Hello. My name is Lauren Bear, and I'm a recovering people-pleaser.
Hello. My name is Lauren Bear, and I’m a recovering people-pleaser.
There’s this deep desire to be loved and accepted. As my friend Jeremy de Tolly recently said “it’s our deepest desire to feel safe with each other.” I keep a notepad handy for when my friends drop gems.
It’s absolutely true though, isn’t it?!
When you’re a people pleaser, you don’t feel safe. You don’t feel accepted. You feel like you must constantly earn your relationships. It’s almost like emotional rent, paid with a form of servitude. That if you haven’t “done” something for people lately, they won’t accept you. You’re behind on payments.
This is also a place of an exhausting lack of boundaries, because you obviously can’t say no to people if you want them to like you. Right?
It makes me tired just recounting this, and I’ve barely started writing!
Reaching a point of giving up, or believing you’re enough, can sometimes bring you to the same place. Sometimes it’s a combination of both of those things. It can bring you to a place where you just let go of all that pleasing. Especially for the people who are never pleased and constantly suck you dry.
“I am enough.” Hmmm. Am I? Maybe, on some days. When I haven’t made any mistakes.
When you reach the place of using the word no as a complete sentence. When you begin to explore those edges with the, what are those things called?….oh, right. Boundaries. There’s this liberation, combined with fear. The people who will try to guilt you into dropping your boundaries are the worst. They make you question everything. Sometimes they’re really sneaky about it too, by sprinkling in gaslighting, and whatever else might get them what they want.
Regular people, those balanced ones who don’t want you to be miserable, are much easier. They don’t want to take advantage of you. They want you to be happy. They just don’t know how to support you in that, until you help them by setting a boundary. I love those people.
The funniest thing I’ve learned is that people like you better when you let go of people pleasing. I wish I would have gotten that message earlier! There’s this neediness that comes with being a people pleaser.
Even if people can’t put their finger on it, they can feel it. It makes them worry about what they’d be getting themselves into if they form a friendship with you.
“I am enough.” I don’t know if there’s enough evidence to support that belief.
There are numerous people I’ve admired, people I’ve wanted to be friends with, who always kept a certain distance. They had boundaries, and they could see that I didn’t. They could feel it in every interaction, and they knew better.
As much as people pleasers drain themselves, they also drain everyone around them. Looking for that constant reassurance that they’re good. They’ve paid their bill for today’s friendship. Looking for a way to get ahead on the next installment. “How can I help?” “How can I become a martyr in the service of your friendship?”
Then the resentment. When you become a martyr, and push beyond your own limit, you think other people would automatically know that and appreciate you for it. But you never tell them, you just expect them to know and consider you an extra valuable friend.
So then when your friends or family fails to be psychic you feel betrayed. “You just can’t trust anyone”, you might tell yourself. Maybe you had a moment of need, and expected them to jump at the chance to repay you for a debt you never told them they were incurring.
You might not even tell them you need help. You might expect them to trail you with the ever vigilant question of “what can I do for you?”, just like you’ve always done.
Adopting boundaries, and taking responsibility for your own needs, asking for help when you need it, and learning to live with this new way of being; it’s scary. It can feel like everyone might abandon you now that you stopped paying rent.
“I am enough.” I just am. No evidence required.
Losing the people who can’t respect the new boundaries is a blessing. Forming new and better friendships built on a foundation of healthy boundaries is, as they say in commercials, priceless.
I thought I was unique in my disfunction. I had mixed feelings when I found out I was pretty much a textbook example of an adult child of an alcoholic. My Dad stopped drinking when I was around ten, but the disfunction doesn’t just end.
Learning things like healthy boundaries has been life changing for me. Stepping out of the role of people pleaser has been liberating. If you’ve walked this road too, you’re not alone. There are a lot of us.
I hope you’re finding your voice, your value, and your boundaries. You. Are. Enough.
*Typos and errors are provided at no additional charge.
Photo credit: Waning Moon/Ayanna Muata
