The Long-Lasting Impact of Trauma Pt. 5

We have previously discussed the primary trauma responses that we see associated with childhood traumas.  In our exploration we have talked about how these impact us and present outwardly to the world.  The impact is deeper than just how we are in relationships, but most often it manifests most noticeably in deeper relationships, especially for those with the fawn response.  As our relationships deepen and become more important to us, we become more afraid of losing them and this means that we resort to the maladaptive methods we have learned from childhood in order to keep things going.  People pleasing becomes a tactic which can be deployed in an instant and unconsciously, costing us nothing in the moment and in fact, making us feel like we did the right thing for this other person and for our relationship.  We feel selfless and like we did a good deed.  Hell, if our sacrifice was of sufficient size, we may feel like the star in a romantic comedy who overcomes a big obstacle to win back their love and justify their existence.

The issue with our people pleasing is that we keep trading pieces of ourselves bit by bit in an effort to make someone else whole and we wind up getting nothing out of it but an empty feeling because we gave too much of ourselves and got less and less in return.  We have in essence bled ourselves dry and are working harder and harder to even produce a drop of blood.  We pour effort into the relationship working harder and harder and never get further.  In fact, since we are giving more and getting less, we begin to operate at a deficit.  This is when we begin to near the end of our abilities to continue pleasing someone and will either erupt with all of the repressed anger and feelings, or simply give up and move on leaving the relationship.  In essence, we have painted ourselves into a corner and have no chance to escape and can only sit and wait for the paint to dry so that we can climb out.

Often, our partners are not asking us to give them all we have and expect nothing in return.  We set that dynamic by making them feel they don’t have to do much.  We put them on a pedestal and treat them like royalty attempting to cater to their every whim and need.  We do this because we want to earn their love.  However, we also want them to love us the way that we love them.  We don’t actually say that, but rather hope they will just recognize that they should give us what we want.  We think we have been the dutiful love interest and now it is time for you to reciprocate and show me all the love from your love store, because I supplied you with ample inventory for months.  And while our partner may love us as deeply, they cannot give us that love back or love us the way we thought we were loving them.  Our love is tainted, because it was transactional.  It was given with a silent expectation.  We weren’t being malicious about it; in fact, we didn’t realize we were loving the wrong way.  We were giving love the way it was shown to us, or the way we were taught to love as children.  We missed out on the key lesson that love should be unconditional.  Love is not something that you earn.  Love is something you are given.

In the moments where we feel shortchanged, that we have given more than we received, we are angry.  We feel like we got ripped off.  We paid a hefty price thinking that we would get the same value back.  But we haven’t.  Instead, we have settled for a used Hyundai for the price of a Benz.  Not because our partners are only worth a Hyundai, but because we communicated through our gestures and LACK of communication that all we wanted was a used Hyundai.  It isn’t their fault that the check we wrote was equal to that of a Benz, they gave us what they agreed to give us.

Now, sometimes because of our people pleasing response there are people who will take advantage of it.  There are individuals who will see that we are going to give and give until it hurts.  And they will show up, love bomb us making us feel like we finally have found the person who will invest in us the way we invest in them.  That’s when we fall so hard for someone that they are the only thing we think about.  They have given us the love we have been giving to other people and we finally feel we have met our soul mates.  Nobody before has ever made us feel so alive, so wanted, so attractive and desired.  As time moves forward though, those people begin to give us less and less but expect us to continue to deliver the same high level of people pleasing that we go to.  We think if we try a little harder and DO a little more, they will love us like that again.  It becomes drug like, our pursuit of that feeling of being loved.  We will chase that feeling until either that toxic person moves on, or until we have ruined ourselves and are a shell of the person we were at the start of the relationship.  After the relationship, in the immediate time after we will look back and wonder what WE did wrong.  We always take the blame, and we always rush to apologize.  Even when we have done no wrong.  Even when we were the victims of an abusive or toxic relationship we still claim ownership over the mistakes of the relationship.  We are simply unable to fathom that someone who made us feel so alive and so loved would leave unless we did something wrong.  We cling to their memory and hope they will change their mind. 

This is what people pleasing and codependency look like in a “normal” (Read: not a toxic) relationship as well as in a toxic relationship.Our people pleasing certainly puts a bit of toxicity into a relationship, but it isn’t malicious and designed to hurt people or truly take advantage.It does rob everyone involved of the level of intimacy they deserve, and it means the relationship will always stay at a surface level.In order to avoid being the toxic person or falling victim to a toxic person, we have to do the work on ourselves.We have to discover our own self-worth and the intrinsic value we have.