Is People Pleasing a Trauma Response?

You say yes to every request from your friends and find yourself feeling overtaxed and frustrated leaving you to wonder, “Is People Pleasing a Trauma Response?”  You agree to attend a movie that you know isn’t your style because you don’t want to upset your friend.  You say you don’t care what restaurant you eat it even though you absolutely hate half of the options on the table.  You accept the worst assignments from the PTA because you want the group to accept you, even though you don’t have the time or energy to make 100 gift bags this week.  

You wonder, why am I so worried about what others thing?

If your people pleasing tendencies has ever left you irritable, frustrated or confused, you’ve probably tried to figure out why you worry so much about making others happy.  Fight, Flight, and Freeze are the three well known trauma responses.  Pete Walker, author of Complex PTSD: From Thriving to Surviving, discusses a fourth threat response called Fawning.  You seek acceptance in relationships by merging with the desires and opinions of others.  At some point in your past, this was an adaptive response to stress or threats.  Now, in adulthood, it no longer helps you, but it’s your natural inclination to adapt and please others.  

Adults in my life never threatened or harmed me…

For many “people pleasers,” there aren’t memories of clear abuse or threat from adult caretakers.  You may wonder why you people please if your parents provided you a very nice childhood.  The answer to this question lies in the details of your past.  For one client, therapy helped him discover that witnessing his parents heated verbal conflicts led him to take on the “good boy” role in the family.  If he was very well behaved and did whatever his parents asked, he might be able to prevent a conflict that was terrifying to a little boy.  For another client, she discovered that her mother frequently criticized her.  She was often told how she said the wrong things, wore the wrong things, or embarrassed her mother.  She learned early on to try to be as much like her mother as possible, down to wanting the same things and feeling the same feelings.  The key to love in this parent-child relationship was pleasing her mother.  

What are some signs of people pleasing as a trauma response?

You may be a people pleaser because of trauma if you avoid conflict and work very hard to make others comfortable.  You may feel guilty when others or angry or you may spend a lot of time worrying about how other people might feel.  You might say you have no opinion or go along with others even when this isn’t true.  You might offer to do things for others and then feel resentful when they don’t show gratitude or a deeper connection with you.  Many people pleasers feel very misunderstood or unseen by their loved ones.  They may hold in their feelings to make others comfortable, only to explode in the future.  Others may find themselves sharing their past and inner world with strangers rather than loved ones for fear of upsetting their loved ones.  

Is it really bad to want others to be comfortable?  

It’s never bad to have empathy for others or to care about their feelings.  But if your worries about others’ feelings prevent you from being bale to express your own, you may find yourself in co-dependent relationships that are unsatisfying and even painful.  If you can’t share your feelings with a friend or loved one, but you absorb all of their feelings, your relationship becomes a one-way street.  You may feel alone, misunderstood, and even angry.  

I can’t undo my past.  What can I do?

If you find yourself working too hard to please others, worried too much about the feelings of others, or avoiding expressing your own feelings, you might wonder how you can possibly change this.  You certainly don’t have a time machine to go back and fix your past experiences.  Therapy can help you gain insights into your present relationships and ways your past adaptations are no longer working for you.  If “Fawning” feels familiar and you want to find out how therapy may help, please reach out today to discuss how you can overcome the pain of your past.  

Call us today for a free 15 minute phone consultation. To learn more about EMDR Therapy for Anxiety and Trauma and how Skylands Wellness can help, click here.