The Root Cause of People Pleasing
The root cause of people pleasing behavior is an emotionally unsafe childhood. Maybe self-expression wasn’t allowed. Maybe you were blamed for things that weren’t your fault. Maybe your parents or caregivers made you feel like you weren’t good enough, providing only conditional love in an effort to control you instead of accepting you the way you were. Whatever it was, all of these injuries damaged your self-image and filled you with toxic shame–the belief that your authentic self isn’t good, lovable, acceptable, worthy, or respectable as it is. And tragically, your natural response to this belief was to alter yourself in an attempt to gain safety, love, and approval instead of realizing that your caregivers failed to love you for who you are. Today, if you’re willing, you’re going to drop this shame and choose to love yourself as you are.
The Misery of Being a People Pleaser
People pleasers, also known as “nice guys or girls”, spend their whole lives wearing a mask to cover their true self. They constantly assess how to please everyone else except for themselves. Having spent the majority of my life as a people pleaser due to the toxic shame instilled in me by my narcissistic parents and Christianity, I can tell you that it ruins the quality of your life. Instead of living authentically, being who you are, doing what makes you happy, and taking good care of yourself, you do the exact opposite. The nice guy gives everyone else what they want in a desperate need to gain validation from those around him because he’s convinced that he’s unlovable and is unable to validate and love himself.
The Psychology Behind The People Pleaser
Because the people pleaser’s childhood caregivers convinced him that he wasn’t good enough, he has already rejected himself. He had no chance to avoid this internal shame because it happened so early in his development before he could think for himself. Because he isn’t able to validate himself, he desperately seeks to counteract his own self-rejection with validation from others. He subconsciously feels, “If I can get other people to love and accept me, then maybe I’m worthy of my own love and acceptance.” However, in this process, because he’s rejected his true self, he erects a false self to show others because he’s terrified that others might see his “awful” true self. So, he’s driven to create an idealized personality that no one could reject that pleases everybody. He becomes a chameleon and alters himself to match whoever he’s with at the moment. As a result, his mind becomes exhausted in social situations due to the unrelenting effort to optimize his act to receive the acceptance he craves from those around him.
The Confusion and Social Anxiety of the People Pleaser
After a while, reading people and presenting the ideal false self to please them starts to confuse the people pleaser. He begins to realize that he’s not really sure who he is anymore. Afterall, when you spend your whole life as a professional actor, acting starts to feel safer than authentic self-expression. Because you have no idea how the people in your life will react to your true self, the fear of being yourself increases over time. Eventually this fear develops into severe social anxiety. Furthermore, this fear from your social anxiety isn’t that people might reject you; it is the belief that people will reject you because you have already rejected yourself.
My Years of Failed Attempts at Healing From People Pleasing
So now that we understand what causes people pleasing, how do we heal this unfortunate condition? For years, I tried to be more authentic, to force the mask off and show my true self to everyone, and I could never sustain it. Before my recovery from people pleasing, I was a perpetual smiler, smiling at everyone even when it wasn’t necessary. For a while, I tried to force myself to not smile excessively and I just ended up feeling like an asshole whenever I withheld my smiles because I couldn’t tell the difference between an authentic smile and my mask. Because I couldn’t even tell which ones were real and which ones were false, I often mistakenly suppressed the real ones in an effort to get rid of the false ones! It was so aggravating and confusing for me. In my effort to express my true self more, I couldn’t even figure out which behaviors were genuine for me.
What Finally Began My Recovery From People Pleasing
So what eventually worked for me? Determining the origin of my toxic beliefs about myself. I had to examine the damaging beliefs I had about myself and realize that I didn’t choose them for myself. Instead, I had to become aware that these unhealthy core beliefs came from my narcissistic parents and their toxic Christian religion. I was told from an early age that I was an evil sinner–despicable from the day I was born–and that I needed someone to save me from a hell that I apparently deserved just because I dared to live. Also, I was constantly criticized for not being good enough because my parents were perfectionists. Furthermore, I was always wrong because my parents idolized themselves and blamed me for their mistakes because they were covert narcissists. My parents systematically rejected my true self because they wanted to manipulate me into a more pacified, controllable version of myself that they could use to feed their narcissistic egos. As a result, self-discovery and self-expression didn’t happen in my childhood like it should have; instead, I repressed my true self to survive and took on characteristics that weren’t my own to give my parents and their religion what they wanted from me. I also later realized that just like my parents, the god of Christianity himself was a narcissist too, blaming and punishing humanity for his faulty creation and convincing us that we’re the evil ones when it’s actually his intolerant, wrathful, blood-loving, and hell-creating self that is evil.
Rejecting the Brainwashing of My Childhood
Once I understood that I was brainwashed to believe that I was an unworthy, unlovable, terrible person, I rejected those beliefs. It made me angry to see how an innocent child like me was conditioned by my parents and their religion to despise myself. I started to think independently and reconsider all of the beliefs that had been forced into me during my vulnerable childhood. I asked myself, “Who am I? What matters to me? What do I want? Do my actions indicate that I am a good person or a bad person? Am I a lovable person? Am I worthy of anyone loving me? Is my judgement always wrong or have I just been the victim of narcissistic abuse?”
The Beginning of Self-Differentiation from My Parents
As I asked myself these questions, I noticed that my answers differed tremendously from the poisonous presumptions pressured into me as a child. I realized that I was a unique person, with values and beliefs very different from my parent’s. Truth and authenticity actually mattered to me instead of wishful thinking and hidden motives. I also wanted real connection, not the conditional love from my parents that required self-abandonment. Furthermore, my actions indicated that while I was a very hurt person, I was also a good person who valued moral reasoning over the mandates of a morally-devoid god. I also realized that I was a lovable person and that like everyone, some people would like my personality and some wouldn’t. I decided that I was worthy of love and that even if no one else would choose to love me, I would choose to love me. And lastly, I realized that my judgement was actually quite good, considering all of the years of hyper-awareness that I developed as a people pleaser in emotionally unsafe environments.
The Rise of My Anger and Self-Worth
My answers to these questions began a shift within me from insecurity to righteous anger. I began to realize that instead of being a bad emotion that should be suppressed, my anger was actually a self-protective instinct meant to shield me from those who would harm me or diminish my value. It was this very anger that began to rebuild my self-worth. Whenever anyone mistreated me, instead of justifying and minimizing their actions like I usually did, my anger would rise and motivate me to communicate with them to achieve resolution. My anger was advocating for me, revealing mistreatment from those around me so that I could hold them accountable. I started to understand that many of the aspects of myself that I had repressed due to the unhealthy emotional environment of my childhood, like my anger, were actually parts of me trying to help me.
Rebuilding Myself One Day at a Time
Over time, I slowly began to integrate all of myself into my life, including the parts of me that didn’t always please those around me. I began to be myself a little bit more every day, exposing myself to my fear of rejection while also reminding myself of the truth of who I am and my worthiness as a person. As I overcame these fears one by one, I began to realize that these fears were nothing but illusions coming from the awful core beliefs about myself from my unfortunate childhood. My confidence started to build, not the type one gets externally from others, but instead the type that comes internally from oneself known as self-confidence.I also began to view myself in a much better light, raising my self-esteem. And, most importantly, I chose to love myself in a way that no one ever had, developing self-love.
Overcoming My Fear of Rejection
While many of these realizations have been immediate on the conscious level of my mind, it has taken time for these beliefs to shift on a deeper subconscious and emotional level for me. As I’ve recovered from my previously poor self-image, I’ve grown in empowerment and self-respect over time. I used to be afraid of significant shifts in my behavior being seen by people who’ve known me for a long time, feeling like if I ever revealed my true self, I would have to do it around new people. I began to realize that I had been rejecting myself every time I thought like this, diminishing and hiding myself from the people in my life just to make them comfortable and avoid triggering my own shame. I began to think, “What about me? What about my self-expression? What about my comfort? What about what I want?!” As a result of questions like these, I started to gradually reveal my true self to the people around me and as expected, some people liked me and some people didn’t, but that was okay with me because I liked me.
The Results of My Healing and Transformation
As I write this, I have transformed significantly from being mostly an externally-validated people pleaser to mostly being an internally-validated authentic man. I’ve let people go who weren’t good for me instead of trying to keep pleasing them. I’ve held people accountable who love me, but have been neglecting or disrespecting me. I’ve also held myself accountable for not being the man I want to be. The end result is that I’ve chosen to leave almost all of the relationships in my life because most of them were dependent upon my deprivation, tolerance, inauthenticity, and self-sacrifice. I’ve realized that it’s better to be alone in authenticity and love yourself than to surround yourself with people who don’t love or respect you the way you deserve. It’s this shift toward providing love for myself that has enabled me to leave these unhealthy relationships behind and begin a new relationship with myself, one with self-love, self-respect, and self-esteem. Relationships with others are less essential for me now because I provide for myself what I previously sought in the validation of others. Now I no longer try to make incompatible relationships work by altering or diminishing myself. I no longer try to see the best in people out of hopes that they will do the same for me. Instead, I try to see people for who they actually are based upon their actions and if they’re not good for me, they’re out of my life. The people who give me the respect I deserve and who celebrate me for who I am–those are the people who remain in my life. However, I am done with diminishing myself to make those who reject my true self accept a false version of me.
I’ve finally found the contentment with myself I’ve always wanted. I’ve finally found the love and acceptance I’ve desperately sought my whole life. I’m no longer a people pleaser because I’ve found love and acceptance where I least expected it–from myself.
Looking for Love in the Right Place
If you’re a people pleaser and you’re looking for love and acceptance, stop looking for it in the wrong places like others and religion. Instead, start looking for love in the one place that it really matters–from yourself. You don’t need to feel love for yourself to give it to yourself. You just need to choose to love yourself, for it is this choice that will begin your healing journey. Love yourself the way you’ve always wanted to be loved! It’s time for you to switch from being a people pleaser to a self pleaser. The world will benefit far more from your authenticity and self-expression than it ever did from your false self and fearful mask. It’s time for you to give yourself and the world the real version of yourself!
Final Thoughts
Will you choose to love yourself? Will you choose to become the validation for yourself that you’ve always painfully sought in others? Will you choose to stop avoiding rejection so that you can gain something far greater for yourself–your own joy, authentic expression, and happiness? Will…you…choose…YOU?
“It’s better to be who you are and be loved by some and rejected by others than it is to be someone who you are not and never be loved for who you actually are.”
Learning to Trust Myself After Narcissistic Abuse
I was raised by narcissistic parents who taught me to doubt myself. Instead of teaching me how to think for myself and trust my intuition, they tried to train my independent thinking out of me. They also assumed that I was “sinful” and “evil” at my core and thought that it was their duty to keep me from expressing my “naturally wicked” self. In addition to that, I never felt safe as a child to express (or even possess) ideas contrary to their own because disapproval and manipulation would ensue. This behavior of theirs still continues to this day, with no respect given for any thought, idea, belief, or behavior that doesn’t align with their rigid view of the world. I learned quickly as a child to never dare to question their behaviors or choices, because being narcissists, they would shame me for questioning them or blame me for their faults. Even as I am now an adult, any accountability I hold them to for their actions and how they’ve hurt me has resulted not in heartfelt apologies, but instead gaslighting and villanizing of my character. To my parents, the only questioning or doubting that was appropriate was that which I directed toward myself. In my family, I was conditioned to believe that doubting myself and assuming blame was the virtue of humility, regardless of whether or not I was at fault. To judge my parents by their actions (rather than their skillfully manipulative words) and hold them accountable–that was abhorrent. I was just being ridiculous, “too sensitive”, and “not seeing things correctly”.
All of these parental behaviors trained me to believe that I was always mistaken if my ideas didn’t align with others and that my perception was always flawed. As a result, I believed for most of my life that I could never trust myself or my judgement and that I wasn’t good enough. Furthermore, my parents taught me to trust authority instead of myself–with themselves being the primary benefactors–so that they could control me and exonerate themselves of any responsibility for their mistakes or poor behaviors. The irony is that while my parents believe in obeying authority for themselves too (given their religiosity), due to their narcissism, they have actually been serving themselves as the ultimate authority in their lives. As I became older, I saw this inconsistency in their lives, but I dared not to challenge their hypocrisy. After all, they had trained me to fear their reprisal and doubt myself to keep me from ever holding them accountable. They could do whatever the hell they wanted and get away with it because they had emasculated their son of his self-trust and courage–at least for a while. It was all eventually going to backfire on them, as it usually does for narcissists.
A couple of years ago, in 2023, I had an awakening moment. I realized that I was living my life to please everyone else instead of myself, just like my parents wanted for their benefit and control. I saw how despite some of my needs being met, I wasn’t living from my heart and securing my wants and needs like a healthy person would. I began asking myself what I needed to feel good again, to be healthy, and to take proper care of myself. For the first few months, when I asked myself what I needed, I got very little response from my intuition. I started to realize that I had been detached from my emotional self and my intuition my entire life. In my research, I discovered that it’s common for children raised in toxic homes (where self-expression was punished with shame, disapproval, or rejection) to hide their true selves and repress their emotions to survive and maintain security within the family. I learned that children altering themselves like this is an evolutionary instinct to prevent separation from the family (and inevitably death) while they were still too vulnerable to fend for themselves. I too had instinctively made this adaptation in my childhood, learning to hide my true self and suppress my emotions, which my dad had taught me were “weak” anyway. Now that I was trying to call my buried heart to the surface, I got nothing–at least at first.
As I kept asking myself what I needed to better care for my exhausted, depressed, and anxious self, slowly my emotions began to surface and gently guide me toward better self-care and authentic living. My heart was like an abused child, beaten into silence, who was slowly learning how to talk again, but who still feared being punished for expressing himself. As time went on, my emotions cautiously began to tell me what I needed to take better care of myself, and eventually, they began to reveal to me more of who I was. I began to realize that I didn’t even know who I was. As I mentioned earlier, in my childhood I had been conditioned to repress my true self, my emotions, my wants, my needs and replace them with a false self–a shell meant for the survival of my childhood. Now, for the first time, I was beginning to discover my true self, something that should have happened in my childhood, but never did.
In this journey of emotional awakening and self-discovery, I eventually realized that my self-doubt was trained into me by my narcissistic parents. I was taught both by their christian religion and their irresponsible, insecure selves that I was always the problem and that my judgement was always wrong whenever it conflicted with theirs. Much to their chagrin, I started to realize that my intuition about them and their narcissistic toxicity had always been right. It finally dawned on me that–contrary to my parent’s conditional love, gaslighting, and disrespect for me–my true self was lovable, good enough, and worthy of being respected. I now understood that I had been manipulated into doubting myself entirely through their gaslighting and perpetual undermining of my confidence. For those who don’t know, gaslighting is an act of personal irresponsibility where a guilty person blames an innocent person for their mistakes. I woke up to this irresponsibility of theirs and saw how I had been the dumping ground for their mistakes my entire life. Being the narcissists that they are, they were unable to acknowledge their faults because they had to maintain the delusion that they were flawless to protect their insecure egos. The only problem with this is that the blame for their mistakes had to go somewhere. So, instead of being mature, healthy adults and taking responsibility for their actions, they chose to shift the blame onto me, choosing to destroy the developing self-trust of their child instead of looking into the mirror and facing themselves for who they really are.
My narcissistic parents chose to ruin me to protect themselves from seeing their own faults. I suffered decades of mental illness because of this. But now I know why I have doubted myself so much. Now I know why I have felt unworthy of love for so long. Now I know why I used to hate myself so much: I was convinced by my parent’s actions that I was an unlovable, untrustable, and unrespectable person.
I was never the problem. I was a victim of narcissistic abuse. And now, I choose to trust myself.