Hi Seaturtle!

Happy 25th Birthday! How was your party?

As you guessed, people pleasing has it’s roots in trauma. So basically, when there is a child there is something called magical thinking. Our brains automatically seek patterns.

Your father conditioned you to cater to his needs with verbal abuse. Perhaps your “reward” sometimes was not being verbally abused? Not being praised, just not being attacked verbally. Some “reward”, huh?

Back to the magical thinking and patterns. So you picked up this idea as a child that if you did everything perfectly then MAYBE there would be peace for you. We all seek control in the chaos in abusive situations as children. The alternative that it is just chaos is too frightening.

But children don’t do everything perfectly do they? Heck, even adults don’t. So no matter how hard you tried, it was never enough because he was always looking for mistakes as an excuse to unleash his abuse upon you.

The secret is that there was no actual rhyme nor reason to his behaviour. If he was in a bad mood he would find a reason to abuse you. This is the truth.

So you’re in this abusive situation with a father with unstable emotions being told to manage his emotions for him. Such a large responsibility for a child and frightening to be at his whims.

Recognizing that it is not your responsibility to manage someone’s emotions and it is not your fault if they snap at you (unless you did something seriously wrong) is how to get past people pleasing. Getting used to setting boundaries with unhealthy people is helpful too. It is stressful at first, but you get used to it with practice.

I think it’s helpful to view people as equals. Your emotions matter as much as theirs do. But you still have the responsibility to take care of yourself and they have the responsibility to take care of themselves. If that makes sense?

I don’t think it’s selfish, it’s just not your responsibility unless they are a child as children often need help with regulating their emotions because they are still learning. But even then, it is important for them to learn developmentally appropriate self-soothing techniques. My son is currently learning to fall asleep without being held or fed. Next, he will learn to fall asleep by himself.

Love and best wishes! ❤️🙏