Why does parental abuse turn a lot (if not all) of us into people pleasers ?

Yes

very common

and don’t get worried you’ll get blames for things even though you have nothing to do with it?

I think the automatic bit is letting others desires and emotions dictate your boundaries

I agree you can’t mind read

but you have a huge antenna!

Because you become conditioned into say yes yes yes so not to anger an abusive / parent .

@Plottingmyescape makes sense. We learn how relationships work through our first ever relationships - with our parents - so it’s easy to read the things we learned from our parents onto others.(even when it’s not true)

I also worry when I think friends or colleagues etc are upset with me and make a whole story in my head, when it’s very likely nothing has happened at all.

Unlikely. You said you feel panic if you sense your parents are angry/upset with you. Why would you feel panic? Somewhere along the way you’ve learned that there was something to panic about.

To children, feelings feel much more big or ‘global’ compared to when we’re adults. So it could be some quite small thing, like a parent shouted at you aggressively or sent you to a different room when you were a toddler. That separation can feel like death to a little one, especially if the parent doesn’t repair the relationship afterwards.

The good news is you can practice feeling this panic and expanding your tolerance for feeling it, then over time it won’t feel so big.

Has this carried through into your own relationships?

But could this just be me as a person and my sensitivity/the way I react to things? I wonder if I might be autistic, i’m very affected by others moods etc

I very much doubt that and it is probably
not healthy for you to think this is something you can automatically” do

@Katypp

You have NO IDEA what parental abuse posters have experienced. The post is literally about actual parental abuse.

You didn't answer the OPs question, but instead minimized abuse.

This is a completely inappropriate way to to respond to survivors.

You learn to read emotions because there is no other consistency. So you can automatically tell what other people's desires and motives are.

I found in my case it was to reduce the liklihood of any conflict or repercussions and to also not be rejected and break that attachment bond regardless of how unhealthy.

I spent years morphing into different suitable characters to fit into what the person wanted me to be but instead of fitting in and being liked/loved/wanted, I just ended up stuck in a another cycle with a different abuser. Following breaking that cycle I went into the constant survival mode and seeing everyone and everything as a potential red flag abusers.

CAT therapy was extremely helpful for me to change these issues.

How will you feel when your children start to pick your parenting apart when they grow up?

@Katypp bloody proud. My DC is 11 and he picks up on when I’m inconsistent or unfair with him. He questions it, we talk about it, I admit when I’m in the wrong and apologise. I’m sure he’ll have much more to pick apart when he’s grown, and his own parenting will be all the better for it. I’m confident my grandchildren won’t grow up in abuse like my grandfather and mother and I did.

How do you feel? If you feel defensive or angry about it, you’ve got some work to do.

It's not a load of nonsense. You don't have to have been abused to learn how to people please. We learn how to relate to other people from a very early stage by watching how our parents relate to each other and to other people. It's as simple as that. Recognising that some of the things you learned from your parents are not helpful in adult life is not blaming your parents for everything that went wrong for you.

If men are angry I get overwhelmed with fear and I don’t think it is something I can change as it’s such a visceral response. But I feel I’ve done a lot of work to improve my trust in myself and to learn how to make healthy boundaries, so I think you can change but it’s hard and it takes time.

Pete Walker is good to read on this - free information on his website or his book Complex PTSD.

There are four types of trauma responses - flight, fight, freeze and fawn. Different people will lean towards different responses based on their personality, upbringing and conditioning.

Fawning is people pleasing - typically a more female response. Women tend to repress their anger and get depressed.

Fight is being angry - it’s a typically more male response. Men tend to externalise their anger and be argumentative.

Not always, but typically.

I'm already encouraging my dcs to look.at their childhood and try and recognise patterns in their behaviour now.

I was highly manipulated by my mother, had a very distant father and then walked straight into a highly abusive marriage. It's taken a lot of work to recognise why I have no boundaries and I'm desperately keen to make sure my dcs can see learned behaviour early so they don't do what I did.

It’s not about blaming. It’s about being real and truthful about how these things come about so we can heal from them and not perpetuate them with our own children.

It isn’t a load of nonsense. It’s been studied by psychologists for decades now.

but i suspect.. the OP is not really talking in terms of my own experience of abuse, as mine, like many, looking back was horrific, and have much deeper scars and issues than 'people pleasing'

Dunno, it had the opposite effect on me.

this is very true.. there's nothing wrong with them its me thats the problem. I am however, after many many years to therapy certain i am not a narcissist, i did ask my therapist once 'am i a narcissist' and asked them to be 100% honest with me and the reply was 'if you were a narcissist you would not ask the question'.

i don't use the label 'people pleaser' although i know its a trait i have. if that makes any sense

That sounds like the thin skinned and thick skinned narcissist - both are reactions to trauma and abuse

This is very true. I was a people pleaser until about 7/8 years ago and slowly stopped. I still am to an extent but it’s a work in progress.

Seriously, this is a load of nonsense in most cases.
Blaming your parents for everything that's wrong in your life is just a way of shifting responsibility for your own shortcomings.
We are all so convinced we are perfect parents now - just as your parents probably thought they were when they were bringing you up (Note: I am not talking about actual abuse here, just the general my parents were not as good as I am type comments). Times change, parenting styles change and while today's parents are utterly convinced the line is drawn here and nothing will change, it really will.
How will you feel when your children start to pick your parenting apart when they grow up?