empowerment center
good nature
It’s only human to want to be accepted by others, but it’s gotten to the point where it is eating away at you.
You have a sense that you are wearing a mask as you go through your life, it’s hard to relax because of all the pressure you feel, and life just feels harder feeling like you need to keep a certain image up all the time. You worry that if people knew the truth about you that in some way, your current situation would fall apart.
These relational patterns can bring a lot of distress, but know they are completely natural adaptations to specific social situations. People pleasing and perfectionism are both considered to be relational patterns. In other words, they are patterns we pick up because of the messages we are receiving from other people we are in connection with.
Most commonly this can stem from family life, but it can also come from other kinds of connections as well when there is pressure for us to show up in a specific way.
People pleasing and perfectionism can form in response to environments where it’s not physically or emotionally safe to disagree or make a mistake. In some situations, a person’s nervous system sees that it’s safer (or some may use the word easier) to just suppress their point or view or authentic expression as to not rock the boat. These patterns can also be a form of compensation in a situation where a person is being sent the message that they are not good enough, as a way to try to prove their worth.
It’s a common experience for members of the LGBTQIA+ community to grow up in or be otherwise embedded in queerphobic environments that want them to suppress their queer identities, or at least mold them to not be so outwardly queer. That could include religious messaging around “being gay is one thing, acting on being gay is another”, or encouraging queer folks to dress or act in a more heteronormative way to make cis-het people more comfortable.
All this attempted molding away from queer expression can be incredibly shame inducing, and shame is usually a driver of perfectionism and people pleasing. If shame for who you are is your baseline, it’s a natural internal defense mechanism to attempt to behave in ways that distract from the shame- perfectionism and people pleasing are just two forms of distraction. The part of you that tries to be perfect or people pleases is just trying to be loved and accepted, which is a perfectly normal human desire and need.