The End Of My People Pleasing
How I did it. How we all can.
Welcome to Cheaper Than Therapy, a healing newsletter for 80s babies by Shani Silver. This newsletter does not publish free content, but if you’d like to read it you can become a paid subscriber here. Thank you for enjoying the work of independent writers.
Several Sundays ago, a friend of mine expressed frustration with her inability to stop being “nice” at the cost of her own preferences and plans. She always says yes when she wants to say no because she doesn’t want to make anyone “feel bad.” Even though this makes her feel bad. It’s the kind of thing you feel comfortable taking about at brunch once a bottle or two have been popped and distributed. She found herself in an endless loop of people pleasing, growing more frustrated with herself over time. I used to do that. I used to prioritize everything and everyone and I’d often come home at the end of social activity completely drained of energy with sanity not far behind, regretting saying yes in the first place. But never asking why.
People pleasing was very intentionally bred into women of a certain generation and if you’re reading this, you’re in it. It didn’t happen to make us pushover adults though, to be clear—that’s an unintended, but very unfortunate consequence. We were raised to be “good girls” who understood that being a good girl meant never having a problem with anything. Never being a problem. Never mind that we never were “problems,” we were just kids surrounded by adults who couldn’t handle or didn’t want to bother with entirely normal childhood behavior. Carry being a “good girl” into adulthood without any reflective pauses and you become someone who lives out their own life as the lowest rung on every ladder. Babe…climb.