![]() This also means that “fawn” types often go through cycles of restricting emotionally (I can’t be “too much” for others) and then purging emotionally (“unloading” onto a trusted person) because the expectation to be perfect and to repress gets to be too much. This means people-pleasers can be drawn to relationships that are controlling (they feel safest when they defer to others), emotionally-withholding (they are driven by the need to “secure” affection, and feel elated when they do), and even abusive (their lack of boundaries is exploited).Īnother part of being vulnerable to abuse is that people-pleasers are so easily gaslit, because when they are inclined to suppress their own instincts, values, and beliefs, they’re infinitely more likely to defer to an abuser’s version of events or narrative. In other words? If love is given too freely or easily, it doesn’t feel safe. We’ve internalized the idea that love has to feel “earned” in order to feel secure. That’s why people-pleasers can become drawn to abusive relationships, and repelled from relationships that are abundantly loving. When you are excessively concerned with pleasing others, you learn that in order to be effective at this, you have to shut down your gut instincts, your values, your emotions - because being an individual, rather than a mirror, doesn’t serve you in securing the love that you want. This vulnerability to abuse is often a continuation of the familiar, chaotic dynamic from earlier in life. When you have this tendency to defer, make yourself subordinate, try to become smaller, ignore your boundaries and intuition, and minimize your own needs… you are profoundly vulnerable to emotional abuse. ![]() They often grow up in very controlling and chaotic environments, and internalized the idea that if they were perfectly good or well-behaved, they could minimize conflict and secure love and attachment. This tendency usually stems from childhood. They tend to overextend themselves and say “yes” to everything and everyone, eager to make those they care about happy and comfortable. People-pleasers are often really warm, encouraging, and generous people. We try to embody whatever articulation of ourselves feels the least threatening to the person that we’re trying to be close to. You could say that people-pleasers are sort of ’emotional chameleons,’ trying to blend in in order to feel safe. This could come across as being excessively nice and complimentary, overly-concerned with another person’s happiness, and waiting for cues in conversation to determine if something was “safe” to share or disclose. ![]() To avoid conflict, negative emotions, and re-traumatization, people who “fawn” when triggered will go out of their way to mirror someone’s opinions and appease them in order to deescalate situations or potential issues.įor me, this meant that the more invested I was in an emotional connection, the less likely I was to criticize that person, vocalize when my boundaries were crossed, express unhappiness with their behavior, or share anything that I felt might damage that relationship. Most people know about fight, flight, and freeze - but another trauma response, “fawn,” is at the core of what people-pleasing is actually about. And for people-pleasers, the ways in which we do that “curating” piece often stems from a place of fear. Clearly I don’t care what people think… right?īut in the last year, I’ve come to understand that people-pleasing is a lot more complex than that. Because I’m opinionated! And I speak my mind! I’m an “open book” about a lot of what I’ve been through. It took me a long time to realize this, though. Let’s talk about the link between people-pleasers and emotional abuse. ![]() I’m going to share both the original thread, as well as building on it. So many of you could relate to this phenomenon known as “fawning,” and it became immediately clear that we needed this resource to exist outside of Twitter. Yet that’s exactly what happened.Īs I shared my experiences with trauma and people-pleasing, I was hit with an avalanche of emotion. When I recently wrote a Twitter thread about my people-pleasing tendencies, I didn’t at all expect for it to go viral.
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