Do you always feel a need to defend yourself against a friend or family?
Do you feel a constant need to explain as to why you can’t make plans one evening?
Do you find yourself trying to ‘rephrase’ a text or word to avoid an unpleasant situation?
Do you set aside all your personal work when someone suddenly appears asking for help?
Take a moment and think of a friend or acquaintance who you know as probably the nicest person around. He / She is ever ready to lend a hand or extend help and you can count on him / her whenever the need arises.
This person is also the one who will gladly abandon what he/she is doing to cater to your needs. Does this behaviour sound disturbingly familiar to you as a person? Do you do this yourself?
Are you also someone who finds it exhausting, stressful after such events?
If you have answered ‘yes’ to most of the questions above, then you surely are a ‘people pleaser’.
These people-pleasing habits are toxic to you, and often stem from a need to make others happy. But sometimes, there isn’t any deeper origin to these patterns beyond simply being a gentle person. If you naturally tend to be agreeable and friendly, toxic people will sense this and latch on to you.
They quickly discover how to manipulate you with guilt-tripping, passive aggression, and martyrdom. This snowballs, as more and more of these people find you. You become stuck in their cycles of insecurity, which is often the reason you’re already desensitized to the narcissists abuse.
Your tendency to keep others interests above your own and to be accommodative may be the reason you get rolled over. Your deep desire to be liked by people and to be perceived as nice comes in the way of escaping the narcissists abusers web.
I am not suggesting that you should be nasty with people and not care, but if it is happening often and you are left with a bad taste, it’s time to take charge. It’s time to be assertive before it takes a toll on your mental health and relationships.
I am reminded of a quote from Mahatma Gandhi and I quote;
A ‘NO’ uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a ‘YES’ merely uttered to please, or worse to avoid trouble.”
Mahatma Gandhi
Beware! if you are a people pleaser, you are the potential target for toxic people to take advantage of. The narcissist has the uncanny knack of identifying these tendencies and manipulate to ‘lord over you’
Agree?
