The Anatomy of a People Pleaser
The one thing I have struggled with the most of any of my faulty behaviors is that of being a “people pleaser”. By this, I mean that in any situation where someone disagrees with me, I immediately fold my opinions, emotions, thoughts, beliefs, and desires into a neat little package and throw them away because the other person’s opinions/emotions/thoughts/beliefs/desires are worth more than mine are.
I know, I KNOW that this isn’t true. But, somehow, I can’t get away from this. I believe this is a learned behavior. I probably learned to do this as a protection mechanisms way back before I can even remember. But, I can’t get away from it somehow. I struggle every single day not to be overwhelmed by the disgust and anxiety (?) I feel about this default behavior.
At least I can now catch myself when I start to do it. The problem is, I do it without any thought. The only way I realize it is happening is that I get a feeling like a chain is being squeezed around my heart. Like my heart has shut down for construction, so nothing will go in or come out of it. I shut off my emotions to allow other people to get their way. I feel like a vault door swings shut in my brain, and I become dull and hopeless and meek.
I hate it. I hate this thing about myself. I have tried accepting it and working through it. I’ve tried ignoring it and just doing whatever I want to do. I’ve tried following through with it to see if I can flip the situation. There just isn’t a solution.
I don’t want to be dull and hopeless and meek. In my heart, I know that is not who I am. In my heart, I am vibrant and hopeful and powerful. For some reason, though, this is very easy to take away from me. But, why am I the one who takes it from myself?
It makes no sense. I can’t make sense of it because it is something that is innate to me. It is innate and it fills me with hate and rage and fear. All of these emotions are rooted in that fear, because it is something I do not know how to control. I fear it because it controls me and I feel like other people can control me, to some degree, when I am in the “people pleasing” state.
All of the problems I now have in my life can be contributed to a “people pleasing” choice I made at some point in my past. Every single problem I have is the result of some choice I made that went against my own feelings and my intuition and my judgment. I honor my responsibilities because I don’t know how to be irresponsible. But, I resent myself and I resent that person I used to be who just “went with the flow” and did whatever was expected or demanded of her because “that’s the way it’s supposed to be”. Truly, I thought that the only reason that people would make these requests or demands of me was that I was supposed to do them.
I feel so stupid when I look back at the things I have done in my life that I did not want to do, but which I felt obligated or pressured or forced to do. But it was me who was forcing myself to do those things. Because, even when I thought, “No.”, I still said, “Yes.” Sometimes I said, “No.”, but then was told, “Yes.”, so stopped arguing.
I hate that about myself. Why do I accept this behavior from myself, and why do I tolerate that overbearing behavior from other people?
I know that a lot of it has to do with my upbringing in a very “religious” household where nobody had any right to say anything unless it was the “patriarch”. I spent my childhood watching domination/submission behaviors, so I learned to be the submissive because that was how I could get by with the least amount of pain.
Except NOW, and for a long time, I have not needed to be the submissive for survival purposes. But, I can’t escape it. I don’t want to be submissive. And, really, I am not submissive to anyone other than people I think have authority over my mind or heart. At the same time, though, I know that I am the only one who has authority over my mind or heart… but I can’t escape it? It makes no sense, it is all very confusing to me.
My heart is in chains and I cannot find the key.