A huge part of healing for me has been learning to stop letting other people’s opinions of me drive how I feel about myself. I spent most of my life trying unsuccessfully to please those around me. In my opinion, dissociative identity disorder (DID) is the most extreme form of the “people pleaser” because you actually “split” yourself and create alter parts to please the different people in your life.
I had a huge epiphany during the Beth Moore study I attended over the summer about stopping trying to please everyone else. Most people have an agenda, whether well-meaning or otherwise, and they are going to express their approval or disapproval depending upon how my actions align with their agendas. Even friends who I know have my best interest at heart will sometimes have very strong opinions about my choices that conflict with the direction I want or need to take. At the end of the day, I am the one who must live in my own skin, so my choices need to work for me. How anyone else feels about those choices is irrelevant as long as what I am doing brings them no harm.
When I am having an off day, I can still be vulnerable to the opinions of others. The problem is that nobody’s opinion seem to match up. Some people think I am not really working unless I have a full-time job. Other people think that I am not a good enough mother because I work part-time time. Because I don’t have a full-time job, I should keep an immaculate house. Because I work part-time, I am not giving enough to my child. I travel too much. I don’t travel enough. I am too active in volunteer activities. I am not active enough.
Even the fact that I blog raises opposing opinions. I must not work hard because I have time to blog. If I have time to blog, then I should have a FaceBook page. (I appear to be one of the last holdouts in creating a FaceBook page!) I should write more because I am talented. I shouldn’t waste so much time writing because it doesn’t pay enough.
All of these opinions overlook one crucial element – ME!! I don’t blog because I am bored or need money. (I actually donate all proceeds from this blog to Isurvive, and I make very little revenue off my professional blog.) I blog because I feel called to do so. I feel passionate about taking the lemons that life threw my way (the child abuse), making lemonade (healing), and sharing that lemonade with as many child abuse survivors as possible. I write my professional blog because I want to offer insights into the mind of the abused child to those who are parenting traumatized children out of foster care. None of anyone else’s opinions on my reasons for blogging matter because they are completely off base.
I just chose blogging as one example, but pretty much every area of my life will bring about differing opinions based upon who I ask (so I no longer ask!). The bottom line is that **I** am the one who must live with whatever choices that I make. Therefore, the only opinion that matters is my own.
Photo credit: Hekatekris
I am with you on the people pleaser thing being the reason to split ans not to escape the trauma or that it was to overwhelming. I did not escape the trauma and I handled it very well.
“Every one wants me to be just like them. They say sing while you slave and I just get bored. I an’t gonna work on Maggies farm no more.” Dylan
Dylan is so multiple. I would not be shocked if all references to the farm in Dylan’s lyrics are not a reference to a MKULTA camp.
I am saying “I don’t want to” or “I want to” as an answer to just about my reason for everything.
You know what is wonderful in my life. My children want me to be like me and do what I need. How wonderful is that? Might just be because I want the same thing for them.
That is the TRUTH!
BTW the photo really cuts to the core. kudos to the photographer.
Peace,
mia
Thats good and very helpful. I am struggling with a decision just this morning and those thoughts are helpful. One thing I have found is, even though I “know” that eveyones opinions do not matter because they are so conflicting anyways, and I am never going to please everybody, it is a real fight to live by that knowledge.
This blog entry is very helpful from a variety of perspectives. Although I know in my head that other people’s opinions don’t matter, and that so often they are conflicting or irrelevant, there are times in my life (like now), when it would feel good to have support. That is when it gets really lonely to not have people who “get it.” It is not only about what I am doing (present tense), but what I have done (past tense) even though I know my choices were based on really good caring loving things. What I get is people trying to get in my head and analyze everything. They say things like “you did this because…”, “or you really meant this….” I am very introspective anyway, and I am willing to listen to comments made with good intentions, but when it just doesn’t fit, it doesn’t fit, and what ends up happening it is just another case of invalidation. Invalidation of my thoughts, my intentions, my motivations, and on and on. -And I know from long hard experience that invalidation – especially of one’s basic needs and one’s essence is what leads to these deep injuries that we spend so much time trying to recovery from. Of course then there are people who when you tell them that what they are saying is not accurate, then they say you are in “denial.”
As I have shared before, I am a mental health therapist, and also a PTSD survivor. The one thing I always tell clients as I work with them is that they are always the best expert about themselves. I tell them not to let anyone take their power away from them- especially me. But when I am in pain and seek consultation and support from peers, I get attempted analysis of what they think I am really about. Often they are trying to be really helpful, sometimes not so much so- but I have come to experience this type of analysis as a very violent process- it is like dissecting something. I find myself withdrawing from these people, and instead turning to people who can just hear my heart rather than trying to dissect my head. It’s really important to understand that even with well meaning people, if they insist on trying to force something on you that you know in your gut is not yours that it is essentially an act of violence. It is like another level of rape. And I am not saying that these are bad people- often quite the contrary, but if you have lived a life of violation and invalidation already, you are going to be accutely sensitive to that which feels like further violence. If you don’t shut it out, or clearly self-define around these issues you are just going to end up feeling violated again. I know the topic of this blog entry was that other people’s “opinions” don’t matter- but I would also reframe that, that other people’s attempts to define you or who you are becoming is a type of assault. Other people may not mean it as that, but if it feels assaultive to you then it is. I just know that our choices add up to making us who we are, and everyone has the right to make their own choices.
Wow. I am SO with you on this… I have experienced so much of this that I have very few friends left, but the ones I do are true friends.
I have never heard anyone else give voice to this and so well. I’ve tried to tell this same thing to my husband, but fumbled about trying to find words.
Thanks for this comment. It’s really helpful and I can now just let my husband read it!
Peace to you Elizabeth,
mia
@ Elaine- Love that insight. SO TRUE!
THIS IS WONDERFUL! And right where I am right now…Thank you.
Perhaps being callously dismissed so many times about many things that are really important leads to making sure not to callously dismiss.
Way to go! I am so glad that I read this today. Most of the time, I do fairly well. But, boy, when I am struggling or feeling particularly vulnerable for some reason, I can find myself so easily starting to slip right back into trying to be the chameleon. Thankfully, I don’t get very far before I realize what I am doing. Phew! I am done with that kind of life. No more! If someone does not like who I am, what I am, or what I do…well, too bad! No one is under any obligation to like me. Although my siblings in Yeshua are commanded to love me!
It was really good to read this timely reminder! Thank you!
Just want to add that it’s not just other people’s opinions that can affect me — it’s often what I *think or percieve* their opinions to be, even if they haven’t said anything. I can be having a normal day, then have one uncertain interaction with someone, percieve that person’s reaction as negative, and my whole day can be ruined; often, it’s only that my past has interfered with my ability to interpret others’ behaviors.