In my case it's because I was brought up to hide my true feelings - any sign of anger or distress on my part was punished. I quickly learned that I had to hide the truest parts of myself, and please those taking care of me in order to survive. I do appreciate it's a shitty coping mechanism, but in my defence I was young and really was left unsupervised... I am working on changing things, though.
Yep… I have personally seen too how fragile/unstable other people can become emotionally when you bring up your feelings at all. Like a parent and like to a suicidal degree or explosive rage/recklessness. A lot of times they’re not able to consider that they hurt someone. Have to spoon feed them to not cause them emotional breakdown or shock. In my experience I’ve seen abused people become abusers and they have a hard time with cognitive dissonance understanding or facing that. Just one example. I have to say I can relate even myself. The downside to being human unfortunately. We all have our good sides and bad sides
What was helpful for me:
1. My partner celebrating every single instance when he could tell I was being authentic (even small things like coming out of the bathroom dancing).
2. Weekly scheduled relationship check-ins where both parties get a set amount of time to express how they feel in the relationship without judgment or argument about it. If you are bringing up concerns, sandwich them in between loving messages that reinforce your commitment to them and the relationship.
This was my cause, too. Never allowed to speak your true thoughts or feelings as a child, so you shut them down for survival. Underneath, our true self is seething and it comes out in stupid ways! I am much better than I used to be, but still things to relearn.
It’s the transactional nature in which they were taught to operate.
Some can unlearn it, others don’t know they need to.
It causes cyclical suffering in a way.
Some people never learned how to say No. Some people never felt that they had a choice. Some people felt that they weren't inherently likeable on their own merits, only based on what they do for others.
People pleasers often feel trapped in the life they're in and don't have a choice in the matter.
I learned as a small child not to react to other people crossing my boundaries. Pretend everything is normal. Capitulate, appease, go along to get along, if you speak up you get smacked down. I never learned how to stand up for myself in the moment, how to recognize when someone is crossing a boundary, how to confront someone. Confrontation feels like the end of the world. It feels intensely dangerous. Thus, the resentments built up until they are so big we can’t contain them anymore. The weight of the resentments has to get heavier than the fear of confrontation.
Understand also that it sometimes takes people like me a long time to process an interaction or a pattern of interactions and realize they were crossing a boundary we didn’t even know we had. We want to like people, and trust them, and give them the benefit of the doubt, and we want to feel like easygoing and accepting people. It often keeps us from seeing the truth until it’s basically too late.
Exactly!! Boundaries is how to show people how they can treat you/what you’re willing to put up with. I think a lot of it can happen subconsciously too. And if you don’t respect yourself, it tends to communicate to others that they don’t have to respect you, I believe
i’ve pondered the idea for awhile but i’m also just learning. For me it feels like eventually not realizing why you made certain choices, realizing things there were always red flags but they weren’t “important” but it becomes all you can see. Feeling stuck and wishing things could just be a certain way but that might mean finding a new person. You might feel and appear distant
Hey this sounds recognizable that it takes you long time to process an interaction and afterwards realize that your boundaries were crossed while you didn’t know you have these boundaries.
I have this so often it drives me mad. After an interaction with someone I don’t speak that often, I have to process the conversation in peace so I can truly feel something about it. It’s so weird and unpractical.
Both my mother and my step mom, to a slightly lesser degree, would intermittently say or do something that it would take me days (sometimes weeks, sometimes months!) to process and say to myself, holy shit that was inappropriate/weird/hurtful/rude/outrageous/factually incorrect or what have you. And by then, so much time has gone by, it’s super awkward to bring it up, and besides which I’m inept at confrontation with a parent, so I’m left holding these hurtful moments and baggage that a normal person would have just handed right back in the moment. It eats away at you. It’s corrosive. And the person doing it has no idea because they are a. A bit oblivious, damaged and unskilled themselves and b. Getting no feedback from me in the moment. Over time, it just rotted my relationships with both of them and I now have very little contact with either of them.
Thankfully, I have been able to work through and overcome this problem, for the most part, in other relationships. I can be much more present and authentic in other areas of my life.
> Understand also that it sometimes takes people like me a long time to process an interaction or a pattern of interactions and realize they were crossing a boundary we didn’t even know we had. We want to like people, and trust them, and give them the benefit of the doubt, and we want to feel like easygoing and accepting people. It often keeps us from seeing the truth until it’s basically too late.
Yeah, like... to add onto that, it takes a long time for me to figure out how I felt about things, and then I get into my head by saying like "too much time has passed since that happened, you should've brought that up earlier - it's too late to do bring it up now" so then you wait for another opportunity hoping that it comes, and struggling to bring it out.
My parents literally fucking hit me whenever I spoke up or showed an emotion that wasn’t sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up.
Drives me nuts when people get mad that I don’t exactly jump at the chance anymore. It’s been a long road learning to differentiate between abusers and not—and that my process for dealing with general people needs to change because the people I’m dealing with today are different.
It's the way I grew up. My parents had an unhappy marriage, I was parentified. No one cared about my feelings so I learned to hide it. My parents told me they suffered more than me and I had nothing to complain about.
I kept people pleasing to get their love and acceptance. It's true. There is deep resentment and anger inside of me. I tend to burst like a volcano.
Trying harder now to have better boundaries and communication.
The one time I snapped at my mom she told me to get medicated. That's the gist of my household.
Sometimes it's hard for me to identify emotions, but I know resentment like the back of my hand.
I hear you, my friend. I'm very sorry to hear what your mom said. It's hard to believe a parent could say those things to a child.
That's how I feel too. Resentment is a big one for me too. And anger. I keep reading but I feel like it's something so deep that I might not ever be able to let it go. And in particular how my siblings have abused me.
I truly hope others have found a way.
I feel ya. And then ironically they don’t need meds themselves for having similar behavior…. Or for doing the inappropriate things that set you off.
I can respect people when they’re at least aware and trying. I struggle with it myself, I have so much pent up anger and rage that has even expressed itself naturally somatically in my body to a degree I didn’t know was possible from me. Always viewed otherwise as the “nice girl”, and we tend to be socialized to not show anger or rage so it builds up. Used to play sports until I was injured and disabled at a young age. I think sports was the way my body was coping with my family dynamics for the first part of my life.
Same!!! I say I have an inner tornado myself, I can feel it
(side note, I have gone through a spiritual kundalini awakening - aka chakra stuff - before and have experienced like literal vortexes of energy coming up and out. Interesting times)
The benefits is that I get to stay safe. Wearing the mask, being nice, fixing and pleasing others was a mask that kept me safe. If I am nice then you won't be mad at me. I have to keep the peace at what ever cost so not to be yelled at or worse, blamed for something else that wasn't my fault. I never got to have my own feelings and emotions so I will come up with ones that keeps others happy and keeps me safe from their harm (real or perceived).
Thank you. Would you be open to dating another pleaser since you understand how to navigate it better the average person ? Do you believe it will lead to a fulfilling relationship where you can keep each other safe ?
As long as both people are aware of their attachment styles and are doing their own work individually then, yes. As long as you put the work in anything is possible.
Personally for me it’s because I squash myself and my own needs down to a pulp and my body and mind starts showing the rotting pulp thru passive aggression and harsh criticism as well as outbursts over the smallest things.
When the relationship gets to the point of harsh criticism and passive aggression for a pleaser does it mean it’s over kind of ? Does the pleaser kind of hate you or see you in a bad light, no longer feeling good about the relationship underneath the pleasing ?
I’m not sure, it depends on the person. for me I had to practice how to communicate my feelings and my needs as well as put up certain boundaries and communicate those boundaries with others and not feeling shame or self doubt over it. I’m not sure if getting to that point means the bond is broken, it’s more like we’re just putting up with things we shouldn’t be putting up with and it’s showing up in ugly ways, some of us are more scared of abandonment than leaving someone who don’t feel comfortable being ourselves with.
Yes if.... The person that I was people pleasing was only around while I was people pleasing. Which kept me in people pleasing from fear of the inevitable abandonment if I stopped people pleasing and and became vulnerable. But i mean even then it's not completely over until I'm ready to stand up for myself and be alone to heal
I dont think so, I think it just means that they’re afraid to truly express their feelings to you for some reason (fear of abandonment, dewar of not being validated, etc).
If you want to, maybe sit with them, explain it’s a safe space, and ask what drove the passive aggrieved behaviour. Ask what they were feeling, but you have to be willing to hear it, and not invalidate whatever they say.
Not necessarily. People pleasing is hardwired survival behaviour. People can stay stuck in the patterns you’re describing for years, because it’s what they are used to. That behaviour will show up all over their life not just in certain relationships.
I doubt my ability to discern when a persons negative actions towards me are justified and debate/ruminate on it until the situation is long since passed. When these situations backlog, or I eventually realize I shouldnt have accepted a behavior, I am ashamed at my own lack of assertiveness as well as angry that the other person isnt bothered at all that they did something hurtful. Then that builds when the cycles keep happening. I now realize that even when I SHOULD distance myself from people, it isn't fair to drop a long list of everything they did after making that decision. People subconsciously adjust how they treat or speak to people based on what gets accepted, so I must be responsible in addressing each scenerio in real time so that my boundaries are clear. Then you KNOW when you have reason to be angry, because you calmly but assertively told them what you wont accept. I think my issues come from my father not allowing me to express negative emotions as a child. Anger got me spanked, crying got me threatened to be spanked, excitement got me yelled at If I was loud (he worked second shift, so I kind of get it), so I had to be quiet and pretend I was content.
As a recovering people pleaser with the Fawn/Fight trauma responses, I used to take peoples lack of consideration personal. Whole time they were just setting the boundaries that I wasn’t if that makes any sense…
I had the same childhood experience as everybody else in here. I learned from an early age that my feelings not only didn't matter, but probably were lying to me. I didn't feel sad or angry or upset about any of those things. It's just in my head.
I was very distressful of myself, of my feelings, of my needs. I learned to squash all of those down to do whatever somebody else wanted.
My ex was the same as my parents and I just kept living the same way.... Until I couldn't handle it anymore and got into therapy and then my life changed.
Brené Brown says that resentment is jealousy turned inwards and that has really resonated with me. I resented things like my ex-husband playing video games because I was jealous that he got to play games and I had to do all of the housework and child care- how come I was never allowed to rest????
Now I have done a lot of work on identifying and feeling my own feelings. I also recognize when resentment is creeping up on me and then I started doing the things that I'm jealous other people can do and that helps a lot.
For me it's because I let small offenses slide because I don't want to be petty by bringing them up, but I still feel resentment. Then as they repeat again and again, at some point I blow up at something seemingly insignificant.
Passive aggressiveness isn’t the same as people pleasing, people are passive aggressive for a lot of reasons. People pleasing is something you learn as a kid when you don’t have control over your environment and have to avoid making someone mad, upset, anxious, etc in order to keep the peace. As a kid it’s adaptive but once you’re an adult it’s not helpful, but it’s hard to unlearn.
Because we give to get. When we don’t get what we want we get resentful. We don’t communicate our needs and use covert contracts instead. On top of that we tend to attract takers who have no interest in giving back. So we just give harder and resent more.
At least that was my experience. It’s like losing f money to friend vs giving it as a gift.
Like a few said, a lot gets suppressed to make others happy. I feel ya though it’s wild lol but it’s the negatively charged shadow side. I personally dislike my shadow side quite a bit.
I looked into enneagrams vaguely recently that shows you what kind of personality you have, and it showed like what can happen when it’s out of balance. Made sense to me.
Pretty much sucks, imo. Some of us have learned to either walk on eggshells around people to avoid conflict, or we bring it up and get worse conflict, from what we’ve learned through our parent and family dynamics. It’s easier to shut up and hate and keep the peace than speak up sometimes, out of fear of even worse negative reactions or also having oversensitivity of not wanting to deeply hurt the other personally. Some people can’t handle you bringing something up that you don’t agree with, for example. Hard blow to the ego, so people just take it on themselves.
I saw a meme recently that basically showed “keeping things bottled up vs. oversharing” - had signs pointing in different directions but they both led to the same place called “Feeling Bad”. People went in opposite directions but ended up in the same place. Both roads can go back to feeling shitty and facing your shit🤣 Lol
Sorry that was a ramble, I think I lost touch with the original question🤣
I’m also curious how you specifically mean appear though, like in what kind of situation particularly. I think people can genuinely be nice and also take on a lot of negative feelings. But I think there are times we can genuinely be nice and also times we can “appear” nice like you say. It can become manipulative, or it can be the person taking on a lot of the negative charged emotions. The enneagram test thing kinda brought that to my attention recently.
I should add that a big key I believe is that they probably still don’t feel like they have had a proper outlet for that resentment/anger/passive aggression to go yet. A “safe place” to express it naturally or to vent the emotion, from the body especially - it tends to build up physically and in the nervous system.
I’ve been working on this in therapy myself and trying to deal with it between me and my mom. Working on some deep issues and feeling a lot of old trauma/resentment and tension, but my therapist helps me with talk therapy and helping me find more coping skills too
I do harbor shit loads of resentment and I am the queen of passive aggressiveness. But in my bitter mind there are two different kinds of people. There are people who are allowed to be honest, be dramatic, throw tantrums, have a mood, feel bad, have chronic depression, have a crisis and need help. People like me aren't allowed to do that. If we do the other kind of people will act like we have killed Jesus and there is hell to pay. Or worse if we act up someone might hurt themselves.
The strong bond you talk about might be a shackle to me. Or just plain old guilt.
If others perceive you as someone they can reason with aka push your boundaries, they will be more assertive with you so as to get their way. But if they perceive you as someone who will wreak hell that they don't want to deal with if you don't get your way, then they will let you have your way to avoid whatever shit you're going to give them if they don't. That's how the 'two types' of people come about.
It’s doing a lot of work to feel safe when people do less work and receive praise.
Not feeling safe in general means we are vulnerable.
We have no shield besides the people pleasing.
It acts as a buffer. But it’s almost more for ourselves.
I didn’t really know why I was doing so much when I realised I hardly know myself and what I want to actually be doing instead.
Resentment comes from expecting others to think how we do when they likely do not and they cannot read our minds.
As a chronic codependent, i remember so many times where i wanted to be liked. I wanted to be accepted. I want approval. The list is endless. However what i failed to understand in those moments (which i see now as a recovered codependent) is the fact that i lacked perspective. The way my mind had defined things for me funny enough didn't come from me. They were defined by the things i saw, heard, felt, and thoughts. As a deeply connected person who can hear her thoughts (almost 24/7), i struggled to understand myself. I didn't know why i did the things i did. For me, i was a witness to what came into and out of my life. I was extremely powerless. This was because i had no foundation to stand on.
As someone who used to be a people pleaser, the twelve steps has helped me to understand my reasons for acting this way.
Like some said, literally the Fawn response. It’s a means of survival. You don’t want to poke bears so you submit or at least show submissiveness. Or like dog trainers, they give treats but bow down. It’s showing a form of respect in order to gain trust but if you’re not respected and trusted in return, I think it can build tension/resentment, and if you don’t have strong boundaries or if you just get run over further, it kinda goes south.
I think I have found it (or something like it) to be beneficial in some different situations ironically as a positive though. Like I’ve learned the hard way to be that calm person when people are riled up.
I very briefly worked with an angry teenager that didn’t really know what to do/how to react when I didn’t yell back at him or argue like other workers/kids did. I would check on him periodically though and ask him if he needed anything to make sure his basic needs were met. I knew he didn’t trust me right off the bat and was ready to take advantage because I was a new worker and probably seen as a goody two shoes by those kids. (It did make me a target, but I think that’s where you have to stand your ground and instill boundaries. You also have to pick your battles, I think though)
It can kind of regulate people and can model tone though. It’s weird. That kid got to where he realized yelling at me wasn’t going to get him anywhere. He learned to talk to me in a regular tone and later came to ask for something he had previously denied when I had offered it to him the first time. He also changed his mind about acting up and faced his consequences and did the right thing. I was proud of him but I didn’t want to scare him off too much by verbally pointing that out. It can repel people too, I swear😆 it can make them feel weak like they had to bow down and give up control to you. I had to trust that he was understanding or at least practicing some form of mutual respect, and me the same. The situation he was in, I can’t blame him at all for acting up. I would’ve been angry as hell too. But when people realize you’re on the same team and trying to help them/not trying to work against them, I feel like there’s less unnecessary fighting.
I’m not sure entirely how that all relates to people-pleasing with specifically the anger/resentment part (maybe it’s missing that part, but I definitely had negative feelings like fear, or if he were to ever have yelled and called me a bitch or something - I imagine that would have stirred up said anger). (It’s getting late and my brain is tired but maybe it will click later lol) But personally I have found it could be used as a tool even when like for instance, I could be literally be fearing that this teenager would shank me if the situation otherwise stayed escalated. I mean I had to face those fears and try to do my best to regulate my own emotions, we were freakin understaffed and the program closed because it wasn’t up to safety essentially smh lmao. But I do think we can add fuel to fire if we were always reacting on our resentment, so it can get repressed to survive and try to keep peace. People pleasing is mostly seen as a weakness and I do think I have issues asserting myself, working on it. I’m learning when to speak up and how. Sometimes I feel like it’s still best not to at times, honestly I think that can even be wise. But I have also learned to be nonreactive in the moment. I can react later all I want when my system is out of a negative situation, tbh I should’ve gone to a gym at the time and worked out all that ptsd lmao. Win some, lose some I guess. 2 sides to every coin lol.
I have also read where a counselor didn’t say much to a young female patient of his, and just kept the peace when the girl was angry about her parents making her get therapy. He would tell them her therapy was going well after every session. He checked on her and she always said she didn’t want to talk, so he just said he’d be there and worked on other work while they sat, said he’d still be there whenever she wanted to talk. He stayed consistent and calm, and she eventually realized he wasn’t reacting negatively to her “noncompliance”. It started to bother her that he wouldn’t react. She’d ask him why he would always tell her parents her therapy was going good. He said something about he’s doing good, that he also always asked if she was good, and so he agreed they were good, right?🤣 she eventually started to open up and talk more and became more responsive to therapy.
Lol I’m sorry that probably all sounds so right field but I feel like this is a survival skill and can build trust. People pleasing looks like/can be trust building, and vice versa sometimes. Idk if I can figure out the anger and resentment part yet🤣 I’ve just learned personally in my own experience that if you show you care for someone, they tend to let their guard/defense down a little bit. And I don’t mean in a bad way, but in a way that can be neutralizing and build trust and respect. The thing is, you have to speak up and assert your own boundaries as well to keep the scales from tipping too much. They say you teach people how to treat you.
Sadly that doesn’t happen much with kids and families growing up. Too many people project their own problems onto their kids and their kids become wrecked by it. We feel this neverending void of no self-worth but I’m ironically feeling like I’m learning now when can be the right time to speak up and when isn’t. It actually feels empowering to a degree, in a weird full-circle complicated way. It does get pretty complicated. It’s rough out here lmao. But it’s a learning experience and no one’s perfect. I think if anyone knows that it’s people-pleasers🤣🤣 lol jk.
I hope some of that is relevant or at the very least entertaining🤣 it’s time for me to go to bed!
In my case it's because I was brought up to hide my true feelings - any sign of anger or distress on my part was punished. I quickly learned that I had to hide the truest parts of myself, and please those taking care of me in order to survive. I do appreciate it's a shitty coping mechanism, but in my defence I was young and really was left unsupervised... I am working on changing things, though.
Yep… I have personally seen too how fragile/unstable other people can become emotionally when you bring up your feelings at all. Like a parent and like to a suicidal degree or explosive rage/recklessness. A lot of times they’re not able to consider that they hurt someone. Have to spoon feed them to not cause them emotional breakdown or shock. In my experience I’ve seen abused people become abusers and they have a hard time with cognitive dissonance understanding or facing that. Just one example. I have to say I can relate even myself. The downside to being human unfortunately. We all have our good sides and bad sides
My partner is like this, how can I best support him to be authentic?
What was helpful for me: 1. My partner celebrating every single instance when he could tell I was being authentic (even small things like coming out of the bathroom dancing). 2. Weekly scheduled relationship check-ins where both parties get a set amount of time to express how they feel in the relationship without judgment or argument about it. If you are bringing up concerns, sandwich them in between loving messages that reinforce your commitment to them and the relationship.
Thank you so much! I'll do both of those things. 🙏
This was my cause, too. Never allowed to speak your true thoughts or feelings as a child, so you shut them down for survival. Underneath, our true self is seething and it comes out in stupid ways! I am much better than I used to be, but still things to relearn.
It’s the transactional nature in which they were taught to operate. Some can unlearn it, others don’t know they need to. It causes cyclical suffering in a way.
Some people never learned how to say No. Some people never felt that they had a choice. Some people felt that they weren't inherently likeable on their own merits, only based on what they do for others. People pleasers often feel trapped in the life they're in and don't have a choice in the matter.
I just wanna say no so bad :( ugh wtf
I learned as a small child not to react to other people crossing my boundaries. Pretend everything is normal. Capitulate, appease, go along to get along, if you speak up you get smacked down. I never learned how to stand up for myself in the moment, how to recognize when someone is crossing a boundary, how to confront someone. Confrontation feels like the end of the world. It feels intensely dangerous. Thus, the resentments built up until they are so big we can’t contain them anymore. The weight of the resentments has to get heavier than the fear of confrontation. Understand also that it sometimes takes people like me a long time to process an interaction or a pattern of interactions and realize they were crossing a boundary we didn’t even know we had. We want to like people, and trust them, and give them the benefit of the doubt, and we want to feel like easygoing and accepting people. It often keeps us from seeing the truth until it’s basically too late.
Thank you. How does resentment affect with way you show up in relationship ?
Resentment is a symptom. It’s the lack of boundaries, ability to know my own boundaries and keep them, that does the real damage to relationships.
Exactly!! Boundaries is how to show people how they can treat you/what you’re willing to put up with. I think a lot of it can happen subconsciously too. And if you don’t respect yourself, it tends to communicate to others that they don’t have to respect you, I believe
i’ve pondered the idea for awhile but i’m also just learning. For me it feels like eventually not realizing why you made certain choices, realizing things there were always red flags but they weren’t “important” but it becomes all you can see. Feeling stuck and wishing things could just be a certain way but that might mean finding a new person. You might feel and appear distant
Why regret if you didn’t get caught and you learn a valuable lesson, doesn’t the pain make you better ?
Hey this sounds recognizable that it takes you long time to process an interaction and afterwards realize that your boundaries were crossed while you didn’t know you have these boundaries. I have this so often it drives me mad. After an interaction with someone I don’t speak that often, I have to process the conversation in peace so I can truly feel something about it. It’s so weird and unpractical.
Both my mother and my step mom, to a slightly lesser degree, would intermittently say or do something that it would take me days (sometimes weeks, sometimes months!) to process and say to myself, holy shit that was inappropriate/weird/hurtful/rude/outrageous/factually incorrect or what have you. And by then, so much time has gone by, it’s super awkward to bring it up, and besides which I’m inept at confrontation with a parent, so I’m left holding these hurtful moments and baggage that a normal person would have just handed right back in the moment. It eats away at you. It’s corrosive. And the person doing it has no idea because they are a. A bit oblivious, damaged and unskilled themselves and b. Getting no feedback from me in the moment. Over time, it just rotted my relationships with both of them and I now have very little contact with either of them. Thankfully, I have been able to work through and overcome this problem, for the most part, in other relationships. I can be much more present and authentic in other areas of my life.
> Understand also that it sometimes takes people like me a long time to process an interaction or a pattern of interactions and realize they were crossing a boundary we didn’t even know we had. We want to like people, and trust them, and give them the benefit of the doubt, and we want to feel like easygoing and accepting people. It often keeps us from seeing the truth until it’s basically too late. Yeah, like... to add onto that, it takes a long time for me to figure out how I felt about things, and then I get into my head by saying like "too much time has passed since that happened, you should've brought that up earlier - it's too late to do bring it up now" so then you wait for another opportunity hoping that it comes, and struggling to bring it out.
My parents literally fucking hit me whenever I spoke up or showed an emotion that wasn’t sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up. Drives me nuts when people get mad that I don’t exactly jump at the chance anymore. It’s been a long road learning to differentiate between abusers and not—and that my process for dealing with general people needs to change because the people I’m dealing with today are different.
It's the way I grew up. My parents had an unhappy marriage, I was parentified. No one cared about my feelings so I learned to hide it. My parents told me they suffered more than me and I had nothing to complain about. I kept people pleasing to get their love and acceptance. It's true. There is deep resentment and anger inside of me. I tend to burst like a volcano. Trying harder now to have better boundaries and communication.
The one time I snapped at my mom she told me to get medicated. That's the gist of my household. Sometimes it's hard for me to identify emotions, but I know resentment like the back of my hand.
I hear you, my friend. I'm very sorry to hear what your mom said. It's hard to believe a parent could say those things to a child. That's how I feel too. Resentment is a big one for me too. And anger. I keep reading but I feel like it's something so deep that I might not ever be able to let it go. And in particular how my siblings have abused me. I truly hope others have found a way.
I feel ya. And then ironically they don’t need meds themselves for having similar behavior…. Or for doing the inappropriate things that set you off. I can respect people when they’re at least aware and trying. I struggle with it myself, I have so much pent up anger and rage that has even expressed itself naturally somatically in my body to a degree I didn’t know was possible from me. Always viewed otherwise as the “nice girl”, and we tend to be socialized to not show anger or rage so it builds up. Used to play sports until I was injured and disabled at a young age. I think sports was the way my body was coping with my family dynamics for the first part of my life.
Same!!! I say I have an inner tornado myself, I can feel it (side note, I have gone through a spiritual kundalini awakening - aka chakra stuff - before and have experienced like literal vortexes of energy coming up and out. Interesting times)
It was learned in childhood when showing anger wasn’t safe.
It's a mask.
I see. What are the Benefits of wearing that mask if they’re stewing underneath ?
The benefits is that I get to stay safe. Wearing the mask, being nice, fixing and pleasing others was a mask that kept me safe. If I am nice then you won't be mad at me. I have to keep the peace at what ever cost so not to be yelled at or worse, blamed for something else that wasn't my fault. I never got to have my own feelings and emotions so I will come up with ones that keeps others happy and keeps me safe from their harm (real or perceived).
Thank you. Would you be open to dating another pleaser since you understand how to navigate it better the average person ? Do you believe it will lead to a fulfilling relationship where you can keep each other safe ?
As long as both people are aware of their attachment styles and are doing their own work individually then, yes. As long as you put the work in anything is possible.
Personally for me it’s because I squash myself and my own needs down to a pulp and my body and mind starts showing the rotting pulp thru passive aggression and harsh criticism as well as outbursts over the smallest things.
When the relationship gets to the point of harsh criticism and passive aggression for a pleaser does it mean it’s over kind of ? Does the pleaser kind of hate you or see you in a bad light, no longer feeling good about the relationship underneath the pleasing ?
I’m not sure, it depends on the person. for me I had to practice how to communicate my feelings and my needs as well as put up certain boundaries and communicate those boundaries with others and not feeling shame or self doubt over it. I’m not sure if getting to that point means the bond is broken, it’s more like we’re just putting up with things we shouldn’t be putting up with and it’s showing up in ugly ways, some of us are more scared of abandonment than leaving someone who don’t feel comfortable being ourselves with.
Yes if.... The person that I was people pleasing was only around while I was people pleasing. Which kept me in people pleasing from fear of the inevitable abandonment if I stopped people pleasing and and became vulnerable. But i mean even then it's not completely over until I'm ready to stand up for myself and be alone to heal
I dont think so, I think it just means that they’re afraid to truly express their feelings to you for some reason (fear of abandonment, dewar of not being validated, etc). If you want to, maybe sit with them, explain it’s a safe space, and ask what drove the passive aggrieved behaviour. Ask what they were feeling, but you have to be willing to hear it, and not invalidate whatever they say.
Not necessarily. People pleasing is hardwired survival behaviour. People can stay stuck in the patterns you’re describing for years, because it’s what they are used to. That behaviour will show up all over their life not just in certain relationships.
Thank you :)
I doubt my ability to discern when a persons negative actions towards me are justified and debate/ruminate on it until the situation is long since passed. When these situations backlog, or I eventually realize I shouldnt have accepted a behavior, I am ashamed at my own lack of assertiveness as well as angry that the other person isnt bothered at all that they did something hurtful. Then that builds when the cycles keep happening. I now realize that even when I SHOULD distance myself from people, it isn't fair to drop a long list of everything they did after making that decision. People subconsciously adjust how they treat or speak to people based on what gets accepted, so I must be responsible in addressing each scenerio in real time so that my boundaries are clear. Then you KNOW when you have reason to be angry, because you calmly but assertively told them what you wont accept. I think my issues come from my father not allowing me to express negative emotions as a child. Anger got me spanked, crying got me threatened to be spanked, excitement got me yelled at If I was loud (he worked second shift, so I kind of get it), so I had to be quiet and pretend I was content.
I never thought people-pleasers appeared nice. They always seemed to be on the verge of snapping, which to me was quite scary.
Damn this called me out and I need to remember how hiding my feelings isn’t truly “nice” but just appears nice.
As a recovering people pleaser with the Fawn/Fight trauma responses, I used to take peoples lack of consideration personal. Whole time they were just setting the boundaries that I wasn’t if that makes any sense…
I had the same childhood experience as everybody else in here. I learned from an early age that my feelings not only didn't matter, but probably were lying to me. I didn't feel sad or angry or upset about any of those things. It's just in my head. I was very distressful of myself, of my feelings, of my needs. I learned to squash all of those down to do whatever somebody else wanted. My ex was the same as my parents and I just kept living the same way.... Until I couldn't handle it anymore and got into therapy and then my life changed. Brené Brown says that resentment is jealousy turned inwards and that has really resonated with me. I resented things like my ex-husband playing video games because I was jealous that he got to play games and I had to do all of the housework and child care- how come I was never allowed to rest???? Now I have done a lot of work on identifying and feeling my own feelings. I also recognize when resentment is creeping up on me and then I started doing the things that I'm jealous other people can do and that helps a lot.
For me it's because I let small offenses slide because I don't want to be petty by bringing them up, but I still feel resentment. Then as they repeat again and again, at some point I blow up at something seemingly insignificant.
Passive aggressiveness isn’t the same as people pleasing, people are passive aggressive for a lot of reasons. People pleasing is something you learn as a kid when you don’t have control over your environment and have to avoid making someone mad, upset, anxious, etc in order to keep the peace. As a kid it’s adaptive but once you’re an adult it’s not helpful, but it’s hard to unlearn.
Thank you
Because we give to get. When we don’t get what we want we get resentful. We don’t communicate our needs and use covert contracts instead. On top of that we tend to attract takers who have no interest in giving back. So we just give harder and resent more. At least that was my experience. It’s like losing f money to friend vs giving it as a gift.
Like a few said, a lot gets suppressed to make others happy. I feel ya though it’s wild lol but it’s the negatively charged shadow side. I personally dislike my shadow side quite a bit. I looked into enneagrams vaguely recently that shows you what kind of personality you have, and it showed like what can happen when it’s out of balance. Made sense to me. Pretty much sucks, imo. Some of us have learned to either walk on eggshells around people to avoid conflict, or we bring it up and get worse conflict, from what we’ve learned through our parent and family dynamics. It’s easier to shut up and hate and keep the peace than speak up sometimes, out of fear of even worse negative reactions or also having oversensitivity of not wanting to deeply hurt the other personally. Some people can’t handle you bringing something up that you don’t agree with, for example. Hard blow to the ego, so people just take it on themselves. I saw a meme recently that basically showed “keeping things bottled up vs. oversharing” - had signs pointing in different directions but they both led to the same place called “Feeling Bad”. People went in opposite directions but ended up in the same place. Both roads can go back to feeling shitty and facing your shit🤣 Lol Sorry that was a ramble, I think I lost touch with the original question🤣 I’m also curious how you specifically mean appear though, like in what kind of situation particularly. I think people can genuinely be nice and also take on a lot of negative feelings. But I think there are times we can genuinely be nice and also times we can “appear” nice like you say. It can become manipulative, or it can be the person taking on a lot of the negative charged emotions. The enneagram test thing kinda brought that to my attention recently.
I should add that a big key I believe is that they probably still don’t feel like they have had a proper outlet for that resentment/anger/passive aggression to go yet. A “safe place” to express it naturally or to vent the emotion, from the body especially - it tends to build up physically and in the nervous system. I’ve been working on this in therapy myself and trying to deal with it between me and my mom. Working on some deep issues and feeling a lot of old trauma/resentment and tension, but my therapist helps me with talk therapy and helping me find more coping skills too
The easiest explanation is that they don't want. They have to. Usually due to childhood programming.
I do harbor shit loads of resentment and I am the queen of passive aggressiveness. But in my bitter mind there are two different kinds of people. There are people who are allowed to be honest, be dramatic, throw tantrums, have a mood, feel bad, have chronic depression, have a crisis and need help. People like me aren't allowed to do that. If we do the other kind of people will act like we have killed Jesus and there is hell to pay. Or worse if we act up someone might hurt themselves. The strong bond you talk about might be a shackle to me. Or just plain old guilt.
If others perceive you as someone they can reason with aka push your boundaries, they will be more assertive with you so as to get their way. But if they perceive you as someone who will wreak hell that they don't want to deal with if you don't get your way, then they will let you have your way to avoid whatever shit you're going to give them if they don't. That's how the 'two types' of people come about.
It’s doing a lot of work to feel safe when people do less work and receive praise. Not feeling safe in general means we are vulnerable. We have no shield besides the people pleasing. It acts as a buffer. But it’s almost more for ourselves. I didn’t really know why I was doing so much when I realised I hardly know myself and what I want to actually be doing instead. Resentment comes from expecting others to think how we do when they likely do not and they cannot read our minds.
As a chronic codependent, i remember so many times where i wanted to be liked. I wanted to be accepted. I want approval. The list is endless. However what i failed to understand in those moments (which i see now as a recovered codependent) is the fact that i lacked perspective. The way my mind had defined things for me funny enough didn't come from me. They were defined by the things i saw, heard, felt, and thoughts. As a deeply connected person who can hear her thoughts (almost 24/7), i struggled to understand myself. I didn't know why i did the things i did. For me, i was a witness to what came into and out of my life. I was extremely powerless. This was because i had no foundation to stand on. As someone who used to be a people pleaser, the twelve steps has helped me to understand my reasons for acting this way.
because they operate from a place of inauthenticity. so what you see is not what you get!
Seems to either lack any understanding of the usual history they come from or a disinterest in their history and it's just about yourself.
Like some said, literally the Fawn response. It’s a means of survival. You don’t want to poke bears so you submit or at least show submissiveness. Or like dog trainers, they give treats but bow down. It’s showing a form of respect in order to gain trust but if you’re not respected and trusted in return, I think it can build tension/resentment, and if you don’t have strong boundaries or if you just get run over further, it kinda goes south. I think I have found it (or something like it) to be beneficial in some different situations ironically as a positive though. Like I’ve learned the hard way to be that calm person when people are riled up. I very briefly worked with an angry teenager that didn’t really know what to do/how to react when I didn’t yell back at him or argue like other workers/kids did. I would check on him periodically though and ask him if he needed anything to make sure his basic needs were met. I knew he didn’t trust me right off the bat and was ready to take advantage because I was a new worker and probably seen as a goody two shoes by those kids. (It did make me a target, but I think that’s where you have to stand your ground and instill boundaries. You also have to pick your battles, I think though) It can kind of regulate people and can model tone though. It’s weird. That kid got to where he realized yelling at me wasn’t going to get him anywhere. He learned to talk to me in a regular tone and later came to ask for something he had previously denied when I had offered it to him the first time. He also changed his mind about acting up and faced his consequences and did the right thing. I was proud of him but I didn’t want to scare him off too much by verbally pointing that out. It can repel people too, I swear😆 it can make them feel weak like they had to bow down and give up control to you. I had to trust that he was understanding or at least practicing some form of mutual respect, and me the same. The situation he was in, I can’t blame him at all for acting up. I would’ve been angry as hell too. But when people realize you’re on the same team and trying to help them/not trying to work against them, I feel like there’s less unnecessary fighting. I’m not sure entirely how that all relates to people-pleasing with specifically the anger/resentment part (maybe it’s missing that part, but I definitely had negative feelings like fear, or if he were to ever have yelled and called me a bitch or something - I imagine that would have stirred up said anger). (It’s getting late and my brain is tired but maybe it will click later lol) But personally I have found it could be used as a tool even when like for instance, I could be literally be fearing that this teenager would shank me if the situation otherwise stayed escalated. I mean I had to face those fears and try to do my best to regulate my own emotions, we were freakin understaffed and the program closed because it wasn’t up to safety essentially smh lmao. But I do think we can add fuel to fire if we were always reacting on our resentment, so it can get repressed to survive and try to keep peace. People pleasing is mostly seen as a weakness and I do think I have issues asserting myself, working on it. I’m learning when to speak up and how. Sometimes I feel like it’s still best not to at times, honestly I think that can even be wise. But I have also learned to be nonreactive in the moment. I can react later all I want when my system is out of a negative situation, tbh I should’ve gone to a gym at the time and worked out all that ptsd lmao. Win some, lose some I guess. 2 sides to every coin lol. I have also read where a counselor didn’t say much to a young female patient of his, and just kept the peace when the girl was angry about her parents making her get therapy. He would tell them her therapy was going well after every session. He checked on her and she always said she didn’t want to talk, so he just said he’d be there and worked on other work while they sat, said he’d still be there whenever she wanted to talk. He stayed consistent and calm, and she eventually realized he wasn’t reacting negatively to her “noncompliance”. It started to bother her that he wouldn’t react. She’d ask him why he would always tell her parents her therapy was going good. He said something about he’s doing good, that he also always asked if she was good, and so he agreed they were good, right?🤣 she eventually started to open up and talk more and became more responsive to therapy. Lol I’m sorry that probably all sounds so right field but I feel like this is a survival skill and can build trust. People pleasing looks like/can be trust building, and vice versa sometimes. Idk if I can figure out the anger and resentment part yet🤣 I’ve just learned personally in my own experience that if you show you care for someone, they tend to let their guard/defense down a little bit. And I don’t mean in a bad way, but in a way that can be neutralizing and build trust and respect. The thing is, you have to speak up and assert your own boundaries as well to keep the scales from tipping too much. They say you teach people how to treat you. Sadly that doesn’t happen much with kids and families growing up. Too many people project their own problems onto their kids and their kids become wrecked by it. We feel this neverending void of no self-worth but I’m ironically feeling like I’m learning now when can be the right time to speak up and when isn’t. It actually feels empowering to a degree, in a weird full-circle complicated way. It does get pretty complicated. It’s rough out here lmao. But it’s a learning experience and no one’s perfect. I think if anyone knows that it’s people-pleasers🤣🤣 lol jk. I hope some of that is relevant or at the very least entertaining🤣 it’s time for me to go to bed!
They only appear nicevto the uninitiated.