From as early on as I could remember, I was an approval junkie. From my grades to what I wear and the people I hung out with, the main driving force was the need to look good in front of others. Well, maybe that’s not exactly right, because half the time I was trying not to let others disapprove of me. Any slightest hint that people do not like of the way I look, talk or behave would make me cringe and shrink into invisibility.
For ten years from 11 till the age of 22, the fear of looking like a failure in the eyes of society became the whip that I used to flog myself to do more and be more. If I felt exhausted from my already long hours of mugging, I would mentally imagine different groups of people taking turns to throw me scornful looks or derisive remarks. The terror brought on by these images would be enough to make me dive straight back into my books again. To keep my already depleted mind awake, I would down coffee and Redbull, with devastating effects on physical and emotional health later on.
When I was diagnosed with my first clinical depression in 1996, it suddenly hit on me that I had been living my life as a people pleaser. For all of my 22 years, it was the only means of survival I had known. My life was built around trying to be what others think I should be, not who I really was. I had no self-identity, no opinions of my own, no confidence and zero self-esteem. To put it briefly, I was an empty shell.
Naturally nobody really respected me, due to the obvious reason that I never knew how to respect myself. I would hang on to every word that my friends say, cave in to the requests of others, always asking for others' opinions before I would make a decision about anything, never having an honest opinion of my own and putting my own needs aside, even those as important as my career and when to get married. Defending myself was a huge thing for me. If I did muster the courage to say ‘no’ to unfair treatment or to express my needs, I would spend the next couple of weeks feeling guilty for being selfish. God forbid if anyone thought I was selfish!
They say ‘no pain, no gain’. The depression at age 22 was a wake-up call to shake me out of my false mode of being. It made me realize that I had to stop caring about what people think of me! Not doing so would mean a slow sure death or a permanent residence in a mental asylum.
So I spent the next 10 years getting acquainted with and learnt how to shut up the negative voices in my head, the voices that were saying;
I’m not important
I’m invisible
I don’t belong here
I have no right to exist
I’m not good enough
I’m not wanted
I’m a burden to others
People are only tolerating me
I’m not okay if people don’t think well of me
Why did God create me? WHY WHY WHY????
And there were many others which I had lost track of. These voices kept me believing in the lie that I had to please anyone and everyone. Feelings of guilt, shame, rage, grief, insecurity, fear, hopelessness, and despair were my loyal companions.
Using emotional healing process known as Emotional Freedom Technique, hypnosis, and many others, I eliminated the negative voices one by one. With each voice that got eliminated, a huge sense of relief and well-being would follow. Gradually guilt, shame, fear and grief got replaced by increasing sense of security, peace, and self-acceptance. No longer do I feel anxious around people, since the need to be accepted by them has become more or less a non-issue.
Naturally my self-confidence grew as the negatives voices in my head got silenced one by one. It was then I realized that our positive qualities like self-love, confidence, courage, peace, and acceptance have always and will always be a part of us. We just need to throw out the mental garbage that had taken possession of our minds since we were innocent little children. How did those self-sabotaging voices get in there in the first place? From our parents, main caregivers, teachers, and other authority figures in our lives. These people and the ones that came before them had been the unknowing victims of negative programming themselves. If this sounds like a nightmarish vicious cycle to you it is!
But the good news is it is a nightmare that we can all wake up from. The only question is when. And the question of when is answered at the point you decide to wake up from the mass hypnosis that your happiness depends on someone else’s consensus.
The healing process wasn’t exactly a walk in the park, for most of the time I had to face my inner demons alone, on top of dealing with chronic fatigue syndrome, recurrent bladder infections and multiple allergies, all ramifications of living in a life-long state of powerlessness. Not even my husband knew what battles I was facing inside. But the result was definitely worth every effort made.
From the time of my clinical depression, I had made it a life goal to get rid of this addiction. Deep inside me I knew that as long as any of my life decisions were made based on how someone would think of me, I would never be free. Unconscious compulsive conformance got increasingly replaced by consciously created freedom as the basis of my life.
Once you have tasted freedom, you would never want to go back to your old ways again, especially when what has been keeping you imprisoned has been something as inane as needing someone’s approval.
Everyone is here in this world for a good reason. There is something unique and valuable that we can each give to this world. No one can tell us what that is. But unless we stop thinking, feeling, and doing what others think is best for us, we will never get to find out who we really are. Until that day, the unique talents and gifts we possess will never see the light of day.
Thank you for reading my ramblings. Feel free to share your thoughts about this topic.
If you too find that your life is being controlled an insatiable need for approval, I hope my experience can bring hope and healing into your life.
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