People pleaser no more

[Pleasernomore75]

Has anyone else stopped being a people pleaser recently?

I went through therapy a few years ago and it became obvious that I was a people pleaser and it was making me unhappy. I didn't really do anything with this information initially and life went on as normal for a time. Last year, I started saying no to people, and what I have found is people generally do not like it.

It started with my family before Christmas 2024. I told my parents they couldn't come for Christmas this year as I wanted to have a quiet Christmas with my own family (husband and 2 kids). Don't get me wrong it was the hardest conversation I've ever had with my mother but my mind was made up. Anyway, I had my sister on the phone a few days later ranting at me for being selfish. It wasn't just calling me selfish either - proper name calling and generally just telling me how shit I was at being a sister on WhatsApp (I think she was drunk). I was so shocked I didn't know how to react. My husband said it was because I'd put in a boundary and she didn't like it. I didn't react to her ranting and this made her worse!

I had felt like a doormat for years with my family and I can see they don't like the "new me".

At work, I have started to not accommodate peoples' request for my time so much. You can see the look of shock on their faces when I say "no". They don't know what to say or do.

I find myself deliberately saying no to things now just to see their reaction - like it's become a bit of a sport, but jokes a side I am irritated at peoples' sense of entitlement and how they think their needs are more important than my own. I didn't realise how bad it was until I started being more assertive. Since being more assertive, I am less anxious and happier but this appears to be making some people irritated/angry with me.

Has anyone else found this?

So interesting.
Am on a similar journey but quite a lot further behind you.
The curse of being known for being pleasant and accommodating.
Do you find that you - underneath all the people pleasing - now find it easy to be certain about what is right for you or what you want most, or whatever your new yardstick is?

Interesting. I’m known amongst my friend groups for being spiky and not ever saying yes to anything unless I really want to do it. I have no difficulty saying no, that doesn’t work for me. People seem to value the straightforward approach, and I’ve not really noticed anyone being surprised by it.

"It wasn't just calling me selfish either - proper name calling and generally just telling me how shit I was at being a sister on WhatsApp (I think she was drunk). "

I don't get why people think you'd be more inclined to help them out when they try to bully you and verbally abuse you. It seems like a self defeating technique.

We have a saying here that goes You catch more flies with honey than vinegar

Mmm, I am not sure I'd call myself a people pleaser, but I did find that I had got into a habit of bending over backwards to accomodate eevryone else's needs. And yes, some family member shave found that difficult when I stopped doing it.

However, I'm not sure that breaking a long-standing family tradition to spend chrsitmas together counts as breaking the habit of people pleasing. To my mind, people pleasing is when you always accomodate everyone else's needs within that tradition and never your own. So in my case, I had to stand up and say that no, we weren't going to buy expensive gifts and actually, no, I wasn't going to cook at SIL's house. Not, "you can't come at all and we dont' want to see you at Christmas". That feels like something i'm not surprised your family would be upset about.

Having said that, on MN everyone seems to think Christmas is just aout their core little nuclear family so perhaps I'm missing something there anyway.

People are very taken aback, aren't they?

"Can you do X thing for me to make my life easier and won't inconvenience you much, well, not all that much, well maybe quite a lot actually?"

"No."

"WHAT????!!!" 😮😮😡

It’s especially confusing if you’ve been seen as a pushover all your life. I’ve got one particular friend who would love to smash through a boundary I’ve finally put in place and I think she’s angry that I’m not budging because in the past I would have

I still struggle with guilt. The Christmas thing, I felt guilty for weeks. Even on the day itself, I had pangs of guilty but overall the day was just easier and chilled which is wanted and needed. But more importantly it's what I wanted.

I know what I want most of the time but the guilt can sometimes drag me back in. I just think now - do I really want this and am I being unkind by saying no. Most of the time the answer to those 2 questions is no.
The guilt can be difficult to manage. I hope that answers your question - I'm not sure it's what you were after.

I’m currently having counselling for this. Basically my childhood was filled with threat and emotional abuse - so I became a people pleaser to keep the peace probably from around 5ish.

The issues it has given me throughout adulthood is unbelievable so I’m proud of myself for getting into therapy at almost 40.

I had to enforce a boundary today and I was SO anxious it felt like hot water spreading all around my body with fear. Fear of someone being angry at me. Fear of arguing. Fear of being shouted at. And now the guilt!

Shudder!

Don't get me wrong, the conversation was difficult and my parents were ok-ish about it but my sister - wow! I suspect it was because she felt she would have to do the entertaining.
My family are drinkers and I never have been. I have a couple of drinks on Christmas Day and I have spent many Christmas' constantly worried that my parents will get blind drunk and spoil the day, and last year I just wasn't entertaining it. When I say blind drunk I mean falling over, swearing and just generally being a nuisance. More than just getting a bit tipsy and having a laugh. I don't want my kids seeing it or tolerating it just because I am expected to.
I used to sit and laugh along when inside I hated every single second of it.

Oh I sympathise. My childhood was a bit like that too. My mother was awful.
Stay strong - the rewards to your mental health are worth the anguish. Remember you don't need to entertain bad behaviour. Verbal abuse is a tool they have learned to try and bring you back under their control, in much the same way that you being assertive is your tool to not let them.
Emotional abuse can be overlooked as there are no physical scars but the impact is just as damaging.

@Pleasernomore75 so damaging. It’s been a horrible wake up call tbh! I have been diagnosed with cptsd because I’m always anxious & fearful. 💐

Good for you OP. It took me until I was about 42 to realise I was a huge people pleaser, (44 now!) and it all went back to childhood and then I started to do something about it. Still working on it but I find saying no much easier

Today I have booked my first counselling session for this as I realised my people pleasing ways have to stop as it's causing me a lot of heart ache. Glad to hear it's possible to change!

I think mine must stem from the not wanting the bullies at school to pick on me

I clicked on this previous chat at the bottom of the page and found some useful suggestions, a few relevant video links and a couple of book recommendations.

DBT - distress tolerance skills - sounds particularly interesting.

When a child grows up in a hyper critical household, say, not all respond by being people pleasers. Some will be cast into / assume that role while their sibling/s escape it. But still that role can persist long into adult life.

Is comedy a kind of people pleasing?

Going off how I behaved before, I would say these are the traits of a people pleaser;

• have difficulty saying no - an obvious one
• assuming that people don't like you with no evidence
• having this desire to prove to people you're a nice person - goes hand in hand with the above.
• over listening - I would sit and listen to other peoples' problems for hours but found I never got the opportunity to talk about my own problems.
• having a desire to "look after" people.
• fear of rejection
• chronic guilt
• saying sorry when there is no need - I kept saying sorry to my therapist during sessions. She asked me one day "why are you saying sorry? You've done nothing wrong." That was a bit of a lightbulb moment.
• Self blame even for things that aren't your fault. For example, I remember a woman falling over in the supermarket and I thought in some way that I was responsible. Sounds crazy I know, but my mind would just flit to this thought of that was my fault.

Looking back now it all comes from having low self esteem, and low self esteem manifests in different ways in different people. For me it was not being assertive. You don't realise you have low self esteem when you're in it though.

I would say using comedy is a trait for sure - having this desire to make people laugh translates to wanting people to like you.

It seems to me that you’re very very unhappy

what’s going on in life in terms of your loving relationships…. Happy relationship with partner? Children? Work? True friends?

Well i don't think it has to be one or the other there has be a mutual respect thing, not that exact phrase, but if I say no to everything people would say no to me

If i need to say no i do it politely but to the point and don't give endless reasons like is suggested on here at times but I help where I can, it is not all about me

You can change. It's a habit and you can break the habit.

I had to keep telling myself over and over - my needs are just as important as theirs. I said it earlier, when deciding whether to say no or not, I ask myself 2 questions;

1. Do I really want this?
2. Am I being unkind by saying no?

You could even add a 3rd of - would they do this for me if the situation was reversed?

If the answer to all 3 is no, then you know what you need to do.

Sometimes you do have to compromise and say yes even though you don't want to. You don't want to become completely inflexible but believe me, these situations don't happen as often as you think.

I think their reaction is almost the norm. People generally don’t like change especially if it inconveniences them in some way. On the plus side, people generally adapt fairly quickly. So stick with it and at some point their resistance will be history.

Yes I have. It's still a work in progress but it's getting a lot better. Once you've seen how you're behaving, you can't unsee it. I suspect it's very common for the people in relationships with a people pleaser to be upset when the people pleaser stops, because the pleasing is why they have the relationship with them in the first place.

There's a particular family dynamic that creates a people pleaser in the first place, we don't end up there in a vacuum, and IME we then go on to form friendships with people who take advantage of the people pleasing. People with normal healthy boundaries don't like us because we have a tendency to try to push our pleasing services on people whether they want it or not.

There's a book called Codependent no more by Melody Beattie which really helped me make sense of this and understand my own unhealthy behaviour.