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What´s my underlying problem? Am I a people pleaser?

Discussion in 'Self Improvement' started by damirios, Dec 28, 2016.

  1. damirios

    damirios Fapstronaut

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    What´s my underlying problem? Am I a people pleaser?

    So this is a really personal post. I didn´t use to open up that much but I feel I have to in order to go through the pain and take the right decisions!

    So I´m back from the "happy" Christmas holidays I spent with my dad and my sister. Each year it gets "happier and happier". I had a lot of time to think again, because at my father´s place I don´t have that much to do and I don´t have many friends to hang out with.

    My father got anxious lately and I knew that because at the moment I have cut back on working (I´m a doctor) after having succeded in getting my speciality! So that´s really great! I achieved something!! Well not for my father...
    He was really happy, I guess, when I passed the exam but his happiness didn´t last.
    He got really anxious about my future again, asking me what are my plans. I knew that he would ask me...
    I gave him some vague answers because I myself don´t know yet where I´m heading to and because I know that he always has different visions for me.

    At first he seemed fine with that. But later on I realized that he wasn´t. The day before I left he "discussed" with me his visions of what I could do next - because it seems that I´m still not enough. Then he also talked about my relationship with my gf and he made me clear that he disliked the whole idea of it.
    On top of that he saw some news sites I had opened that belong to a political spectrum he doesn´t like... We both got mad - and "thanks to me" as so often - the fight didn´t escalate. I´m sure he got mad because I didn´t agree with his "suggestions".

    So why do I come up with this topic? Well, first, he isn´t wrong concerning my relationship with my gf. And it´s not the first time that he make me break up a relationship. But in both relationships I felt that I wasn´t really happy. In a way he ended the past relationship where I wasn´t "man enough" to do it myself. Afterwards I felt relieved!!

    So what´s the matter with my current relationship? The thing I know is that I´m not happy and that I don´t see any future for me and my gf for several reasons. I tried several times to break up, I also did it once but we got back together. It hurt me so much to make her hurt that I suppressed my feelings later on. I had the excuse of PMO, thinking that it prevents me from being happy. I had the excuse of the serious health issues my gf went through. I told myself that I cannot leave her alone with those issues. What kind of a person would I be?

    So what´s the matter with my father? I realize now that I´ve lived a life where most of it I tried to please my father. My father always wanted me to become a doctor. I didn´t even have that good marks in high-school but I went to a private university. He also influenced me on choosing a speciality. Looking back, I don´t know if I had chosen a different job or how my life would have looked differently because I never even thought of something else. I never made any different dreams. Sorry, that´s not completely true, I would have liked to be an athlete because sports always fascinated me. I don´t know if that would have led to something serious.
    I think that I don´t really know what I like or what my passion is because I never really made up my mind about that. And now I´m finding myself not knowing what to do next, where my way will take me.
    Don´t take me wrong, luckily I like the field I´m working in but I´m not sure if that would have been my real choice.

    Coming back home and thinking about how my father behaved as if I was a little boy, trying to impose things on me I get really mad and sad...
    Looking back it seems that I´ve made a lot of things to please my father and maybe to please others like some of my ex-gfs. I was always afraid of hurting other people of making them mad or sad and instead of that I got mad, sad unhappy but I kept quiet and nice like a sucker!!!
    I avoided arguments and fights, I avoided uncomfortable situations or discussions. I rarely used to express my objections and concerns.

    So why am I writing this? Well I´m writing that to get courage...
    To get courage and break up with my gf, not for the sake of my father but because I don´t feel happy with her and I don´t see any future for us. This "something" is missing out of our relationship...

    Why is this causing me so much anxiety??

    Thank you for reading..

    damirios
     
  2. fapshooter

    fapshooter Fapstronaut

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    Good job on enduring and succeeding in med school. It's something only a few a capable of achieving.

    I did go through the same issues as you with my father concerning my studies. But I found peace in being self motivated rather than making an effort to please my parents. I am still in the same field my father wanted me to go in, but the difference is that I'm doing it for myself. It's simple mental switch that will grant you almost instant happiness.

    The other thing thing you might want to consider is the common dilemma of "following your passion vs doing what the society tells you". At any situation you find yourself in, you should always make the best out of it. I think it's a dangerous fallacy to think that passion is what motivates you to make life changing decisions. I've done that before on less challenging decisions, and I've stopped pursuing all what I've started with passion. Don't fret about the decisions you've made in the past, you should now aim to be the absolute best in whatever you're doing now instead. Become the best practitioner in your specialty, become so good that people will get addicted to you and your success. That's when you'll find passion.

    The point I'm trying to make is passion is bullshit. I'm telling you right now that you've made the right choice by choosing med school, that would also be the case if you've chose to pursue sports instead. You have to become the best in whatever you pursue, that's what matters.
     
    Grlt and Deleted Account like this.
  3. damirios

    damirios Fapstronaut

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    Thank you @fapshooter !! Congrats to you too!!
    I didn´t regret that I´m a doctor. It´s one of the most beautiful jobs out there.
    I just get upset about about my father who wants to dictate how I`m supposed to live. I suppose that I get really upset when somebody does that even if they want to help me. Anyway I shouldn´t care so much, instead I should focus on my desires more.
     
  4. Yeah the getting upset part is already the problem. In some ways we are the same however I did rebel against my parents and stopped taking them seriously. They still tried to push me around but I could care less. Despite this "success" I am still very vulnerable around people and tend to be unable to take my own interests into account and always seem to care way more how my actions effect others. As far as that goes I am still working on it. I know I do not love myself in any sense. I feel I am unlovable to others and need to perform in some way to be accepted, on somehow this performance seems impossible to achieve... I deny myself and over respond to others to make up for it and it's still not enough... it's my mental trap.

    fapshooter is right on about following your passion. That whole way of thinking is poison. I followed my passion for a while and got some degrees in music even though I never had the talent to ever expect to make a living at it... I was lucky in that it takes a lot of discipline and planning and teamwork... all things that gave me a good enough skill set to be succesful in engineering afterwards
     
  5. damirios

    damirios Fapstronaut

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    Being upset can help in some cases. It´s an energy that can be used to change something.
    But I think you are also right about caring less about our parents. I mean not taking them too seriously. That´s what I try to do but when we meet and we are together I feel that they drag me down. That´s why I´ve decided to not stay so many days again with them. It´s sad but I think it´s better that way.
     

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