To think people pleasing can be very dangerous and can’t be underestimated?

[ThoseCar]

I’ve been having a huge period of reflection on my life in the past few weeks and one of the things I’ve discovered is that people pleasing, which is the subject of so many threads on MN even if not in a ‘blatant’ way, is potentially very dangerous- it can lead to people being extremely humiliated/bullied to their lives being screwed up to what may seem like beyond repair.

it’s always early socialisation - parent figures who are the cause of this - in particular my own mum saying to me as a teen angrily:

”your father and I WANT you to make friends” - rather than letting me explore my natural tendency to be a bit of a loner - has screwed up a lot of my life - it’s led to me being taken advantage of horrifically

This is a really interesting thread. I’m a people pleaser too. Got tangled up with a narc for 24 years but prior to that, was bullied (aged 13-18) badly at school.

Despite counselling and a deep dive into my childhood and upbringing, I still remain convinced that it was the bullying that turned me into a people pleaser too… and not my fairly happy and normal upbringing.

I remember putting up my first proper boundary a few years ago and saying ‘no’… and being gobsmacked that the world didn’t stop turning!

As others have said, it takes huge energy to change your old behaviour.

God, this!! Thank you @PinkBobby for writing this so eloquently. This is exactly how I feel. Thank you 😪

My mum (lovely as she is) has very little self-worth and will kill herself for others so my siblings and I have learnt to always be good and keep quiet and take shit. When I married DH, I didn’t realise how vulnerable I was to manipulation from in-laws and have spent 20 plus years appeasing my emotionally abusive mother in law and her family as a result. My DH has grown up with her and thought her manipulation was normal, I could see through her but just put up with it and I hate it. I was also an extreme people pleaser at work and let people walk all over me. Not anymore.

My wake up call was a bout of bad health. I realised I will never get that time back and only have this one life to live as I please.
Now I am 44 I could kick myself at the years that I have wasted doing this and if I feel a CF coming on, I have an almost extreme reaction to them. I have learnt to say no and stand my ground and I am not afraid of losing relationships anymore and that has been most freeing. I have to say that the teens of today, might come across as selfish and entitled but mine have taught me the importance of self worth.

i agree that Cf can sense niceness and need to be shut down straight away. Just a firm no with no explanation. It is jarring and awkward at first but the sense of pride in standing your ground is absolutely worth it.

I find people pleasers are often annoying and I often find that I question their true motivation for trying to please everyone else. Sometimes it seems more about them wanting approval and to be seen as nice than what anyone actually wants. You often have to second guess what ‘people pleasers’ actually want and it just makes things complicated. The very worst kind of ‘people pleasers’ are those that say yes to things then bitch about it afterwards. These are zillions of threads started by posters who fall in this category.

Ive a friend who looks after a neighbours two dogs when they go on holiday and she hates doing it and thinks they are cheeky to ask. However she always says yes whenever they ask. It’s ridiculous. I actually think she is being unfair on them. I’d hate to ask a favour of someone and for them to secretly resent me when they agree to do it.

I get asked to do favours for friends and relatives but I find it easy to decline if it doesn’t suit me. I think it means people are actually happier to ask because they know if I do offer to help it’s genuine.

I also think people use the phrase ‘people pleaser’ as a cop out for their own mistakes. If you know you’ve made bad decisions (as we all can do from time to time) I think some people try and make it more palatable by calling themselves a people pleaser. It’s as though they are absolving themselves of any bad decisions because they are such a ‘good’ person.

I see a difference between people who think themselves people pleasers and people who really lack confidence.

I find people pleasers are often annoying and I often find that I question their true motivation for trying to please everyone else. Sometimes it seems more about them wanting approval and to be seen as nice than what anyone actually wants. You often have to second guess what ‘people pleasers’ actually want and it just makes things complicated. The very worst kind of ‘people pleasers’ are those that say yes to things then bitch about it afterwards. These are zillions of threads started by posters who fall in this category.

Ive a friend who looks after a neighbours two dogs when they go on holiday and she hates doing it and thinks they are cheeky to ask. However she always says yes whenever they ask. It’s ridiculous. I actually think she is being unfair on them. I’d hate to ask a favour of someone and for them to secretly resent me when they agree to do it.

I get asked to do favours for friends and relatives but I find it easy to decline if it doesn’t suit me. I think it means people are actually happier to ask because they know if I do offer to help it’s genuine.

I also think people use the phrase ‘people pleaser’ as a cop out for their own mistakes. If you know you’ve made bad decisions (as we all can do from time to time) I think some people try and make it more palatable by calling themselves a people pleaser. It’s as though they are absolving themselves of any bad decisions because they are such a ‘good’ person.

I see a difference between people who think themselves people pleasers and people who really lack confidence.

I find people pleasers are often annoying and I often find that I question their true motivation for trying to please everyone else. Sometimes it seems more about them wanting approval and to be seen as nice than what anyone actually wants. You often have to second guess what ‘people pleasers’ actually want and it just makes things complicated. The very worst kind of ‘people pleasers’ are those that say yes to things then bitch about it afterwards. These are zillions of threads started by posters who fall in this category.

Ive a friend who looks after a neighbours two dogs when they go on holiday and she hates doing it and thinks they are cheeky to ask. However she always says yes whenever they ask. It’s ridiculous. I actually think she is being unfair on them. I’d hate to ask a favour of someone and for them to secretly resent me when they agree to do it.

I get asked to do favours for friends and relatives but I find it easy to decline if it doesn’t suit me. I think it means people are actually happier to ask because they know if I do offer to help it’s genuine.

I also think people use the phrase ‘people pleaser’ as a cop out for their own mistakes. If you know you’ve made bad decisions (as we all can do from time to time) I think some people try and make it more palatable by calling themselves a people pleaser. It’s as though they are absolving themselves of any bad decisions because they are such a ‘good’ person.

I see a difference between people who think themselves people pleasers and people who really lack confidence.

I find people pleasers are often annoying and I often find that I question their true motivation for trying to please everyone else. Sometimes it seems more about them wanting approval and to be seen as nice than what anyone actually wants. You often have to second guess what ‘people pleasers’ actually want and it just makes things complicated. The very worst kind of ‘people pleasers’ are those that say yes to things then bitch about it afterwards. These are zillions of threads started by posters who fall in this category.

Ive a friend who looks after a neighbours two dogs when they go on holiday and she hates doing it and thinks they are cheeky to ask. However she always says yes whenever they ask. It’s ridiculous. I actually think she is being unfair on them. I’d hate to ask a favour of someone and for them to secretly resent me when they agree to do it.

I get asked to do favours for friends and relatives but I find it easy to decline if it doesn’t suit me. I think it means people are actually happier to ask because they know if I do offer to help it’s genuine.

I also think people use the phrase ‘people pleaser’ as a cop out for their own mistakes. If you know you’ve made bad decisions (as we all can do from time to time) I think some people try and make it more palatable by calling themselves a people pleaser. It’s as though they are absolving themselves of any bad decisions because they are such a ‘good’ person.

I see a difference between people who think themselves people pleasers and people who really lack confidence.

Easier said than done, because societal influence and expectations still inform our behaviour. For example, if I fancy going out clubbing at my age and doing vodka shots through my eyeballs, I am aware it's not considered healthy, I'd be laughed at and judged for being sad and desperate, and people would be very concerned about me.

Alot of people pleasing comes from the fear of what will happen if we don't, whether it's rejection or being held responsible for what the person you've tried to resist might do if you're not compliant. As others have said, people pleasers can become the prey of manipulative types, and feel responsible for the negative consequences of saying no if the denied does something harmful to prove a point.

Unpicking it all is complex and sucks the joy out of life.

I was brought up to please everyone else and looking back I realise it was to make my mother look good. It took me a long time to believe in myself - for that reason I brought my sons up to have the confidence to make their own decisions. Having a narcissistic mother had me living on my nerves - people pleasing blights your life. You can never please everyone all the time.

I agree that unpicking it is complex, but, in adulthood, how you deal with what happens to you is your own responsibility, no one else’s.

And unpicking it absolutely doesn’t ’suck the joy out of life’ — it frees you to live more authentically, have stronger friendships, and to be genuinely, freely generous or giving, as you judge fit, without depleting yourself in the service of others, or being ‘prey’ to anyone.

I’m not sure what you mean by your example. Are you saying the only reason you’re not going clubbing and doing vodka shots through your eyeballs ‘at your age’ is because you’re a people-pleaser?

It is. But how can you if you don't even realise what you are doing? Early socialisation is even taken into account in sentencing in courts because it has a massive impact. That much is undeniable .

As adults, we have to take responsibility for ourselves, but we should also acknowledge that some people are much better equipped than others to be self aware and to make changes in their lives.

It's quite insidious really just how badly girls are conditioned to be kind, think of everyone else first etc. And because it starts at such a young age, that's why there are so many women who become people pleasers. Reading this thread though shows that at least they realise it and do their utmost to change it

As a former People Pleaser I would agree that it is our responsibility to fix it. Its like anything that happens in our childhoods- its not our fault that it happened but it is our responsibility to deal with it, process it and seek help if its ruining our lives.

That doesnt mean it's "easy" or that it can be fixed in 5 mins - it takes hard work and honest self reflection which can be very, very painful. However, I would rather do this than spend the rest of my life feeling resentful that others are taking advantage of me.

Its far more empowering to believe you are in charge of your own destiny and can change your dysfunctional patterns than to believe you are doomed to a life of unhappiness and completely trapped in a prison of fear of others opinions.

The law doesn’t absolve people of responsibility for their actions despite history of childhood abuse - there maybe some mitigation in sentencing but it seems to be minimal as far as I can tell. I appreciate this is not the same as people pleasing but, as OP has pointed out, people pleasing can be dangerous in extreme cases and develop into coercion.

Because unless you’re totally unself-aware, you will know something is wrong, even if you don’t understand what. Look at all the threads from people saying ‘I bustle around doing things for other people all the time, I’ll do anything for anyone, I’m so nice! But no one wants to be my friend, and I’m terribly lonely, and around me I see less nice people with lots of friends .’

That’s a classic people-pleaser line from someone who misunderstands how friendship works. They need to find a good therapist and explore their false beliefs about themselves and others. Probably the first step is to recognise that they’re not ‘too nice’ and surrounded by ‘takers’. People-pleasing is an unhealthy habit you can, with effort, stop, not ‘niceness’.

Saying 'no' gets easier with practice. Even when you can get emotional manipulation.

For example, yesterday I felt tired to go to a family thing, MIL told me 'But you wanted to go, but I will be so disappointed if you don't go" While it was flattering she wanted to see me, she wasn't listening to me (I just sort of did an eye roll and said, no you won't you'll be fine")

100% agree. Spent my whole life putting others first it's only now I am starting to think about what I want to do. But I have also realised that a lot of people are very happy to put themselves first and take take take

That was my mum!
And no,I still struggle to think about myself before anyone and everyone else. I’m mid 50s too

It probably got passed down from their mum...like a pass the parcel.

A big % of AIBU is basically people pleasers feeling unable to say no to their colleague who wants a lift, their boyfriend wanting to spend all their money in a stag do, or their cheeky family wanting them to host Christmas for the 20th time.

They are beyond pissed off but unable to access or vocalise their feelings.

These are the people who turn into the frogs in boiling water. It’s bloody hard to read sometimes….

I don’t think being a People Pleaser is always a negative. Doing a good deed, or putting yourself out a bit is necessary otherwise we’d all sink into becoming selfish arseholes. Someone upthread mentioned asking for food in someone’s house: that’s just rude and nothing to do with pleasing anybody.

I was trained to put myself last at all times (and to denigrate any achievement too). It is difficult when you come up against someone who hasn’t read the manual on this. Mil always put herself first and as dh said about her, “A friend in need is a friend off the Christmas card list.”

It’s a fine balance. I think all we need is a fully-functioning CF radar.

A bit on the fence here. Yes, people pleasing can absolutely be a problem, but I can't help but suspect that some of the people going, 'I'm such a people pleaser!' are just looking for an excuse to be selfish.

Like most things in life you need to balance your needs and others.

I'm cautious of this with my son.

He seems quite sweet-dispositioned like his dad was as a toddler, but as an adult he's an extreme people pleaser to the point he gets incredibly stressed when two people have competing demands - even though both people would be happy with some sort of normal compromise.

For example, with sharing, if my son has a pile of toys and another child wants to play with one he's not using - of course he has to share. But if he's playing with one of his own toys, my husband would still encourage him to let another child have a go - why? Distract the other child with a different toy. Adults don't just wander up and demand stuff off people!

Oh God this. I also remember as a very shy child being told to answer things myself, as “I had a tongue in my head”
at the grand old age of 55, I SO enjoy being ‘selfish’ and silently telling people to fuck off.

(Though it’s useful for a career in customer service.)

Reading this thread I was thinking about this and how being subservient and a people pleaser is an expectation of anyone in a public facing role, it's what people consider good customer service to have someone behave in a subservient way, to almost expect to be treated in a derogatory way and be grateful for the opportunity to serve them, no matter how badly they treat you. The basic idea is efficient and timely service done politely, but quite often that's not enough, and if people even get a whiff that you're not grateful enough, that you're not subservient enough, that basically you're not willing to put up with enough shit, then there are concequences in the form of confrontations, complaints, disciplinary matters.

I have learned, to some degree, to be the subservient people pleaser at work and have stronger boundaries in my personal life, but when you spend so much time doing it, against a background of it being second nature in all aspects of your life then it's no easy feat to separate the two and work on it properly.

My mum has spent my entire life telling anyone who will listen that she's always put everyone else first and herself last - I just believed it for a long time, but actually, looking back, it's not true, she hasn't done that as much as she claims to have done and it seems to be a defence for selfish behaviour that she herself recognises as selfish but wants validation for doing.