August 25, 2025
Dear Hummingbird,
Help! Being a serial people pleaser is draining my peace and messing with my mental health.
All my life, I’ve had this compulsive need to put everyone’s needs before mine and have never really known how to say “no”.
See ehn, I’m not a saint o. Half the time, I want to say no. But once I imagine how the person’s opinion of me might change, my mind just spirals. And that’s the part I can’t deal with.
This has always been the case: at home, I’m the “goody-two-shoes” always doing my parents’ bidding. I’m the standard against which my siblings are compared, but omo it’s getting harder and harder to keep up. Honestly, I feel like my parents love me for who I pretend to be, not for who I truly am, because let’s face it, nobody even knows the real me.. At work, I’m the one who ends up with all the scut work. Extra task that nobody wants? Of course, I’m the volunteer.
You’d think the self-deprecating lectures I give myself after each people-pleasing episode would slow my roll, but no. Every single time, I still sacrifice my comfort to make life easier for someone else.
Even with my younger siblings, it’s the same. They ask me for money I don’t have, and if I dare say no, na wahala. I won’t sleep well. I’ll just lie awake, thinking, thinking. Honestly, who dig this pit for me abeg?
I’m tired. I feel trapped. This feels like a real mental health struggle. No matter how hard I try, I don’t know how to stop being a pushover. Please, help.
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