When a Recovering People Pleaser Finds Their Self Worth

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Brief Overview: A rich family riddled with issues that stem from their volatile, controlling patriarch Logan Roy.

Recovering people pleaser here!

Being a people pleaser was something I adopted to my character after my mom died. I feared the label of being the daughter of the dead lady at school and decided that instead I would be known for being nice, giving and the funny fat kid. Didn’t stop all my bullies, but it did help me survive and navigate life. Again, I’ll revisit the feelings of abandonment you feel when you lose someone especially a parent. That feeling for me was internalized, planted and grew into the people pleasing, walk over, fear of abandonment flower infestation that I began to eradicate a year or more ago.

Survival mode caused me to adapt unhealthy coping mechanisms such as taking on the unnecessary weight of believing that my own feelings are worthless when it comes to others. The fear of saying NO to people I thought were friends used to cause me so much anxiety, forcing me into believing that people wouldn’t be my friend or abandon me. It also led me into situations and instances that would exhaust my energy and leave me feeling bad later.

Finding the value in my own and your own self-worth is so important. And for daughters without mothers, it can be harder to learn. I think we give too much power to external forces, whether that be friends and family, jobs, financial circumstances, etc to tell or validate our self-worth. Coming from a person like me who feels the need to be in control more often than not, I had to realize that self-worth should be an internal thing. Making yourself smaller is a scary thing to be able to do, because if you begin to rely on that lack of self-worth and shrinking yourself down it becomes normal. It may become your automatic go to for all situations that may cause you stress and then you could run the risk of losing yourself.

It was the simplest thing that brought me to the realization that I was constantly shrinking myself down because I didn’t have enough self-worth. I was in therapy and I was discussing how I don’t like holding the door for people because of my want to not socially interact with them. (HARSH, yeah, I know. I hold the door for people most of the time, but sometimes I don’t wanna😂) Sometimes I don’t want to interact with people, and at the time I worked 16-hour day’s along with constant interactions with people daily. (Your girl needed a break.) “I don’t want to hold the door for people, because that leads to that awkward unless small talk and perhaps more.” My therapist looked at me and said, “Then stop holding the door.” It was that simple? Just stop holding the door? Really? I sat in silence allowing realization to wash over me and I realized that metaphorically I had been holding the door open and hating it for so long. I had been sacrificing my wants and desires to do the right thing for society, friends, family, jobs, etc. and I had no clue who I was any more than the accumulation of “doing the right thing for everyone else but myself.”

So, began my journey of figuring out who I am, what myself worth is and my wants and desires. It feels so awkward to not “hold doors” because I feel the need to want to “be nice” but being nice is overrated at times, and when I think of describing a person as “being nice” it’s very bland and show’s that you don’t really know the person enough. Why not just say that? Say that you don’t know the person enough to describe them, or that from what little you know of them they seem alright. Your truth is yours, and it may not be pretty, or smell good but it’s yours, OWN IT!

I’m grateful for Being able to begin to find my self-worth.

Givers need to set limits because takers rarely do. -Unknown