People Pleaser Syndrome

Recovery from abuse- 3 basic stages & how to identify whether you have reached the acceptance stage of recovery

Happy Monday fellow bloggers. This is quite a late post, so I hope it reaches some of you.

I have just done another video on YouTube, where I talk about the 3 main stages of recovery that someone goes through, in particular concerning the recovery from childhood narcissistic abuse. I also talk a little bit about the acceptance stage of recovery, which I personally found the toughest in my own recovery.

Acceptance that you parents weren’t able to love you unconditionally, is a painful, rejecting reality. It is easier to spend most of your adult life being in denial of this, as it is such an incomprehensible reality to accept.

Once you are able to reach this stage of acceptance however, you feel like a huge burden has been lifted off you.

I wish all of you who struggle with this sort of realisation, to be able to finally reach this stage one day.

Love Athina ♥

Setting boundaries with toxic people

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Love Athina ♥

5 tips on healing codependency & dysfunctional relationships

This video is the 2nd one of my codependent series on my Youtube channel.

It is mostly informational in text, with the help of a few cute characters! Just the way I like it! ♥

Feel free to re-blog or share 🙂

I love cute things and music…so here you go ♥

Love Athina ♥

Codependents & Narcissists in a relationship. Why are they so attracted to each other?

Happy Monday to all of you! It’s the 1st of August today and time seems to have flown by so quickly!

Today’s post is about another topic very close to my heart, due to my own healing journey from codependency to healthy love. It most definetely wasn’t easy to get to where I am. It required perseverance, determination and a little bit of hope.

To heal from dysfunctional relationships & codependency, there are 5 steps that are important to take.Having a therapist who specialises in healing from codepedency, is important in guiding you.

The first step is becoming AWARE that your choices or actions are dysfunctional.
The second step to changing dysfunction is understanding the source of the dysfunction, so where did it come from?
The 3rd step is grieving the loss of a healthy childhood. An abusive childhood usually leads to poor choices in relationships & life in general. Without a stable & nurturing childhood you never learn healthy love, healthy boundaries & your emotional regulation is damaged.
The 4th step is understanding the complexity of changing self-defeating behaviours & changing certain defense mechanisms, that protected you in your childhood but no longer serve you in adulthood. It takes time, patience and self-compassion.
The 5th step is actually trying out new relationships when you have made progress in your healing. You have to make a few more mistakes and discuss these with a therapist by your side, so you can see where you went wrong and how to improve this next time.

When I first found out I was codependent back in 2008, it was like the blindfold was taken off my eyes for the first time. Before learning this, I had a suspicion that something wasn’t right in my relationships but I had no idea how to change this.

I felt like I was in an emotional maze and had no idea which way to go. Everytime I thought I was making better choices in regards to who I was in a relationship with, the more unbearable the heartbreak became.I desperately wanted to be loved but wasn’t able to figure out this painful puzzle! At some point I was so exhausted from the traumatic end of each relationship & the subsequent self abandonment, that I decided to move countries! I wanted a new start…I hoped that I might meet my future husband if I moved away but I never in a million years thought I actually would..Sometimes you need a little bit of luck too!

When I moved back home to Greece after 11 years of living in the UK, I was met with more drama, a flare up of my CPTSD and a father who abandoned me over and over again. I was back in therapy again with a new therapist and was finally diagnosed with CPTSD. I was told both my parents were ’emotionally handicapped’ but that therapist never told me my parents were narcissistic. Maybe she decided at the time that it wasn’t relevant to me.

Despite this she looked after me very well. Each step I took into uncertainty, she held my hand.

I was also entered into a group psychotherapy group and it was extremely beneficial. I was in a group with 5 other people that also had similar backgrounds and it was very healing.

Support is crucial in healing. Without all this I would never have made progress.

The video above is a simple explanation (I hope) of the general dynamics of a codependent & narcissist in a relationship. Maybe you will see yourself in this and get curious. If you do, then please connect with me and I would be happy to have a chat with you.

Please feel free to re-blog this post so it reaches more people! Thank you 🙂

Much Love Athina ♥

Are you a chronic over-explainer?

Where does over-explaining stem from?

People naturally feel the need to make sure their point of view is clearly understood when in conversation with someone else. Nobody wants to be misunderstood when expressing an opinion or thought.

What happens however when someone feels the need to always over-explain something?

Is this something that stems from an underlying anxiety, that they will be misunderstood?

Yes

Is this also something that happens because in the past they might have been misunderstood quite a lot and for this reason they have to make sure it doesn’t happen again?

Absolutely..

Does over-explaining ever make you think, that the person doing the over-explaining, must think that the person they are over-explaining to must be stupid. Does this make sense?

I have been on both sides of this. I have over-explained to someone who got what I was saying from the first sentence and said I didn’t need to explain further. They said, I am not stupid, I get it. I have also been over-explained to and could immediately tell that the other person was anxious and insecure about something.

In my experience, many individuals who suffer from low self-esteem or people-pleasing, have an almost compulsive need to over-explain. This usually stems from childhood abuse, where either 1 or both parents were unable to meet the child’s needs and were unable to understand the child’s feelings. If parents don’t have empathy, are self-centered and dont have the ability to genuinely listen and understand, then a child will chronically feel frustrated, misunderstood and alone.

Have you ever tried to explain a simple concept such as sadness or feeling alone to a person who lacks empathy?

The reply is usually uncaring and hurtful.

Have you ever tried to reason with someone who has a low IQ and has intellectual disabilities?

They are not able to understand certain simple concepts because they just aren’t able to and if you insist on trying to make them understand, you can make yourself feel crazy with frustration.

When does over-explaining become chronic?

This usually happens when someone is unable to simply state something, that doesn’t need explaining, to someone who hasn’t even asked for an explanation. It becomes chronic when a person feels the need to explain in great detail and repeats themselves over and over again.It becomes chronic when it is a habitual thing that someone does all the time, even with people that are understanding and empathetic.

The particular thing I would like to highlight in this post, is that over-explaining becomes habitual for people who have suffered narcissistic abuse. If you are constantly around someone who makes you doubt yourself by gaslighting you, who doesn’t validate and understand your feelings and always tries to manipulate you, then it is only natural that you will be chronically frustrated when communicating..

I would love to hear your thoughts on this..

© All blog posts and images are owned by me and Courage Coaching. Please don’t use without consent and only re-blog if you would like to use the information on here.

Much Love Athina ♥

How to be assertive-Steps to healthy self-assertion

This post is the last one on assertion and hopefully the most useful to those of you who struggle with being a people-pleaser and/or are quite passive in your relationships with others.There is also a YouTube video attached for those of you who are auditory & visual learners.

Here is a quick guide on how to be assertive:

Firstly get the person’s full attention when you are trying to make an important point. This may seem like a given however it is important to ensure there are no distractions.
Describe in an objective way, what you are having difficulty with in regards to the other person’s behaviour. EXAMPLE: ” I said I wanted to speak to you and you have just turned on the tv”.
Express constructive feelings using ”I” statements. Don’t say ”You completely ignored me”.Instead, choose to say ” I feel upset that you are not listening to me”. It is ok to state feelings of disappointment & annoyance, as these are constructive feelings.
Check your statements & make sure the other person gives you a response. This will hopefully enable some sort of resolution later on. EXAMPLE: ”I feel that you are hiding something from me. What do you think about this”?
Listen to the other person’s response with an open mind and give feedback in a controlled manner. Avoid dismissing the reply as soon as it is given.
State your preferences clearly. EXAMPLE: ”I would like if you could always be honest with me”.
Request agreement from the other person.If they don’t agree or try to avoid the subject, clearly state ”Are you willing to make any changes?”
Communicate any relevant information concerning future occurences.State what you will do if the same problem re-occurs.

Blocks to healthy self-assertion

Being assertive can come very easily to many of us whilst some of us might have an extreme difficulty in this area, due to many of the following blocks as stated by Hauck (1981b):

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1.Fear of injury -Physical violence may be threatened or unleashed in order to keep you in line. This might be the case in an abusive relationship.

2. Fear of failure

3. Fear of hurting other people’s feelings-For example, if I tell him that ‘his gift wrapping is not very good, I might hurt his feelings’

4. Fear of rejection– For example: I couldn’t cope if they criticised me or abandoned me

5.Fear of financial insecurity- For example, you stay in a job you hate because you are worried about financial instability if you leave.

According to Trower et al (2011)there are these 2 blocks:

1.Guilt – You believe it is wrong to assert your own wishes because you believe this is selfish behaviour or you don’t feel worthy enough.

2.Damning anger– You end up blaming others for frustrating you by insulting or hurting them. For example, you might say ‘You are such a lazy and slow worker’ rather than saying ‘I would like to talk about how we could equally distribute the work load between yourself and Adam’

According to Gilbert (2000) there are these blocks to being assertive:

1.Loss of control– Assertion can involve high psychological arousal which might lead to shouting at your partner.

2.Fear of counter attack– After you have asserted your complaints, you fear being overwhelmed by the other person’s response. You fear blushing, you mind going blank or maybe even getting tongue tied. You fear looking worse off after asserting your wishes.

3.Self-blame– You might blame yourself for causing tension or conflict by asserting your needs.

4.Positive self– You view lack of assertiveness as having positive qualities of being kind and caring.

Assertiveness in general will help you get more of what you want and less of what you don’t want but there is the possiblity that it might not always work out in the way that you hope. If you have been someone who isn’t assertive and suddenly start asserting yourself with familiar people in your life, things may become increasingly uncomfortable with those people, as they aren’t used to you being assertive. People don’t like change!

Which of these blocks do you struggle with? If not, feel free to share your experience of being self-assertive.

Thanks for reading

Much love Athina ♥

Dealing with criticism

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When someone criticizes us, it tends to touch a nerve and can sometimes leave us feeling very vulnerable, very angry and sometimes both!

This may be because there is absolutely no truth in the criticism and we feel it is completely unfair or actually because there is some truth in the criticism and we are just not ready to deal with it.

Being criticized is also especially difficult when the person criticizing us is someone we hold in high regard. It could be our boss at work or a new partner.

The thing that most people don’t realise is that criticism on it’s own isn’t what makes us upset. The meaning we attach to criticism is what affects us. As I mentioned in one of my previous blog posts, being a people-pleaser means that we give others too much power over our emotions and how we feel about ourselves. If others’ approval is extremely important, then we give them consent to always make us feel bad about ourselves.

In order to stay away from seeking approval, we have to learn to practice self-acceptance and only rate our actions or traits but not ourselves. We are responsible for our reaction to someone’s criticism and it is up to us to change how we respond.

If we already have low self-esteem, then criticism will be especially hurtful and it could take us days to recover from it.

Are you someone who struggles from others’ criticism? Do you find that you always get overly upset when someone criticizes you or overly agree? Do you avoid contact with that person after the criticism occurs? I would love to hear your experiences.

If you are a childhood abuse survivor, I am especially interested in your experiences. When you have internalised your parents’ negative and unhealthy criticisms, this will then follow you around and will be brought to the surface everytime someone criticizes you. This is actually quite a painful, traumatic reaction because a present criticism can send you into an emotional flashback of your parents’ abuse. This is something I am particularly experienced in through my own recovery from abuse but also through talking to others who still struggle with this internal self-critic.

Love Athina ♥

Being assertive

For those of you who struggle with people pleaser syndrome, who are passive, depressed, are experiencing conflict with someone or are having anger issues, assertiveness training can be very beneficial.

When someone is unassertive, this involves violating their own rights by failing to express honest feelings, thoughts or beliefs.It also means that someone might try to express their thoughts and feelings but do it in a very apologetic, modest way and others just disregard them.

Unassertiveness has a lot to do with a lack of self-esteem or due to a threat to one’s self-esteem.

In order to understand what being assertive means, here is a list of some assertive rights. This list was compiled by Palmer & Dryden, (1995).

The right to say ‘no’
The right to consider my needs important
The right to make mistakes
The right to express my feelings in an appropriate manner without violating anybody else’s rights
The right to take responsibility for my actions
The right not to be understood
The right to respect myself
The right to be me
The right to be assertive without feeling guilty
The right to set my own priorities

Assertiveness training uses methods such as role-play, modelling and rehearsal before actually trying it out in real life situations.It is something that can be very helpful. Something that is important before the training is for the coach to make sure that the coachee doesn’t have any emotional blocks. If there are emotional blocks then these must be resolved first in coaching and then the coachee can move on to the training.

Love Athina ♥

Fear of negative emotions & being a People pleaser

If you are afraid of experiencing other peoples’ negative responses or emotions, then you will do everything you can to avoid this.This fear will make it hard for you to say NO to someone and you end up doing things you really don’t want to do.You feel compelled to always do as they say and become completely submissive to their needs. This is the core of being a people pleaser.

These fears usually stem from childhood abuse, where you had an overbearing, manipulative parent or parents. If your parents would punish you severely if you didn’t do what they wanted, then you will have been conditioned to be obedient at all times.

Some really important characteristics of being a people pleaser is when you have low self-esteem, are addicted to others’ approval and are always dependent on them for your self-worth and validation. This happens especially when you might have had a narcissistic/psychopathic parent that criticised you negatively all the time and made you feel excessively guilty and shameful when you didn’t do as they said. With extremely self-centered parents, everything is always about their needs and your needs take a back seat. Every time you want to take a step forward and be more independent in your thinking & behaviour, they will always find a way to pull you back and make you feel dependent on them and their way of thinking.(codependent).It is a very strong type of conditioning that happens in abusive homes and as a young child you aren’t able to escape this environment.

Something that is very common when you are people pleaser is always rationalising peoples’ abusive behaviour to the point of always forgiving it. You always make excuses for others’ bad behaviour and say things like ‘Yes my father beat me but at least he provided a roof over my head’ or ‘I know my mother is very manipulative but deep down she has a good heart’.This has a lot to do with ‘toxic bonding’ or stockholm syndrome’, where you are extremely attached to your abuser in a very emotionally damaging way. You aren’t able to accept the reality of how bad something actually is, because it is extremely painful.

Another couple of traits that make someone a people pleaser and also make them more susceptible to emotional abuse is the fact that they may be emotionally immature and have very weak boundaries. They don’t know what is theirs and what is others’. If they grew up in a home with a parent that would constantly go through their things as a teenager, always invade their space whilst at the same time parentifying them and giving them things to do that weren’t their responsibiliy, this has a detrimental effect on how they view others and how they view themselves. They grow up thinking that it is ok for someone to use them, to take advantage of their lack of assertiveness and self-respect.

A very important part of dealing with manipulative or pushy people is developing self- assertiveness. This is something very useful for people that are constantly submissive to others in an unhealthy way. Assertiveness can be taught and this is something I offer in Coaching.

If you think you might need assertiveness training, then please let me know.

Best Wishes

Athina