/feels/ - Advice & Venting

How do I activate my prefrontal cortex, mute my amygdala's tantrums, and stop handing out free dopamine hits to emotionally bankrupt individuals who survive off digital drama crumbs
I know Iam better than this but I end up wondering stuff like this often

Bro I’ve basically been running on last actor settings—like no core personality, just a loop of people-pleasing scripts, trauma-induced masking, and identity-by-association. Zero sense of self. My self-worth is crowdsourced from the nearest person who doesn’t hate me, and the moment I’m not being validated, I mentally uninstall myself like I’m malware. I’m the final boss of emotional co-dependency and I’ve gaslit myself into thinking that’s just oh being nice.

Nona I think you've answered your own question. It all comes from self-worth and sense of self. When you don't have a strong sense of self, then it's easy to base your self-worth and identity off of whatever people want from you. Also, there's nothing wrong with being nice to others, but the issue is when being nice to someone comes at the expense of your own needs and wants. It sounds like you have a hard time differentiating that because you're so used to constantly giving.

Basically, the validation you seek from other people- you have to learn how to give that to yourself. Compliments, messages back from other people, etc will not mean as much if you know how to give that sense of validation you look for to yourself. And also that shit exists in abundance. You don't have to give away personally identifying information to get validation from someone. If people drop you because you aren't willing to share that stuff with them, it's fine because there are plenty of people out there who are perfectly reasonable and will still like you without having to share that information.

wow yeah totally get it now lol

Being a people-pleaser might feel like a defect or wrong behavior, but in a way it kind of is not for someone who's been through neglect or trauma. In fact, it's very logical.

Imagine having lacked care and love all your life. You will eventually try to seek it. So how do you do it? By trying to become caring and pleasing yourself because that's what you secretly want.

This is a vital quality for good relationships built on trust and love - and if this is something you desire and seek for, how can becoming such a person be possibly dumb?

Now on the other hand, there's an alternative explanation for such behavior. (and really common for women) It's having been beat down by authority figures so much your brain can't fathom behaving different - the conditioning overpowers you the moment you try to react to something. Once again, you're not stupid if this is what happened to you.

Your "caring too much" and "people-pleasing" is two things:
1) A need that desperately tries to get itself satisfied. Whether it is for love, trust or vulnerability.
2) Never having been taught how to perceive and act upon the world that isn't a survival mechanism.

For me personally, forgiving myself for point 2 helped me with point 1 cause I learned how to have a bit of empathy for myself. You need to take the emotional toll off of yourself and stop blaming - it only makes it harder to behave rationally.
What also helped was talking to other trauma survivors - these are the only people genuinely capable of empathizing with us. Honestly even the cptsd memes subreddit helped. Even finding someone who's just willing to listen helps. (the vent thread here was really cool for that last time I used it)
Finally, something that's more important for the "beat down by authority" types - it's finding an environment that encourages you to pick yourself first. Maybe it's the feminists or something else. My favorite is a Russian misandrist memes group and cptsd meme groups lol.

>>122584
OP here. Not sure if it’s the same IP, I’ve moved recently.

I get what you’re saying and I wish I could internalize it better. But truth is, I’m tired. I’m tired of being the one who gets the blame even when I haven’t done anything wrong. Someone treats me like shit and somehow I end up being the one who stays kind. Like I can’t help it.

I have this need, maybe obsession, with being liked by everyone. Like if even one person dislikes me, it feels like I’ve failed as a human being. I know it’s not healthy and I know it doesn’t make sense, but it’s hardwired into me somehow. Every part of me feels like I have to be soft, safe, easy to like, no matter the cost.

And it’s exhausting. I’m fed up with constantly trying to prove I’m good enough for people who wouldn’t care if I vanished tomorrow.

I also have this habit of oversharing. Trauma-dumping, talking about people behind their backs, just to feel understood or less alone. I know it makes me look bad. And maybe it is bad. But I never do it out of malice. It’s more like I’m always trying to let the pressure out before it breaks me.

Still, it makes people see me as two-faced. Fake. Someone to avoid. I guess I’ve made peace with being misunderstood, but it still hurts.

I don’t know how to stop caring about people who clearly don’t care about me. I don’t know how to stop giving parts of myself away to people who never asked for them in the first place.

I just want to be okay with being me, even if not everyone likes that version.

>>122695
Is there a cece version?

>>122686
OP, the root of the matter is your need for intimacy, and it's fine to have, it's just part of your personality - but there are less and more healthy ways of achieving it with others. The less healthy way is by giving others sympathy as a way of projecting what you need, you may validate them to the point of enabling and that may cause alienation. People need to hear the truth, but also know that you start off with a subjective truth, and that depending on the circumstance truths change - therefore the healthy way of connecting is by asking for feedback regarding everything - any judgments you have of how things work, who a person seems at first sight, what are a person's preferences, really- anything. This actually is a much more self-centered approach ultimately, because you're investing in your own ability to formulate accurate judgments over time. That is your road to power and connection.