable experiences of sexual or physical abuse-such as when a threat is too big or too strong and escape is impossible-the body’s goal becomes singular: just survive.
While fight and flight activate your system by making the blood pump and the senses sharpen, the flop response does the exact opposite. Blood pressure drops, the heart rate slows, and you might dissociate or feel like you’re watching what’s happening from outside your body.
Worst of all, the trauma doesn’t end when the abuse does. Most survivors spend years, even decades, blaming themselves for not fighting back. They carry a deep sense of shame and are often plagued by questions (both from other people and from within themselves) of why they didn’t resist or try to escape. Some even question whether they wanted the abuse to happen and often feel tormented by their own inaction. Many then repeat these patterns of disconnection and dissociation throughout adulthood.
However, according to Nicole, those who experience the flop response never had a choice. “Your brain basically said play dead, and so you did,” she said, “You couldn’t have fought back if you wanted to. You weren’t even really in your body.”
This is why naming it is so important. Understanding that flop is a specific and unavoidable trauma response allows you to recognize that your brain was simply trying to protect you the only way it could—and that it was never your fault.
In our full conversation, Nicole deconstructs the flop response, unpacks why so many survivors blame themselves for not fighting back, and explains why understanding this trauma response is the critical first step toward healing. We also discuss wounded inner children, recognizing hidden trauma, and practical reparenting techniques.
You can watch the full interview here:
Links & Resources
Join Nicole for weekly workshops and support groups and Will for a weekly Book Club in the Academy Of Self Help Community.
Join our free WhatsApp group chat
Read my book As Far As I Can Tell
Take the Healing From Emotionally Immature Parents course with Dr. Lindsay C. Gibson, author of Adult Children Of Emotionally Immature Parents