Hello, My name is Helen Marie Brogan and I am a People Pleaser in Recovery!

As a woman in a male-dominated, manosphere-directed workplace, you are encouraged to internalize any criticism or instruction as judgment against your person. It’s a control technique from those with big egos and no accountability. Toss in a splash of domestic violence that went straight under the rug, discrimination, and classic bullying, and you have the recipe for complex PTSD.

Some who acquire this disorder fall into some kind of addiction to complement other learned self-harm habits. I went straight to the nitty-gritty attempt to buy my way in via people pleasing. Sure, I had backbone. How else did I survive the trauma? I fought, and depending on your perspective, some would say I won, others lost, while a few would call it a life lesson.

Depending on the day and looking at the life I could have had, even I can’t fully decide. What I will say is that the main habit, or symptom, of my PTSD became people pleasing. My family has always centered on co-dependency. Let’s face it, any major organization claims they want independence, but the truth is they want it their way — not so independent, just enough to take the fall when needed.

When I went through fighting for the truth to come out, I had enough evidence to support what was happening. The problem was it was simply overlooked. I did not understand that the people I was dealing with had secrets that could not come to the

surface. My situation threatened to expose that.

I found myself clinging to anyone who seemed like they could be my people. The issue was I did not have kids or a husband, and I had disposable income. I have discovered that people with a partner have a safety net of saying, “Let me ask my partner,” or “We have kids to think of.” Single people try to say, “Hey, I have goals too,” but for various reasons, boundaries seem to feel more optional.

My experience is that people have seen my desire to belong, and my trauma responses were not hard to spot. I don’t sleep around, and I have no desire to raise a man-child or his kids. I tossed two exes because they were nothing but ‘sometimer-barely-there-coparents’ who saw their responsibility as a burden.

What I found was simple. I stuffed my body’s warning systems when I was dealing with narcissists or manipulators. Let’s be clear, not everyone is evil or nefarious, but many do not seem to recognize or care how their one-sided sponging impacts others. When someone consistently drains you while dismissing your needs, they are not people you should have in your life.

I found that I was ignoring those pangs, you know the ones. When you find yourself in a conversation and someone takes a stance on something, they pick up on your dis-ease with the situation, and rather than asserting yourself, you find a way to subtly agree or withhold your stance for the sake of not exerting your own opinion.

The second problem was my former employment. Nobody likes cops, and female cops face every kind of conflicting stereotype. Nobody likes women in power, and nobody wants that woman to feel the freedom of choice, especially when her choice limits your ability to take or coerce your way.

I constantly told myself, “You’re a cop, you see things differently and not many people want to accept the way the world works behind the scenes because that truth is ugly and very inconvenient for most to swallow.” I would use that to convince myself that what I wanted would eventually come to fruition, but it would take these people time to see me as more than a cop. They needed time to see me as a human being.

They saw me as a human being. Absolutely they did! They just saw a broken one who was malleable because I could never find that core family or friend group. I moved to British Columbia for my job and never could figure out how to fit in. Maybe I never will, but after a few times of being pushed to the brink of suicide, I realized that I am better off alone.

I may never find that core family or group, but I certainly was not going to drain my assets or limit myself from finding a second desirable employment opportunity. I had to delete a lot of people. The people I spoke with daily often could not remember small details of my life, yet they would blow up my phone for advice on various things. They felt safe talking to me but did not want to actively participate when I needed connection.

Like I said, they were not automatically evil or nefarious, but they certainly saw my desperation for inclusion and knew they did not have to be reciprocal in relationships to hold my attention and enjoy the things I could do for them, such as travel, organization, and policing experience.

I continued to stuff down the frustration after leaving events because I could not finish a full sentence before being cut off and the conversation veering back to their desire. Nobody cared when I had successes or needed support, and the reason I was given was that I was ‘soooooo independent’ they rested their excuse on my ability to have it all sorted out. It was a bit of a head twist hearing this explanation. “Helen, you are self-sufficient, reliable, organized, and not many have the advantages of your income and freedom. You should celebrate this. Of course, we love you and want you to be happy, and I guess we will just have to do better next time.” But as the years passed, next time never came.

When I started putting barriers to the constant access, I was either dropped with anger or bombarded with exhausting excuses of loneliness, boredom, and even a list of other people who left them as well. To top it off, I would be met with this line, and this is near verbatim from multiple people, “I’m sorry you’re struggling, let me know when you are free.”

I would be in tears, exhausted, feeling disregarded, used, and unimportant enough for someone to remember a previous significant event, and all these people could say was, “I’m sorry you are struggling, but let me know when you are free.”

Nothing that was important to me was worth them sharing or wanting to be a part of, yet I was expected to validate, organize, and act as a sounding board to fill their time when they were bored. I became nothing more than a vehicle on a one-way street of neurotic transactional behaviour that was full of guilt-tripping, refusal of their impact on others, and even demanding to be shielded for their actions.

My energy was drained, and I constantly found myself filling up like a balloon. Then I would explode. People would shy away, but it was okay. When I was over it and free, I could call them again.

A veteran friend once gave me a piece of advice that changed more than I expected. They told me the best place to start was to arrive late or right on time and be the first to leave events. Attend, enjoy, and leave on your own schedule. Everyone else can take care of themselves.

At first, that felt selfish to me. I was so used to staying longer than I wanted, overextending myself emotionally, or feeling responsible for everyone else’s experience that simply coming and going freely felt almost wrong. But over time, I realized how much anxiety and resentment disappeared when I stopped treating social situations like obligations and started treating them like experiences I was allowed to participate in without sacrificing myself or carrying others.

Now, I must admit, I was a guilty participant in this destructive transactional habit. I kept clicking ‘ignore’ on every firewall breach my nervous system was generating. Every uncomfortable feeling, every moment of tension, every instinct telling me something was off, I minimized it in favour of keeping the peace.

People pleasing is not kindness. It can become a survival addiction rooted in fear, hypervigilance, and the need to maintain emotional safety.

Like any addiction, people pleasing leaves you depleted emotionally, mentally, financially, and socially. The takers move on, but you are left in shambles. It is that simple.

After a lot of therapy, I started to fight the urge to make others feel comfortable at my expense. I am still working on this. I also was the one to survive training, policing, and the abuse. These people never survived it because they never really had to work or sacrifice much. They simply found easy ways to get the most out of things and people and then moved on.

I had to tell myself that Mel Robbins was on to something more than book sales when she came up with the “Let Them Theory.” Let others do what they are going to do, it is their choice, but now it is time to let me go after the things I want.

I do not have any legal responsibility for any other human being, and I had to say, why am I taking on the responsibility of this person’s limitation of finances, organization, or ability to advocate for themselves? Nobody advocated for me. They simply said, “Let me know when you’re free and I am sorry you are struggling.”

Paying attention to my body’s reaction to how others make me feel is something I am learning. I am not always very good at it. But I will give this example. I started taking dance lessons and discovered two very different people. One was incredibly shy, but very respectful. The other was pushy. Before, I would have been annoyed by the shy but respectful person, thinking they had no backbone. I was wrong. They were simply doing a new activity and trying to learn without infringing on potential learning partners.

I became an adult in an environment of loud, self-proclaimed alpha men- being pushed excessively and made fully aware every detail of my personal being was being measured for threats to their security felt normal to me. When the other person began offering subtle complaints on things, I found myself nearly immediately wanting to redress and acclimatize.

The safe person was not clocking my movements, nor were they feeling the need to push into my space. The other person was crossing every boundary and, when I gave a boundary, stood staring at me as if the computer was still buffering. For a people pleaser, that buffering look is incredibly uncomfortable. You want to immediately redress and concede to make the situation less awkward, but really, who caused it to be that way?

I learned to remain calm and polite while they struggled to process my brand new boundary. But, I also had to believe that I was not required to acquiesce to their expectations of obedience.

Let me tell you, that can be a brutal 20 seconds of empty airtime. I will also say that if you are the one to flinch, they will be doing a victory lap, and you degrade from worthy human to nothing more than a functional support to their ego or comfort. Right back to square one you go!

Trust me, if you slide back to square one then, teaching that energy vampire its place becomes nearly impossible. You will find yourself having to sever all ties and even feeling like you need to completely change your environment or risk being that person’s leaning post.

The advice I have learned is to go through those awkward few seconds of the person processing your boundary. Sit firm but polite and allow the security measure you implemented to do its work. You are not responsible for how people react to you not being accessible at their whim. You have a right to want your relationships and family to want to actively engage in your life without requiring constant prompting. Reciprocal relationships do not ever tell you, “Sorry you’re hurting, but let me know when you are free to entertain me.”

Trust me, if this is a line you have been told, it is time to walk away from that person. I do not care how close. Obviously, children or vulnerable people who require your care are one thing, but functioning adults or persons capable of understanding normal human interaction and emotion — leave them. Set them aside, cut all ties if you must, and move on.

I’m learning as I go, rebuilding as I go, and you’re welcome to join the journey.

-            Helen