To not want to be the nice one anymore ?

[MrsNotNice]

NC for this.

I have been known in my close family circle and friends as the nice peacemaker for all my life. I have been just raised as a chronic people pleaser and it just used to scare me to be the reason behind someone’s upset, even if they’re not justified. I never examined my life philosophy because I used to get all my motivation in life from having people around me happy with me. And I had loads of friends and was popular..

However was deeply deeply sad because the things I had to endure in order to maintain that source of affection from others, was unspeakable. I convinced myself I was privileged to have that many people like me, and that sometimes you have to compromise to get what I have.

The abuse I tolerated and rudeness now shocks me when I look back. I only started to examine things from an external perspective when I decided to “reparent” myself. And look at it from a point of view of whether I would advise my daughter to go on that same path. (Don’t have one yet)

And that’s when my feelings of rage resurfaced.. ancient buried tears. Flashes of occasions when I felt vulnerable and helpless, when I saw it as something my daughters could be feeling and how much she needed someone around her to step up - I went into full rage mode...

I somehow don’t value myself but was able to value those feelings when I projected it as a possibility on my future daughter.

It made me feel like those around me who I thought loved me have only loved what I was offering them. Unconditional support and building their happiness at my expense, no boundaries and someone to lean on and vent on when they need a discrete punching bag.

It made me realise that what I interpreted as love as a child, wasn’t really love.. because I know I feel love for a child, I would feel love for my daughter.. and that would translate to fiercely protecting her and making sure she knows I’m there when she is broken.. that I wouldn’t let her down the same way I was.

And this revelation has made me quite shocked.. to a point I’m no longer recognising myself. With the amount of inner anger I’m allowing to resurface.

I was a peacemaker. I thought I treat people the same way I “like” to be treated. And what I “liked” was to have someone there for me, when I really needed it and was at my most vulnerable and weakest state.. and so I decided I’m gonna be there for everyone just like what I deep down wanted.. I felt guilty if I said no to someone who seemed desperate because I recognized that desperation.. I even never said no to anything because I just didn’t want them to think they can’t rely on me to make them happy, don’t want anyone to feel what I felt, that I have no one to rely on.

But as I got older, I realised that it is those very people that I went out of my way for, that never understood why they needed to be there for me. I’m fact, when I was at my most vulnerable, they discarded me and found ways to blame me so they don’t have to deal with the guilt of not reciprocating.

Not one friend. Not one relative.. almost, everyone...

Im sat wondering whether it’s something wrong with me. When everyone turns their back on u. I allowed myself to be abused because I thought if they’re all against me then it must be me..

Until I woke up.. and realised that there’s nothing I could’ve done to deserve this. Not as a child. Not as an adult..

I’m picking myself up., I’m learning to put boundaries.. I’m learning to say no... and I’m letting my past abuse dictate to me who is worth keeping in my life and who I will stare in the face and let them know they mean nothing to me..

But it’s hard. Because that was my world. I’m scared of the future. I’m scared of the backlash. I’m scared of how I’m losing everyone at once...

Im still scared of hurting everyone else’s feelings, but there is a little voice in me that says, “dear daughter, you don’t owe anyone to hurt yourself just to make them feel better”.

I’ve harboured so many co dependant relationships in my life. Almost 75% of them I’m looking at and realising they’re codependent. Where I let people know they’re entitled to take everything from me and not give.. and that I don’t mind being the source of their happiness and not have anything reciprocated.

It is no wonder I had so many people like to be with me.. when I’m strong

But they were the first to look out for their own selves when I was at my weakest.

I’m so resentful and have shut down my emotions with regards to caring about how looking after myself make others feel.

I’ve onlt started putting up normal boundaries. Saying I don’t have time as have responsibilities. Saying I can’t discuss personal things because I prefer keeping it private. Saying I’m not the best person to solve their problems and they can seek a therapist.

But it seems I’m no longer valuable to those around me when I value myself.. because they’re feeling sorry for themselves and my entire circle of friends and family are looking at me as someone who is mentally unwell...

But I’m at the stage where im desperate to find myself, and I don’t define myself by the opinions or feelings of others.

But I’m scared.

Thanks for reading

I think what you're writing is going to be so relevant to many people and it certainly resonates with me.
I think you're pretty wonderful to be so aware of what happened and now you're changing to show your daughter what to accept and reject in any relationships. I take my hat off to you - bloody good for you taking back the control. Just today I went into a conversation I had been absolutely dreading but needed to do it to show my son that I've got his back.
I've no advice but I too will be watching this thread looking for the wise words from other users.

I wonder whether anyone has stories of suddenly deciding to transition from Mrs yes woman to someone with boundaries and how they went about it without letting the rage from their past control them?

I am struggling to accept that what happened in the past was purely because I didn’t put boundaries and that all I need now is to clarify my boundaries and then my abusers would behave themselves.

I’m struggling to accept that someone who would take advantage of my vulnerabilities.

eye

Thanks for your words. glad to know we are on the same path :).

This has really made me think that recently I have done as you are. I am a people pleaser. I left home as I was walking on egg shells if I ever dared to say no or I couldn't. I would spend all my time helping family friends because I couldn't say no. Or looking after others children and my siblings for hours on end when I should have been playing with friends etc. This has gone on until recently when I realised my DH is just like me and we are constantly being taken advantage of. I have started to say no more or sorry I can't do that. And limiting myself. DH is strictly to do it. But I am gently encouraging him and reminding him that we have to put ourselves first for a while. It's a bit lonely. But it's more lonely running around after other people all the time.

I am reading quite a challenging book at the moment called the Courage to be Disliked by two Japanese authors that discusses the work of Alfred Adler.
It is about freeing yourself from the past and the opinions of others. It really has challenged my perceptions. I think you might find it interesting in suggesting a different approach to your past and moving on from it.

Bravo. You have so much insight, it can only benefit you going forward.
Good luck in your journey.

tooth hand hold. It is very lonely indeed. I hope we both get used to being comfortable with being the best friend of our selves.

Chaz thank you so much, I do need to start a reading list as I’m absolutely getting to know myself for the first time and I feel strange about it all.. I just never realised what I’m capable of.. and I certainly never realised that being disliked isn’t exactly the end of me.

Anna

I’m struggling to let go of my definition of empathy. I used to feel like my suffering had a purpose, so I can relate to sufferings of those around me. Convinced myself that my suffering was a “gift” of insight., that ignored I accept it, I’m accepting myself to grow in wisdom to understand how others feel so that I can further learn how to be nice... embarrassingly. Writing this down is helping me see the child in all this... the desperation to be liked,

I clung onto my self worth being all about me being a martyr. Because it validated my suffering, when nothing else did.

I’m letting go of that and it’s freeing. Im realising the only hero I need to be is a hero for myself. Pick my own self up. That I am just a human. That I do break. That it’s okay to cry and accept I’m just a victim and that now I don’t need to be... that abuse Wasn’t excusable and so my suffering wasn’t justified... and it didn’t have a goal.. that it was just that.. I’m human living in a world of humans who can become primal enough and leach off each other.. and I was just an easy prey..

Easy prey get engulfed and die, they don’t get scarred and turn into heros. That this was just the little dreams of childhood while watching Disney and fantasising that there’s something better out there for me.. to keep me strong.

But I’m an adult now. My inner child belongs to no one but me. And I can write the ending to that story, not wait for it to be helplessly written by someone who could see me. I’m not waiting for someone to rescue me.. and I’m not letting anyone down by not being their imaginary rescuer.

And those around me are adults. They can deal with their own emotions.. they aren’t waiting to be rescued. If they feel hurt they can pick themselves up, just like I’m doing.. I don’t need to give in to their demands and run around for them.

I don’t know what empathy means. I never received it.. I’ve always defined it as relating to other people’s suffering and hurt feelings because that’s essentially the only feelings I ever received/had and can relate to .. and that involved me doing a lot of projecting.

I need to redefine empathy.. so that I can learn how to put boundaries without guilt tripping myself into thinking I’ve lost touch with my inner child.. who thought their suffering meant something.

I am sorry you had hard time, friends and family let you down when you needed them, eventually our tolerence for shit and falseness reaches its peak.
You are a lovely writer OP.
Things will get better now you know how to weed out unhealthy relationships.

I’m going through exactly this, OP. It was always brewing under the surface, but was triggered (I think) by the birth of my son. I thought about what it meant to be a mother and couldn’t fathom letting him down the way my parents did me. The thought of him feeling so hopelessly rejected, easily manipulated and powerless sickens me. Yet I feel I’ve been raised to be exactly that and it’s affected everything in my life.

I’ve never been an angry person but the rage I feel now is intense. I honestly don’t know what to do with it, but I know it’s there to create change so is very necessary. Just need to harness and channel it. But how?

As mentioned by another poster it would be good to hear from others who have made it through this and become respected people in their own right, rather than just for what they can do for others.

Good luck and well done. I think your post will hit home with many others too.

It could almost have been me writing that OP, apart from the fact that I did get a lot of love and attention at home, although I did get bullied at school and was made to feel inferior because we didn’t have a lot of money.

I’m having the exact same anxieties over how people are going to react to the New Me. I’ve just finished reading a very easy-to-follow but very sensible book called The Disease to Please: Curing the People-Pleasing Syndrome by Harriet Braiker. There’s a 21-day action plan at the end and I’m on Day 3, so I’m right at the point of starting to banish my people-pleasing behaviour.

I’m going to put everything in to doing it and my DH, whilst he’s probably taken advantage of my having the disease to please, is on board with me and I’m finding it helpful having him there for support. He’s someone I can practise the various suggested techniques with.

I’m truly worried, however, about the reaction I’m going to get from friends and family when I start to put my foot down. Folk may not have started out intending for me to be some weak-willed doormat (for it was I who gave it to them on a plate and made myself that people-pleaser), but they’ll all have become accustomed to it by now and will subconsciously just expect me carry on in the same way.

This thread has shown us that we are 100% not alone - thank you for starting it and for being so open. Good luck on your journey

@ChazsBrilliantAttitude I just found that book up and read the synopsis. It sounds just what I need as a follow-on from the Harriet Braiker one and I’ve downloaded it (only £4.99). Thanks for highlighting it.

What a wonderful post. You've articulated with heartfelt elegance what so many of us feel/experienced and does us so much good to read.
You're doing fantastically well on your own journey & helping others on theirs

Your post is so brave and true. It made me cry. So much of what you say resonates with me too.
I am not a people pleaser, but I’m a rescuer. My worth is measured by how I shield others from pain or discomfort at my own expense. This morning I spent 90 mins on the phone to a ‘friend’ who barely asked me a question whilst I listened to all her problems.
I am struggling to erect boundaries and value myself.
I too have a lot of rage inside me.
It’s a hard road but very worthwhile to start recognising unhelpful behaviour.

This post, and so much of what is written in the replies here resonates with me, too.

For me, I’ve noticed people falling away as I’ve changed my behaviours and said no, and that has been incredibly painful, but perhaps I’ll be lonely for a while, if it means protecting myself and moving towards the life I want.

I've always been cantankerous and not cared much if people like me. I wouldn't say I'm one of those bluntly honest people who don't care who they hurt or anything but I am definitely not going to kiss someone's arse when they're being a dick to me either.

It's nothing to do with my childhood in terms of parenting (in fact, my mother was downright neglectful and cruel at times while sucking up to everyone else; my father was largely absent). I don't know why I ended up not caring about people's opinions much.

It's definitely lonely and hard at times. I've never had many friends and I can only be friends with people who don't expect much of me.

With people in positions of authority, I have a hard time sticking up for myself though. I am getting better at it but it's still hard.

Weirdly my husband is the opposite, a pushover with friends/family but quite able to say whatever he wants/needs at work/business contexts.

I wish you luck with this op and others. Because I’ve been where you are; and have struggled to move it along. I realise now I am a child of a narcissistic mother and also think I must be somewhere up on the autistic spectrum. I feel like I literally have no idea where the boundaries should even be? AIBUs have actually started to help me to place some of them. (Sometimes genuinely shocking me!) One of the Mumsnet classic lines is of course
“No is a full sentence”.
A Eureka moment for me was this:
“If somebody has to be disappointed, it doesn’t have to be you.”
Oh my god. Yes. x

(PS That came from elsewhere - I would not rely exclusively on Mumsnet wisdom )

Sounds like my 2 years of therapy in a nutshell. I’m not a people-pleaser, but there’s some cross-over. Here’s something that’s helped me.

I provided a really fabulous service to those people in my life. The full suite of bespoke services, for free, 24/7 on tap. I was clever, thoughtful, self-sacrificing and a damn good listener. I have a talent for untangling problems, and offering win-win solutions on silver

So it’s not surprising that my nearest and dearest enjoyed the service and got used to it. I offered my talents, they accepted. They became dependant on the service. Like a hungry doggie wanting his bowl filled, it was unlikely they were going to stop lolling their tongues and say ‘but wait, Skittles, how are YOU? Are YOU hungry too?’

And when I took the service away, it was likely they’d be cross, sad, confused and resentful. Absolutely predictable.

So what am I left with? Well:
I can be proud of all my talents. They are pretty special. I might have made some new decisions about deploying them more carefully, and less often. Ok, good.

I can know that my epiphanies and experiences will make my future relationships (especially parenthood) far richer and healthier. I recognise that shit, and I swerve around it now. Clean shoes, yay.

I can feel sorry for the people I’ve been forced to leave behind. I didn’t cause their neediness, and I couldn’t cure it. But I did my innocent best, and can leave them to strop forever with no guilt at all. I’m especially sorry they couldn’t see my worth, over their own neediness. My service was THAT good, they went a bit mental without it. Oh well, hope they do some inner work and choose not to outsource all their problems in the future. It doesn’t end well.

I know I’ve got an exciting future ahead. I’ve given myself a good wobble (congrats!), I’ve begun constructing boundaries and policing the perimeters (congrats again!), I’ve freed myself from some draining connections to free up some time and energy (whoop whoop!) and I’m ready to face the world. New healthy connections, couplehood, parenthood, whatever.

And to OP- since you’ve worked so hard to claw back your time and energy from these folk, don’t now give it away to them by spiralling into ‘but why’ thinking. I know how hard that is. But you can’t do ‘inner work’ on their behalf. Set them free from blame, resentment, lost opportunities. Save yourself the headspace, evict them all.

Fact is, they couldn’t wouldn’t didn’t. And won’t into the future. Write it off as a bad debt, and forge ahead.

My therapist would say to you: people-pleasing is like a drug addiction. You get something you need out of it, some kind of rush. When you decide to go cold-turkey and change your future, don’t expect your drug dealer to be thrilled.

Wave them farewell, and take a different route home. Avoid their street corner, no matter what they say, do or threaten.

Hope something I’ve said here helps a bit!

That’s a great post, Skittles. I’ve screenshotted it for future use.

Mrs I'm starting to emerge from this and it will get better although you made need to get through the ashes before you become the Phoenix.

I had a horrendously traumatic birth with DD (1) and she nearly died. The treatment of both of us was neglectful at best. My DP had seen relevant things and not told me, PIL pranced around partly ignoring what had happened as they wanted to paint the perfect Facebook picture and partly revealing in my pain. A friend I had supported through a very early miscarriage and who had made me feel so awful when I then fell pregnant didnt reciprocate any support (despite being in the 2nd trimester herself and now having a baby). Friends of DH were no where to be seen as were our siblings.

There we were with our tiny baby, day after day in special care. The insentivity I in particular suffered was spectacular and as I fell into PND and PNA still no one cared. I had flashes of anger and crippling low mood that was ignored. Then suddenly I'd had enough. DH and I are now in couples counselling as I'm done with his shitty behaviour, we've gone LC with our siblings and their dramas, ignore the friends who ignored us when we so needed help, and PIL are still pissy that we putting in appropriate boundaries and not allowing them to engulf or dictate our lives. We've had passive aggressive comments and missed invites to parties we've then seen on Facebook but I really don't care. The couple of friends who really were there are now invaluable and we've made new ones along the way. Have a fuck it attitude and do what makes you happy. Counselling, new hobbies and seeking better jobs can help to comment things or they did for us anyway. Hold people to the same standards that you would anyone else and when they cross them respond as you would anybody else. That's always a good tell of any relationship.

All of these posts are amazing; there’s something (actually, a lot of things) in all of them that I’m finding helpful.

Reading the posts along with the ebook I recently finished, is making me see parallels in my own life. They’re becoming so crystal clear now where previously I couldn’t see them at all. I see how a few people in my family drain me and give very little back; I’m also seeing how my oldest (and possibly best) friend limits what she gives to others, including me, whilst always portraying herself as being super supportive. I don’t want to go around looking for the bad, but it’s really eye-opening seeing how some of the manipulating techniques described in the literature have been used on me for most of my life. Thankfully, my DH is probably the one person who’s been trying to get me to pull back for years and he’s being really good at the moment as I try to break this cycle.

I'm not sure if this is helpful or not, but a perspective from the 'other side' - an ex of mine was like this. He was extremely generous, kind, gave so much of himself (time, effort, money, anything) to anyone who would ask. Would never say no to anybody. Was hesitant even to express an opinion or a preference because he worried so much that he would be upsetting someone in doing so. I think he truly believed that to be a good and kind person meant to suffer - I'm not quite sure where it came from, but there was certainly some kind of 'magical thinking' going on about suffering and goodness and morality that I imagine had been there since childhood. An example I always go back to is us walking through a door together and him pausing to hold it open for the next person - and the next, and the next, and the next, til about 15 people had gone through, and I had marched on, alone. Feels like a bit of a metaphor, really.

Those are the reasons why he is now an ex. I loved him very very much, but it was difficult - and eventually, impossible - to be with someone like that. I didn't feel like he was a partner or an equal because he would always put me first, which sounds lovely but actually just made me feel guilty and to be honest, angry at him. I hated that he would never 'take charge', and whenever I asked him what he wanted to do and he would say 'I don't mind' rather than suggest something that I didn't want; it made me feel like he wasn't really invested in what we were doing. I didn't want to be with a saint or a martyr, I just wanted a partner.

I say all this because maybe it will help you to see although there may be people in your life who will cut ties with you when you're no longer 'Mrs Yes', there will also be people who will welcome seeing you stand up for yourself, develop healthy boundaries, value yourself and learn to say no. People who maybe wrote you off before or found you exhausting to deal with because they were frustrated with being such a pushover, and would love the opportunity to spend time with you as an equal and a peer. I certainly hope that's what you discover xx

@Paperlantern123 This is a really helpful post. Being a people pleaser is welcomed by those who aren’t good for us, yet eventually proves unattractive for those who are good for us. And there are so many people to please you get spread thin and alienate those closest to you as a result.

You’ll always have people in your life. It all boils down to whether you want to spend your time with people who treat you as an equal or those who don’t. You can have either so it’s up to you to choose. You don’t get this time back.

I have found it really helpful to learn about Transactional Analysis. The triangle of Rescuer, Victim and Persecutor. I think a lot of people who rush in to ‘help’ others have needs that aren’t being met, so they try to meet others needs.
It has made a lot of sense of my own behaviour and that of family members. I’m reading books about it now, and it’s like a light going on in my head.

I would like to thank all of you ladies. This thread has been helping me immensely. I will continue to post but please keep us updated on your progress too.

I’m currently facing two big backlashes from people in my life who were most needy and ungrateful. It bloody hurts but I’m trying to process my feelings of guilt and resist the urge to be sucked into the drama. I think it will be a while before I overcome my natural tendency to feel obligation to things I’m not obliged but I’m sticking to my grounds.

Keep us updated with your success stories. I will go through all the recommendations on here once I’m less overwhelmed.

I have extreme feelings of anger about the manipulation I’m seeing I front of me then happiness that I’m not falling for it, going through me at the moment which I’m trying to keep under control.

I’m very emotionally tired..