How do I stop being such a people pleaser?

[Mother0fRats]

I'm in my 30's now and I still have very little confidence and am such a people pleaser to the point that it negatively affects my life.

I think I'm like this due to growing up in an environment full of bullying and drama which caused me to fear that happening again so I try to make everyone like me so I don't have to experience that again.

It's exhausting as I'm constantly worrying about what people think. If someone is upset with me I stress and worry about it no end.

People can be treating me really badly and I won't stand up for myself for fear of the situation escalating and becoming even worse.

I want to just not care what people think. To just focus on myself and my own life, put myself first.

I realise they don't matter. None of it matters and that there are far more important things going on yet I just can't switch this part of my brain off that is constantly worrying about people not liking me and then bullying me.

How can I get over this? I'm tired of it affecting my life like this.

could you look at dbt - distress tolerance helps alot x

@thehappyotter I'd not heard of this before but I'm just reading about it on Google now. Worth a try. Thank you.

There are four reactions to fearful situations: fight, flight, freeze, fawn. Sounds like you freeze (inability to act against a threat) and fawn (please someone to avoid conflict).

You may be carrying trauma from your previous experience which is triggered when you face a similar experience. Mindfulness may help you notice what's going on in your body and help you to react differently.

It sounds like you ruminate and suffer from anxiety. It might help to know that what others think of you is none of your business and you can't control how people act. Much of the time, people aren't thinking about us and their reactions have nothing to do with us.

Not everyone is going to like you and that's ok. What's concerning is that you're remaining in unhealthy situations. You need to watch out for red flags in people's behaviour and learn to avoid those people. Learn to listen to your instincts about people.

Get yourself this book, not on audible, but the actual book. It's really good and clear

Please Yourself: How to Stop People-Pleasing and Transform the Way You Live amzn.eu/d/0fWmeJQt

Therapy

Hit menopause. Your people pleasing tendencies leave you with a vengeance! Sorry - in all seriousness, would counselling help (via an EAP at work if you have one)? YouTube videos and tutorials are worth exploring too maybe? Some form of therapy if you afford it.

You really need to explore this in therapy. My mum is a people pleaser and I think it stems from her own mother being very critical. She was always trying to get her mum's approval but it didn't matter how much she did, my gran would always find something to criticise.

Worrying about what other people think all the time is exhausting. So is trying to make everyone like you and it doesn't work because being desperate to be liked is off-putting.

Therapy will help you work on your confidence.

@Noseybookworm Yes, you're probably right. I do need therapy. I can't really afford anything privately though.

It is so exhausting. When I become aware of what I'm doing I hate myself for it and want to just stop but that nagging worry is always there of "what if they think this?" "What if they do this?". As a PP said, it does help me to remember what they think is none of my business and that I can't control people. It helps until it doesn't and the feelings of worry and anxiety take over again.

@FantasticButtocks Thank you. I will check that out.

In the meantime I can highly recommend the book “the courage to be disliked”

please try and source some talking therapy (not cbt) - it will be the investment that turns your life around. You can put this weight down, you don’t need to carry it any more

Go through the menopause. You will have no qualms whatsoever telling people to bugger off.

This is not untrue

@TheShiningCarpet One reason to look forward to the menopause then. 😁

Not necessarily true either.

So is trying to make everyone like you and it doesn't work because being desperate to be liked is off-putting

Agree with Noseybookworm here. And also, apparently some people will be suspicious, think you're 'up to something' or that you're 'after something' because, in their heads, no-one is that nice just for the sake of it. It might sound ridiculous but that can absolutely be what some people think.

So you might think you're being nice or friendly or helpful and it could be that very attitude that's putting people off.

@splatmouse It's not so much that I'm trying to be liked to have friends etc. I am quite introverted and don't have a lot of friends and I'm okay with that. It's more like I am afraid of confrontation or standing up for myself if being treated badly/unfairly. It's like I'd rather accept it and not rock the boat to keep the peace and be liked than stand up and say no which is quite ridiculous as I don't need people who are treating me badly to like me but I have this deep fear that if I stand up for myself then they will become nasty and escalate their behaviours like I have experienced in the past.

When I was a child I grew up on a street where all of the people disliked my mother. There were a lot of disputes and rows and from the age of around 6 I experienced bullying from both the adults and their children. We were ostracised and I felt like an outcast.

The more my mother would confront the bullying the worse it got.

This then led onto bullying in school as the children from the neighbourhood went to the same school as me. In the end I experienced bullying both at home and at school and couldn't escape it. Any reaction to it or retaliation just made it worse.

It really affected my psyche and left me with low self esteem and a real fear of confrontation in case people then disliked me and the bullying would start again.

Looking back this mindset has affected most of the decisions I have made in my life.

I want to just let go of that fear and not care if people like me or not. Obviously I don't want to experience bullying either but I want to be able to let go of the fear of that too and not be so affected by it.

I just don't know how to toughen up and change my mindset.

So to sum it up, I have difficulty setting boundaries and not letting people walk all over me for fear of being disliked and then ostracised again. It affects situations like work, relationships, friendships, neighbours etc.

This!
And actually having a baby made me be much less people pleasery too.
Oh and turning 40.
Ran out of fucks to give

I came across this on another post some time ago and it really helped me.

It's not as easy as people think. I found that every time I said ''no that doesn't suit me to meet at lunch time, as I'm working, can we meet in the evening or at the weekend?'' that was it, I was never contacted again! Or if I said ''we had italian last time, how about .....'' I was met with a reason why it had to be Italian again.

I think i come across as a low status person with low social capital. Nobody really cares enough to accommodate me even some of the time.

I told my parents that enough was enough at 50, they were to stop labelling me sensitive and paranoid and emotional every time I asked for some small change in the way they spoke to me/about me. They didn't say ''ok, sorry'' nope they gave me the silent treatment.

SO the thing with boundaries is you have to be really clear about how much you're prepared to tolerate before you lose the friendship/relationship/arrangement.

If you're not yet at the stage where you're genuinely feeling ''fuck it!'' then before the boundary, work on getting to the point where you feel brave enough to start again, do it alone, find a new job, go grey rock on your parents et cetera.

I used to be such a horrendous people pleaser, I was raised to feel ashamed for advocating for myself or having a perspective that challenged their own. So now, my parents don't speak to me, it's an energy that I'm carrying. That fear that if I say ''actually that doesn't work for me, can we / can we not '' will result in me being another friend down

Heidi Priebe's videos are amazing. She really digs deeper into why we feel what we feel

Quick questions Op..why are these people you need to please ,why are they so much more important or why do they matter so much more than you do? Why are they so much better than you? Why are you so low on the scale that you do not matter but they do? Why are their lives,wants,happiness so much more important than yours? Why on earth do they keep coming to you to stress you, to put you out, to confuse you to dump their shit on you to sort?

You need to answer this to yourself and then you will get angry then you will see. The answer is very simple..they do no think anything of you,they are happy with their lot and having a lacky to pick up the slack and do the shit they cannot be arsed to do.if it wasnt you it would be someone else.You need to see your own value to yourself no one else. You allow it and for what? Being the nice,caring,helpful,kind girl,the dependable one,the trustworthy one who they always call means something to you but to them it means nothing as it would realistically be any old person who could do the same for them. When its set out like this in black and white you can see it.Nothing bad happens when you say no , I am not going to be that fool. It is so unfair on you to live your life like this. No ones happiness tops your own nor should it ever. Find your voice,and say no.The right people who want whats best for you will never leave you or make you feel bad,the others will and you will and you will gain far more in your life with the loss of them I promise you.