The people pleaser in me

Another year has passed.

I have been in the entirely fortunate situation of finally landing a job at an art museum for these last couple of months and 2022 out. That’s the longest job I have had so far.

I can hardly express what this has meant for my self-esteem and mental health – after a particularly hard year during the pandemic. Just thinking back to that time and where I am now makes me want to cry.

Oh, well…

The only downside of getting a job that might finally fit you and the education you have – after years of unemployment – is that if you do not have a social life outside of your work, the work quickly becomes the orbit around which your life surrounds if you’re not careful.

Especially if that work has come in a difficult time in your life, mentally and financially etc., and you cannot help yourself being eternally grateful for having been given the opportunity and the urge to perform and live up to the expectations is thus multiplied.

I already know I am in danger of letting the work dominate my life and the responsibility I give it consume me. Like most Millennials I suffer from the chronic cocktail of people pleaser syndrome with a dash of performativity and failure anxiety.

My instinctive urge to please and perform well has also been ingrained within me, not just because of my scholastic nature, but also because of the social construction of modern society where a lot of pressure is put upon the youth to perform well at school and (hence) in their career and life. Mostly girls project this expectation onto themselves and multiply it out of proportion.

The small, seemingly silly twinge I get when I feel I am not able to live up to some expectation, especially from my superiors, is something I have a very hard time to unlearn. No matter how sensible and intelligent you might be; the feeling of this sense of failure is extremely hard to ignore – simply because we’ve learned to suppress the feelings we have and to be cool, level-headed busy-bees. I think all pleasers feel this. It takes time, experience and emotional support and maturity to manage this interaction between external and internal expectations; what is truly realistic and when to say ‘no’.

When stressed I am always quick to tears and I am so ashamed of being so emotional because I feel weak and pathetic. I often manage to suppress my overwhelmed Fe which always needs some recuperation time but I also feel I am an open book when it comes to the emotions I am most ashamed of. I seem to draw pity when I least want it, but I am also grateful for whatever sympathy is granted in a stressed work-environment – otherwise you’d feel very much alone in this feeling: ‘Don’t take it personally’, ‘Don’t let yourself be stressed’, ‘It is only work’. Most people within the art industry are stretched to their limit and often stressed; they usually don’t run around crying.

I put too much of myself into it, I know. But I don’t really have that much else going on in my life. I have FINALLY gotten a job; I cannot help feeling I have finally been granted the opportunity to fill the void of my long-suffering feeling of meaninglessness and worthlessness with what I can provide through work. It has, somewhat sadly but not without merit, become the foundation for my existence right now. I would, of course, not be totally without means if not; I still have a family which would help if necessary. But the independence and self-respect that naturally follow the milestone of getting a job and earning your own money are something you cannot get from others.

The basic idea of having my own money, money that I have earned through hard work, that I can spend on the clothes I want after hardly not buying anything new (and selling most of my old stuff to earn some money) since I graduated is like being able to breath again. It sounds so silly and I honestly never thought I would feel this way about something as basic and consumerist as clothes. But… I do. I never gave much thought to the freedom having earned your own money entails.

But I don’t want the work and the money I earn to become the only thing in my life. It’s just, well, Maslow’s pyramid of safety needs being filled for the first time in a long time. So, in reality, I’m sorta only on step two.