u/ComplaintExtra5955

Hey, chronic people pleaser here. Whenever I notice that someone doesn't really like me or is annoyed by me, I see it as a challenge. I chase after proving them wrong and showing them I am actually as likeable as I think I am.

As you can tell, it is very harmful behaviour and causes me to disrespect myself constantly. I have a fragile ego and deep down, I don't really think I am that likeable. I think that I am pretty annoying and socially unaware. My ADHD causes some social friction for me, so I get insecure about it.

Any advice?

I (20F) am a pre-med major at the university. I am a junior trying my best to get A's in these challenging science classes. My goal is to try to get into med school and eventually become a surgeon. The truth is, I have no clue what a doctor, let alone a surgeon, does day-to-day, or whether I even want to do that. I like science, helping people, and art, and I found that surgery (especially plastic) combines all of that. But people always say to me (even doctors), "Don't become a doctor; it's long hours, exhausting, puts you in a ton of debt, etc." and it is kind of scaring me off from becoming one.

I feel that I need to shadow doctors, but I have no clue if it will change my view of becoming a doctor. My grades slip because I don't have much true fire or passion to become a doctor. I know there are other things to do, such as doing PT or nursing, but I much rather be a doctor at that point. I feel like if I knew exactly what I truly wanted to do in life, I would fight for it, but sadly, I have no clue. I feel like I am wandering aimlessly in a race and not actually running.

Honestly, I love anything that allows me to have a creative input. Especially filmmaking or writing. I sometimes dream of being a filmmaker, but I know nothing about it or whether it's worth giving up this doctor dream. I have not displayed this passion before, but I feel that I would be happy doing it.

However, my motivation for becoming a doctor is also financial. I want to be financially free and to be able to afford to live a happy life (while doing something I am interested in). I want to retire my poor parents, pay for my future children's college, and to afford what I want. I also want to stop relying on the financial support of a narcissist in my life, and it is scary to think that I will have to rely on him any longer. Not being financially independent and stable terrifies me and scares me off from any other career routes. College is expensive, so the "you have time" advice doesn't really work, because I don't have a ton of time (nor the money), honestly. I feel like I need to decide now before it's too late.

I honestly don't expect anybody to respond because this post is so long, but I would especially appreciate it if you can give me any advice or tell me who I could go to for better advice.

Hey, I am 20f, and I am a pre-med major at university. Right now, I have pretty hard classes like organic chemistry and microbiology. Exams are coming up, yet I don't really feel that much urgency or drive to get good scores. I don't want to go through the discomfort of studying for long periods when I could be doing more entertaining things. These things would include hanging out with friends, doing something active or watching random things online. My brain is still in summer mode and is chasing whatever gives me the most dopamine. I have lost a lot of my discipline and drive lately.

I've heard I need to romanticize studying, but I don't know how to do that. I find that taking action with other productive things (like volunteering at hospitals, creating clubs, making connections, etc.) is much more fun. I used to really like the drive in studying, but my brain refuses to do it, now that summer has convinced me that there are more "fun" things to do. Now, studying doesn't really cut it for me anymore, but I need to if I want to make it to med school. What would get me back into liking studying? How do I romanticize it? Any resources? How do I unhook myself from instant hits of dopamine?

I need to get on the grind quickly, or I am cooked.

Hey, I am 20F and I recently noticed that I have this habit of yearning and obsessing over men. For example, I have been talking to this guy for two weeks now and after two days of not calling each other (he told me he has a very busy weekend) I am obsessing over him. This is a massive problem in my life. In my last relationship, I would get extremely insecure if my boyfriend did not call back for a day or two, even if I know there is a valid reason (such as work or events).

I hate being this obsessive and insecure, especially over a man. I know it stems from daddy issues, since my father was emotionally neglectful and narcissistic. Making up fantasies and longing for deep romantic love makes me feel alive. These feelings help me escape my boring life because I have trouble making friends due to having toxic ones in the past (Sadly, I don’t have any at the moment). However, this problem clouds my mind and gets in the way of my goals. I often feel pathetic and miserable because of this obsession. Especially now, due to barely knowing this guy.

Help?

Hey, I am 20F and I have zero trust in myself. Whenever someone is annoyed, uninterested or mad at me, I tend to instantly blame myself. I recognize that I have made some terrible mistakes over the years and have unintentionally hurt, annoyed or weirded people out. However, I have been told I am overcorrecting but I don’t know how to stop.

I used to be a massive people pleaser and I have gathered massive amount of evidence that I cannot stand up for myself in friendships (especially in toxic ones). I am currently in a toxic friendship and I still don’t trust my intuition of not talking to them anymore because they have ditched me many times. I am scared to be friendless and alone again. I feel pathetic.

Help?

Hey, I am 20F and I have been a chronic people pleaser for a long time. I have been breaking out of it but I noticed that I still get scared when someone (especially a friend) is mad/annoyed at me. I kinda fold under the pressure. I hate it because I also want to improve my arguing and confrontation skills.

For context, I grew up with an emotionally abusive and manipulative narcissistic dad. And I had a past toxic friendship where they would often get in my face, yell, threaten me and scream at me when they were angry at me. Soooo, I feel like I was trained to fear when people are angry at me.

Help?

Hey, I am 20F and I live a life out of fear. I usually choose to avoid social things that make me uncomfortable (introducing myself to people, setting boundaries, etc.). I heard that you will never live a life that you want if you are always in your comfort zone. I am a people pleaser who has issues with confrontation, standing up for myself and making the other person feel uncomfortable. I avoid making friends because every time I do, they eventually walk all over me. This then leads me to avoid them (until the friendship is over) and fear them. I am also reluctant to introduce myself to the people in my dorm floor in fear that the interaction will be weird and awkward. However, I really want to know more people. As you can tell, I live a miserable life that I don’t want.

I also fear people (mostly friends) viewing me in a bad light. I always fear coming off too aggressive, intimidating, confrontational, serious or annoying. I think those words can describe my true personality but I usually try to hide it. I always try to be the funniest one in the room so my friends will like me. But I often bend over backwards and forget that they probably like me no matter what. I am afraid that if I come off as boring, they won’t want to hang around me anymore.

Help?

Hey, I am 20F and I have trouble with dealing with the fact of some people not liking me. It bothers me a lot when someone rejects who I am. If someone says that I am weird or annoying, I instantly analyze the interactions we had and try to find out if I was actually annoying or not. What if I was actually annoying or weird? But either way, I think too much of how I appear to others. I have a fragile ego and take their opinion as fact. I dim my light or my fun so others don’t get bothered by me. I dim my opinions, dreams and core belief system so others will feel better. I don’t want to be that person who can’t handle people rejecting them (or get waayyy too angry about it). I hate being this way.

It does help if I can point out something I don’t like about the person. “ they think I am annoying but they’re racist so I don’t care”. But sometimes you can’t really do that because you can’t really seem to point out a major unlikeable flaw. I can’t handle people rejecting my personality.

Help?

Hey, I am 20F and I am really afraid to be my weird little quirky self and I often put on a mask to seem more “normal”. In the past I have made people uncomfortable with weird jokes or even creeped them out with my poor social skills. I used to just blurt out things due to my anxiety.

My social awareness has approved a lot but it has also turned into me contorting myself so I do not seem weird or annoying. I am now so hyper aware of how I come off to people so I can make a good impression (in uni btw). I feel like this might be the biggest road block to me making friends right now because all I can think about is my own worries and awkwardness when talking to someone. I know I am very creative, caring, funny, and ask good open ended questions in conversations. But my fear of coming off as strange or too friendly too quickly is holding me back from displaying these good qualities. You can’t really have any true connection with someone if you are just so awkward and withholding your own personality.

Do you relate? Help?

Hey, I am 20F and when somebody asks what do I most regret in life, it usually think back to this date I had. It was in high school and it was with this boy I really liked at the time. However, when we were out, I made really fucking weird and sexual jokes (and opened up about traumas and personal things you wouldn’t really tell anybody). Surprisingly, he gave me a second chance and he FaceTimed me. I then showed him… yeah some really sexual stuff ( I am too embarrassed to even write it on an anonymous post, it was that bad). He obviously stopped talking to me (rightfully so) and told his friends. I then kinda became that one creepy as girl in school and people would make fun of me and harass me for it.

It makes me sick of what I did. I had zero social awareness and was entirely socially inept. You’d think I had been molested as a child, but I have no recollection or suspicion of that happening. However, I was facing neglect and severe emotional abuse from my narcissistic dad. Soooo, it would be safe to say, I did what I did was because of daddy issues. I often confused sex for true closeness and connection because I didn’t really feel that I had much of that growing up.

I didn’t really put in perspective of what I did until I had a date later in college with a guy, who was not only weirder, but creepier than how I was back then. I hate that I made him feel the same kind of terrible uncomfortableness. Gaining more social skills made me realize how sick I was too. I am writing this on Reddit because this is probably my biggest regret in life and it eats me alive everyday. I hate how weird and creepy I was when I was younger, and I envy people who had a normal childhood (or at least didn’t make such awful decisions as I did). I want to run away from my hometown, I am so shameful and embarrassed.

Hey, I am 20F and all my life I have struggled with being a people pleaser. I had people (especially my own friends) walk all over me, take my kindness for granted, and treat me like trash. I am so angry that anybody would treat someone like they did to me. The anger and sadness that I let these people use and abuse me is indescribable. I also never really stood up to them either and I still see some of these people from time to time (distanced myself a lot though). My first bully was my narcissistic dad and that is the root cause of this issue. But, I would say my self respect and confidence has grown a lot since then. However, I still feel an immense rage when I remember how I let myself get used and abused by terrible people (that I also had a deep love and respect for). I feel so frustrated and sad for my past self, it eats away at me everyday.

Help?

Hey, I am 20F and I have no clue what healthy and mature communication looks like. Everyone I have ever had in my life had a crazy communication style. Whenever there was ever a conflict, either be my parents or my friends, it would be full of yelling, cussing someone out, guilt tripping or insulting. Is this normal? This made me scared to communicate honestly. Am I too sensitive? I also have no clue how to communicate openly and honestly without completely avoiding it because I am scared of us both screaming and insulting each other.

I feel like I have always seen friends have a big fight and then having to later apologize for it (for every conflict). Am I just surrounded by crazy and immature people (probably with anger issues)? I also avoid making friends because I whenever there was a conflict in the past with a friend, they would just go straight into yelling or a big argument. I also had no boundaries and was a people pleaser so I feel like I just let them treat me this way.

However, someone told me that this communication style is actually really toxic. What does a healthy one normally look like? How do you let the other person express all there feelings without invalidating them and protecting your own boundaries? Is it normal to let someone yell or scream at you when they are really angry? How do you reconcile after a fight? Is it normal to let your friend be a total bitch/asshole to you because they were angry or sad? What are some red flags I can point out?

Hey, I am 20F and I would safely say that I have been a bad friend all my life. I’ve always been very avoidant, shy and awkward with people. I would blame this problem on having to deal with the emotional abuse of a narcissistic dad all of my life but it does not excuse my past behavior.

One thing about me is that I am a chronic people pleaser and cannot stand up for myself or communicate honestly for the life of me. I will hold a lot of resentment and anger in me. I deal with these emotions by being avoidant. I have done this with all of my friendships. I have ghosted pretty close friends (some of those who considered me their best friend) before and I feel terribly shitty for doing that. I have serious friendship trauma where my friends became my biggest bullies and would just walk all over me due to the previous qualities mentioned. Some even got pretty emotionally abusive, drained the life out of me and caused me terrible insecurities.

I want to communicate honestly because I know I can do it (I do it with my bf and my family all the time), but when it comes to friendships, I just get so terrified when it comes the time to stand up for myself. I don’t really have much faith that I will ever be able to do it (or it will take me a couple of decades) because of this intense fear. I know I am a terrible friend and that is why I avoid making friends due to my fear of not being able to stand up for myself (and also why I have none at the moment). I am trying to work on these qualities about myself so I can be a good friend in the future but I just wanted to vent on how bad of a friend I was in the past because I feel so terrible. I deeply envy those who were always good friends, can communicate honestly and those who have healthy long lasting ones. I desperately want what they have.

Help?

Hey, I am 20F and as I make more self improvement posts about myself, I come to realize that I all my problems point to me being completely desperate for validation. I have no internal validation and in order to make myself feel worthy, I look for it socially. I am desperate to be liked (especially by other women) and constantly look for love outwards instead of inwards. I looked up the reasons for feeling this way and I saw that growing up with a narcissist (like my father) and facing years of emotional abuse will surely cause it. I always grew up shaping myself to be liked to earn love, whether that was with him or my friends. But that led me to being a people pleaser and constantly walked all over. I feel damaged really, by all the abuse I have endured.

I feel a terrible hatred for people who don’t like me, even if it is a good reason for not liking me or that it shouldn’t matter in the first place. I want to feel loved and I always try to put on this image that I am charismatic, funny, charming, witty, creative, etc. I hide my real quirky personality with a performative normal one. I do this even when it is completely fake and even if I wouldn’t even really like the person. People admiring me or liking me = love, in my mind, even if the relationship is completely fake. I just want to feel validated and loved.

I hate feeling this way… I want to be confident, self assured in myself, love and validate myself. Any help?

Hey, I am 20F and I noticed today, when I was hanging out with a new friend, I talked like I was a ditzy air head. It is purely out of social anxiety and not wanting to come off as cold, too serious and not fun to talk to. I do not like talking to people who are too serious so I try not to be that way. She made some cracks to my expense (which kinda stung a tiny bit but I mean, I know how I was coming off and that this is not who I normally am). She definitely thinks of me as a lil dumb and kinda weird like most of my other past girl friendships.
I hate always trying to come up with a coherent response, keep the conversation flowing, and not get in my head too much. But because I am trying to be “out of my head” I come off as an airhead.

I hate it because when it comes to boys, guy friends and dates, I come off as intelligent and I am super confident and sure of myself. I wouldn’t mind starting arguments or cussing them out if I needed to. But when it comes to girl friends, I act dumb, fun and a people pleaser so they like me and want to hang out with me. When I am fully confident and not socially anxious, I can come off as intimidating so I don’t really want to scare nice people off.

Help?

Hey, I am 20F and a few years ago, when I was in high school, I used to be very confident. Honestly, I would go as much to say I was arrogant and full of myself. But, overall, I was very sure of myself. However, I had poor social skills and awareness, so I made others very uncomfortable by being unintentionally mean, rude, weird and creepy. People obviously did not really like me. I feel incredibly guilty and shameful for making people feel this way. I have gained a lot more social skills and awareness since then.

I am now very hyper vigilant of whether people like me or not, and feel extremely guilty if they do actually not like me. I find all and any ways to blame myself for them not liking me. I instantly tell myself that I am doing something annoying that I am not aware of instead of saying that maybe there are other reasons (that are out of my control). I am completely unsure of myself. * I have friendship trauma and have faced many years (my whole life) of narcissistic and emotional abuse from my father. I am a people pleaser but I have been breaking from that mold.

I don’t know how to be confident and sure of myself again because I made so many people uncomfortable before. I feel like I get socially unaware when I am confident and do not trust myself when I feel that way. Do you relate? Any advice on how to stop doing this?

I’ve been watching videos on how I could be more successful in life and a lot of these videos are saying you need to have an inflated ego to be successful. A delusional sense of confidence they say. Then as examples, they will show a lot of famous people who are rich and successful such as Ronaldo, Eileen Gun or Kanye West. “They needed to have a delusional sense of self belief to get to the top” or “you need to think you’re at the top before you are”. But is this actually true?? Did most of these successful people actually have this mindset before they got famous or did they just develop this sense of arrogance as a result of getting famous? “Oh I’m getting a bunch of attention now so obviously I’m the best”.

I’m not doubting that they are very talented, but don’t people who believe they are so much better than what they are fall to the Dunning-Kruger Effect? I heard that people who often doubt themselves are the ones who are actually very knowledgeable and talented sooo…. What do you guys think??? What makes these famous people so rich and successful? I feel like there must be normal people walking around with twice the talent, work effort, knowledge or skill as these stars but they don’t even get 1% of the attention they get. What is it then? Luck? Putting themselves out there? Being born rich? Good connections?

Hey, I am 20F and I have been watching videos on why Gen Z is known as the lonely generation. These made me reflect on why I am so unsociable since I always thought it was just apart of my nature. I am currently in college and I would say for the past two years, I had no friends and felt extremely lonely. I felt like there was something extremely wrong with me. It’s not like I’ve always had a ton of friends but none at all now? I always blamed this problem with the severe mental health issues I was going through. However, I now realize that I have always been lonely. I would always sit on my iPad, iPhone or computer when I was younger and watch YouTube videos all day. When I did have to interact with somebody, I had a lot of anxiety and I have always avoided people (even my own friends). This had led to very underdeveloped social skills and being known as the “weird kid”.

I thought being the “weird kid” was always tied to my identity but I now feel a deep sense of self hatred because I realize how I have come off in the past. I have took a step back and saw that I have been coming off as that socially unaware, self centered, kinda mean, pretty rude, kinda creepy, weirdo who is also deeply negative. I feel embarrassed that I was that way now I am breaking out of that identity and realizing that other people are also weird (or weirder than me). Friendship trauma also caused me to avoid friendships. I was friends with bitches with anger issues. I always had poor boundaries and communication skills. I am not going to say I was that great of a friend but I will say I did not deserve to be screamed at and cussed out for something not that serious. I have always had trouble keeping up with people out of anxiety, self-centeredness and friendship trauma. I am going to say I was actually a terrible friend due to my selfishness and past experiences. I did not treat myself or other people with empathy, decency or respect. I feel terribly guilty.
I would safely say I used my phone as a comfort device and a distraction from all this mess. Overall, It made me feel better to be locked up at home in my own world than deal with my own social anxiety, judgement or face whatever nonsense I was up against.

Anyways… I made this post because I saw this video of a older woman who is a teacher (30s or 40s I think) talking about how Gen Z no longer hang out with each other after school. She went on an anecdote of how she was never in the house because she was constantly hanging out with people and doing fun things. I became incredibly jealous and angry at myself. I feel like a wasted so much life, time and my childhood.

I know this is not a unique problem, but I just want to know how to get over the guilt of being a terrible friend/person and wasting my childhood due to social anxiety and trauma. I hate being so weird, self-centered, rude and terrible. It is kinda eating me away… do any of you relate?