People Pleasers spend so much time and effort in taking care of others. Unfortunately, they often do not establish good social support for themselves. They also find it hard to give up control and let other people take care of them. While taking care of others in noble and rewarding, it can also be toxic and unhealthy.
The people pleaser personality type is desperate to feel important and needed. Their lack of self worth, confidence and self-belief, makes it almost impossible for them to set and maintain healthy boundaries with others.
Being a people-pleaser is a double-edged sword—there's guilt if you say no, resentment if you say yes. But according to Sasha Heinz, PhD, a developmental psychologist and life coach, there's another price to people-pleasing: It's a form of manipulation. This doesn't mean we shouldn't be nice and helpful and friendly.
Summary. Two pleasers can make a good couple—but only if they strike the right balance between being agreeable and assertive. If either person starts neglecting their own needs or feelings in order to keep the peace, that's when problems can start to arise.
Causes of people-pleasing
Low self-esteem: People who feel they are worth less than others may feel their needs are unimportant. They may advocate for themselves less or have less awareness of what they want. They may also feel that they have no purpose if they cannot help others.
Fawning or people-pleasing can often be traced back to an event or series of events that caused a person to experience PTSD, more specifically Complex PTSD, or C-PTSD.
People pleasing isn't a mental illness, but it can be an issue that adversely affects how many people, with or without mental illness, relate to others. Most of all, people pleasers try to nourish other people without adequately nourishing themselves.
While people pleasing or “being too nice” could be seen as a sign of someone who is a really good person and cares for others, their ability to bend backwards for other people, not say no and struggle to have boundaries with others can actually be a big red flag and cause issues in a relationship in the long term if ...
However, excessive people pleasing has the potential for numerous negative consequences. They may experience fear of rejection and disappointing others, have low self-esteem, difficulty making independent decisions, and difficulty setting healthy boundaries.
A fourth, less discussed, response to trauma is called fawning, or people-pleasing. The fawn response is a coping mechanism in which individuals develop people-pleasing behaviors to avoid conflict, pacify their abusers, and create a sense of safety.
It is not. The neglect of others (narcissism) is selfish and causes unnecessary distance, confrontation and lack of intimacy. The neglect of self (people pleasing) creates unwanted exhaustion, increased anxiety and also contributes to a lack of intimacy.
Just start putting up boundaries that will allow you to first take care of your needs before turning focus to others. This isn't a selfish view point. Actually, being a people-pleaser is selfish because you're doing what's easiest and cheating people from receiving your valuable, true thoughts and reactions.
A major people-pleaser may dodge your concerns, fabricate, and even gaslight you.
A people pleaser is typically someone everyone considers helpful and kind. When you need help with a project or someone to help you study for an exam, they're more than willing to step up. If you recognize yourself in the above description, you may be a people pleaser.
People-pleasers often have low self esteem because they may ignore their own needs to help others. According to Black and Pearlman (1997), this can result in anxiety, frustration and depression. To build self esteem, people-pleasers need to restore the balance between self care and helping others.
Being a People Pleaser is a Strength, Not a Weakness.
People-pleasers are often unhappy and stressed. They never seem to know when to stop being so accommodating. It can be hard to break the cycle of pleasing others, but it's important if you want to be happy and healthy.
People-pleasers are often extremely empathic and attuned to others' needs. A people-pleaser therefore tends to pursue intimate, affectionate, and confiding relationships. These people have a strong desire for external validation and avoid, or are sensitive to, situations where conflict may arise.
People-pleasers tend to be good at tuning in to what others are feeling. They are also generally empathetic, thoughtful, and caring. These positive qualities may also come with a poor self-image, need to take control, or tendency to overachieve.
The tendency to please is related to Dependent Personality Disorder. While the people-pleaser may not need others to do things for them, they do have a need for others, regardless. The pleasing personality is also related to the Masochistic Personality type, which also corresponds with Dependent Personality.
People pleasers step into a codependent role by becoming obsessed with the needs of the other person to the detriment of their own needs. At an extreme, they rely on their partner for feedback about their worth, as they have not been able to develop a sense of their own identity as a person.
Experts say that can cause anger and resentment, leading to outbursts or passive-aggressive behaviors. “You always know you're a people-pleaser when you say those magic words: 'After everything I've done for you,' ” Lue said.
Putting it bluntly we could say that the people pleaser is a liar. It sounds brutal, but the people-pleaser is lying for poignant reasons: not in order to gain advantage, but because they are terrified of the displeasure of others.
People-pleasers are often taken advantage of as a result of their “other-focused” mindset. If you're constantly worried about the comfort, welfare, and success of others, then you begin to neglect your own. There's also a sense of desperation in this, or a least what others assume to be desperation.
That's not to say that all guilt is unnecessary, but guilt that comes from people pleasing often is. This is because people pleasers live according to another's perceived expectations rather than their own values.