By Ox Drover
When I picked up and started reading The Disease to Please—Curing the People-Pleasing Syndrome, by Harriet B. Braiker, Ph.D., not everything resonated with me, though I have always tried to “please people,” especially those close to me. There was a great deal of the book, though, that did resonate and validate the similarities between “women who love psychopaths,” as described in the book by that name by Dr. Liane Leedom and Sandra Brown, and “people-pleasers.”
Dr. Braiker is a practicing clinical psychologist with 25 years experience and is author of several books. This one defines “people-pleasers” as:
not just nice people who go overboard trying to make everyone happy. Those who suffer from the Disease to Please are people who say “Yes” when they really want to say “NO.” For them, the uncontrollable need for the elusive approval of others is an addiction. Their debilitating fears of anger and confrontation force them to use “niceness” and “people-pleasing” as self defense camouflage.
This book is divided into three main parts, as Dr. Braiker sees people pleasers as people who have “People pleasing MINDSETS,” people who have “People-pleasing HABITS,” and people who have “People pleasing FEELINGS.” The fourth part is a 21-day action plan for curing this “disease.”
Though in several instances Dr. Braiker describes a relationship with a sociopath, she labels this person a “controlling” person.
It is imperative that you recognize how dangerous and self-sabotaging your people-pleasing tendencies with men can become so that you can change the unhealthy dynamic of your relationships. Otherwise, the Disease to Please will serve as a veritable mating call to men who have a perverse need and desire to control nearly every aspect of your behavior. Worse yet, you will allow them to do so.
Nothing is out of bounds to a controlling man with a people-pleaser whom he can mold at will—from your appearance to your opinions, your performance in bed to your performance at work, your relationships with friends to your bonds with family. And, in no time, your ego and self-esteem will deteriorate from modeling clay into silly putty.
When he is done playing with you or you are done being played with (whichever comes first), you will have some serious reparative work to do on a self that you may hardly still recognize as your own.
Unless you repair the damage by during the Disease to Please that produced it, you will limp away from the relationship with the brand “damaged goods” on your ego. Then, issuing the familiar mating call, you will continue to present yourself as the people-pleasing victim to the next controlling man that recognizes your vulnerability to his power.
The controlling man will always keep you off-center and feeling anxious. Since he needs to change you to demonstrate his control, you can never feel comfortable or secure with the thought that he cares about the person that you truly are—or used to be before he started chipping away at your identity.
While this book is not about psychopathic relationships per se, the focus on how many people end up sacrificing their own legitimate selves, to try to “please” the one who will never be pleased, does describe the “traditional” relationship with a psychopath.
I think the self-affirming statements at the end of each chapter are excellent guides in changing our thinking, habits and our feelings about ourselves.
An few examples of these are:
If you have to compromise your own values, needs, or identity as a special and unique individual, then the price of nice is just too high.
It’s okay not to be nice.
Saying “yes” when you want to say “no” in order to protect your emotional, physical health or well-being should make you feel guilty—not the other way around.
Your value as a human being does not depend on the things you do for others.
Though I think Dr. Braiker seems to be applying the term “Disease to Please” in place of the older term “enabler,” her descriptions of the thoughts, feelings and habits practiced by the two are pretty much the same. Her description of those who will take advantage of someone else she calls “controlling,” which seems to be the primary motivation of many psychopaths. I personally would have preferred that she “call a spade a spade,” but at the same time, I think her target audience might be more apt to read the book with the labels that she did choose to use.
There were helpful reinforcements for positive changes, and over all, I liked the book very much. It isn’t difficult to understand and her advice is reasonable and realistic.
The Disease to Please—Curing the People-Pleasing Syndrome is available on Amazon.com.
hens
chocolate vitamins – got 2 get me some of them…
hummingbird06
those would be Vitamin C….haha
geminigirl
Can anay of you analyse this dream for me? In the dream, I am pushing my toddler, Debbie,{now a 45 year old narcopath} in her push chair over a rickety bridge.We are near the sea. suddenly a huge Tsunami,{wall of water] heads straight for us.
I turn around and run, with the pushchair and debbie, back over the bridge. At the other end is a red house, made of bamboo sticks with what looks like red tar paper pasted over it. As we enter, the door disappears, and there are no windows. I am trying to figure out how to get our of this house, when I wake up, in a panic!
Here is my take on it. The wall of water symbolises the emotions, overwhelming me, of realising my sweet toddler is now a cruel, lying, ruthless narcopath. The red house symbolises bones,{bamboo} and blood,{the red tar paper}
ie, will I eve be able to be free of this flesh and blood relationship, even though it is highly toxic to me? No windows, means, no escape! Im glad I woke up, I truly felt suffocated!
Love, geminigirlXX
skylar
hi geminigirl,
Ok, she was a toddler, so you either know or you sense that she has the emotions of a two-year old.
the rickety bridge is the uncertain transition between one stage of her life and another. You are pushing her that means you want her to grow-up from a two-year old into an adult.
The water which the bridge crosses is life and the wall of water is an insurmountable obstacle of emotions? that threaten to overpower you. So you run back to the “house”. Turning around to go back where you came from and where there is a house is symbolic of returning to your origin or her origin. The bamboo is a symbol of strength and resilience (I googled it). The red is passion.
so you find yourself back where you started unable to make the transition and unable to leave the origin – because there are no doors or windows.
You are stuck with your daughter in the “terrible twos” and she is throwing passionate tantrums.
am I right?
neveragain
Henry, your dreams are pretty literal, so not much to interpret! you were not in control, the demons (bad guys) were in control and you were afraid they might “drive you” , out of control, to crash!
hens
Jah – This is my take on my demon dreams – I was literaly surrounded by them – and they were trying to convert me. I was raised is a chaotic jehovas witness cult, my mom was always talking about demon’s and when I did something ‘wrong’ she would tell me I was demonized. when I told her I was gay she said I was possessed by demons. My mother was/is the demon and when I escaped her control the demons went away and luckily I did not become like her, I saw her for what she was and new I had to run for my life. She was a nut – had elders come to our haunted house to pray for the demons to leave – she was the demon that thrived on attention and chaos..my sister ended her life because of my mothers insanity….if I could write a story of my life – stephen king could make a movie of all movies
hens
gemini – your dream is – you are overwhelmed with this bad seed child, trying to protect her but at the same time asking why should I, she will grow up to harm me…
hens
I dont believe in demons – just evil flesh and blood people with out conscience or remorse or the capacity to love..
skylar
Henry, I thot your dreams were pretty literal too.
You felt out of control because you could not trust what you saw (the icy windshield) Demons to you, are liars. Your P-mom looked one way but sounded different to you. She was putting up a facade so you could not see what she was but you could hear her demon like voice. You knew she was the demon trying to slime you with her demonic evil.
Me too. my whole family is Ps.
I’m glad you escaped.
So sad tonight, I drank some tequila and my emotions got the best of me. I feel so bad for my xP. He seems so tragic to me. Imagine being in love with Ted Bundy and having to watch him get executed. I feel like that.
crying all the time now. my cats feel so sorry for me.
hens
skylar – this comment it just to you.. I never ever want to see my X P BF again – i dont know anything about him now, been 18 months no contact – I detest him but if I found out he had died – I would go to his grave and cry like I have never cried before – cant explain why