I was a people pleaser and I didn’t even know it for a long time. I feel like most people pleasers don’t realize that their actions and inactions sometimes stem from deeply reinforced core beliefs, such as “No one likes you” or “You’re not enough”. I even threw in “You’re too much” just to add a little bit more stress and to make sure when I started processing through these core beliefs I was thoroughly confused. 

How could I be too much and not enough at the same time? Core beliefs don’t have to be rational, and often times they are over-generalized statements that only focus on reinforcements and negate the positive. These thinking errors as they are often called are more common than you might think, but not all of them become core beliefs. That may stem from reinforcements at a young age and repeated reinforcements throughout life. 

Partway through my healing journey, my therapist gave me a list of core beliefs and asked me to identify the ones I believed were true to myself. The next step was to see if and how they had been reinforced and oh boy, was that a trip. I started thinking about the messages I had received throughout my life. I had many times felt like a forgotten child, un-special and in the shadow of a higher achieving sibling and step siblings. This reinforced my core belief that I wasn’t enough. 

On the other side of that, I had had an ex-partner who told me I that I should “sit with the other wives and let the men talk” because I was “embarrassing him” when I would speak on subjects I was knowledgeable about. He had also told me that I was too emotional, then too distant, then too loud, then too quiet. I had mid-level managers who viewed my curiosity and work ethic as threats rather than assets and told me I needed to know my place. This reinforced my core belief that I was too much. I was too much of everything and I was making those around me miserable, but when I tried to make myself smaller, I was miserable.

As a child, teen and now as an adult, I have always struggled to make friends. I remember when someone who I considered to be my best friend was going all out for his birthday as a day long event of golfing and drinking and eating and bar hopping. I offered to be the designated driver and everyone had agreed that it was a great idea so that they could all have fun without worrying. The day of the event I texted my friend in the morning and asked him to let me know what the plan was/when/where I was picking people up. I heard nothing for hours and was aimlessly watching stories on Snapchat when a friend’s story came up of all of them driving around on golf carts and bar hopping. You can imagine how much this reinforced my core belief that no one liked me, considering I still remember how I felt and this happened five or six years ago.

All of this to say, I tried everything I could to please people. As a child, I would give away possessions if it meant someone would let me play with them on the playground. As a teenager I threw myself into extracurriculars, college classes, a full-time job, and maintained straight A’s to make my father happy and give him something to be proud of because being myself wasn’t enough. As a young woman, it took me a long time to realize that when men were nice to me at the club, it wasn’t because they LIKED me. Or were pleased with me. I would wear tons of makeup and uncomfortable clothing because the attention gave me the illusion just for a few hours that people liked me.

As an adult, I listened to the naysayers on who/what I should be. I remember when I first wanted to get into a helping field and I applied to a substance use rehabilitation center and no one around me thought I should do it. “It’s going to be too hard” and “It’s not going to be worth the pay” were frequently thrown around, but the one I listened to most was “You’re going to hate it”. So I declined the job, and worked as a front desk receptionist instead. 

I made myself ever-available to toxic people. Friends, family, and coworkers knew they could call me and I would answer, drop everything to help them even when I was going through hardships. I had to answer and help someone through their mental breakdown of yet another breakup, help talk someone down from a ledge when they were drunk at 10am and their life was falling apart, help talk someone through family problems and fights. All this gave me the feeling that I was a good friend/person, which meant I was good enough/not too much/and these people liked me.

When I went through my terrifying and luckily very brief bout with cancer, two things became alarmingly apparent to me. First, that the people I was dropping everything for were either no longer around or still only wanted to talk about themselves. For someone whose phone had been consistently ringing when others needed support, these people weren’t supportive for me during what was arguably the hardest time in my life. And it made me realize the pattern that none of them would ever reach out to me to just see how I was doing. The only times I talked to these people was when they were in crisis or when I reached out first to check on them. It wasn’t like I sent out a public service announcement; I tried to keep my cancer private until I was sure there was a solution (I didn’t want to be too needy, once again a callback to my core beliefs). But if they had reached out to me on a Tuesday morning just to see how I was doing, I would have told them. But they didn’t. 

Second, I realized that by listening to naysayers and trying to please others with my actions, I had missed out on things that I really did want to do. I really did want to help others, and since substance use was very prevalent in my family and circle, I really did want to get into that field. But I hadn’t, because the collective *they* didn’t want me to. If my life was now going to be reduced to one to five years, what had I missed out on or given up in the pursuit of making these people like me?

As soon as I was coming up on my first year anniversary of being cancer-free, I applied to a substance use rehabilitation center. I crushed the interview and accepted the job and told everyone afterwards so that they would just have to deal with it. I took a class in college alongside federal inmates discussing restorative justice, and didn’t tell anyone until after I had enrolled. My father made me make him one promise, that I wouldn’t use my degree in criminology and criminal justice and become a corrections officer. So I became a corrections counselor instead and told him after I had already accepted the job. 

I moved to a different state, and told only a few people who needed to know beforehand. Once my belongings and my feet were on the soil in my new state, I did share the information publicly on social media. I stopped telling people what I was doing before I did it so I wouldn’t be deterred into giving up my dreams in order to fit other peoples’ agendas. Because this is my one and only life, and even though I am still cancer-free, who knows how brief my life could end up being? I started doing things because I wanted to do them and it no longer mattered what others wanted. 

Three main things happened as a result of this self-serving and necessary endeavor, and if you choose to undertake it as well, I wouldn’t be surprised if similar things began happening for you as well.

1. People still don’t check on me. Throughout this entire process, if anyone had called and asked me how I was doing, I would have told them what I was doing. This wasn’t some carefully guarded secret or covert operation. We live in a time where social media has made people believe that they know exactly what is going on with other people without having to have any type of human interaction. So, while they didn’t and still don’t check on me, they see things I choose to share publicly after I have already done it and instead, call each other and my father to say “What is she doing?” And “What is she thinking?”
2. My circle got significantly smaller. Obviously, there are people in my life who do like me and have gotten on board with what I am doing. But my phone rarely rings or buzzes with people reaching out to find out what my next adventure is or how I am doing. And since I stopped reaching out first or being the only one reaching out in my friendships, those relationships are now non-existent to the point that even family members who have known me my entire life have forgotten when my birthday is. But even though my so-called social circle has less people in it, the quality of the circle has remained the same or in some cases gotten better.
3. I am happier. It sounds cliche, I know. But I am truly so much happier in my pursuit of things and my quality of life has improved a lot. And those around me have noticed a change as well. I feel light years ahead of where I was and where I would be if I were still placing my own needs and ambitions aside in order to make others feel valued and comforted.

At the end of the day, I had to learn to start feeding life into the things that challenged my core beliefs rather than focusing on what reinforced them. It has been slow, tedious and sometimes painful work. But sometimes it’s an electric epiphany when it hits me: I am the captain of this ship and just as others would not want me at their helm, I do not want others at mine. I also had to realize that whether people liked me or disliked me, or whether they were pleased or not, my sun does not rise or set with others. It rises and sets with me.