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People Pleasing Complex

aurelis

I mentioned this to my therapist last week about my complex. The complex is that when I feel as if I have disappointed someone, I retain it in my mind to try and find a way to synthesise that disappointment so that I feel as if I have made up for it. This can be for literally anything, and the fact not everything solves neatly in life is a distress for me. Even if it is merely a missed opportunity (i.e. someone likes me and I miss the signals ), I feel the need to mentally keep it on my mind so I can try to rectify it. This can be as small as rearranging the time to meet, to feeling the need to throw myself into something uncomfortable or make something extravagant in order to meet the need. I feel bad that I have 'failed' that need, and I feel the necessity keep that stuck in my mind to 'drive' me in order to satisfy that need at once. May lead to saying yes moe willingly too. It feeds a lot into my negative thinking. This mindset, once I had finally spoken it, felt like I had finally said it properly for the first time with a therapist. I'm pretty sure that this complex drives a lot of the reason why I make decisions.

It's a progress, and I am not sure where to go from there, but I really hope someone can relate to me on this! I don't know if it has anything to do with autism too...

  • in reply to aurelis
    aurelis said:
    do you find the “justice and fairness” thing affects other parts of your life?

    Very much so. I think the shrinks would call it "rigid thinking", but I prefer to call it "being honest". I don't just mean in what I say, but also in what I do and how I consider demands from other people. If it's fair, even if it's not to my advantage, then fair enough. However, if it's not fair, then my brain digs in its little heels and I'll get labelled "argumentative" or "awkward". I'm just sticking up for what's right.

    There was a study done that found that Autistic people were less likely than non-Autistic people to perform a dishonest action when they knew they weren't going to be caught. The conclusion was that Autistic people have social deficits, being less able to take advantage of others. WTF?!

  • I was as well. Eventually, burnout taught me to be succinct, and communicate less since that is too exhausting for me.

    Not always easy, though.

    For example, unexpected events are puzzling and sometimes turn me into a people pleaser.

    I believe having low self-esteem contributes as well.

    Maybe some of us would better fit a world at 0.25 X

  • I'm the same... A small way that it's happened for me recently is that one of my classmates (who is usually man bit had been nice to me lately) stood up for me when someone was sitting in the spot I like to sit in and I felt that just saying "thank you" wasn't enough since internally I was panicking when I saw someone in my spot and she unintentionally even l saved me from a panic attack. I ended up panicking for, like, a week over it because I didn't have any lollies (she LOVES the Asian lollies I always carry with me but ran out the day before this happened) and wanted to give her a few as thanks... I ended up restocking my 'stash' of lollies a week and a half later and have her some as planned and only then did I stop feeling bad... 

    Sorry about the whole rant there. With things like this, I struggle to get my point across in under 20 words Sweat smileSweat smile

  • in reply to Damojo

    That’s true, do you find the “justice and fairness” thing affects other parts of your life?

  • It might be a "justice and fairness" thing. I get all concerned that I'm a bad person if I'm out for drinks (once or twice a year) and calculate that I may have consumed more drinks than I purchased (i.e., I may not have got my full round in at some point). It'll haunt me.