Overcoming the Shadow: My Breaking Point With People-Pleasing

Everyone has a moment they never forget — a memory etched so deeply into the mind that even years later, it lives there rent-free.

Maybe it’s something someone said, hurtful or innocent.

Maybe it’s a situation you somehow found yourself trapped in.

Either way, it becomes a line in the sand.

A before and after.

A moment you don’t come back from the same.

Mine happened a few years ago, in the good old “COVID days” — as I now like to call them — those strange, suspended years where we all reevaluated everything and everyone in our lives.

For me, it was a season of decisions, boundaries, and confronting truths I had spent a lifetime avoiding.

I was in a heated discussion with a family member — the kind of conversation where emotion speaks before logic does.

I remember listing everything I had done:

“But I do this, and that, and the other…”

I went on a full rampage, justifying myself, tallying up every sacrifice I had ever made like I was reading from a receipt.

And then came the sentence.

Cold. Direct. Unapologetic.

A sentence that stopped me mid-breath:

“But no one asked you to do all of that.”

I swear, it hit me harder than any insult ever could.

It was a slap I didn’t physically feel but emotionally absorbed in every syllable.

And the worst part?

It was true.

Painfully, embarrassingly true.

No one did ask.

I was the one who offered.

I was the one who rushed in.

I was the one who overextended.

And what was I expecting in return — a standing ovation? A thank-you speech? A badge of honour for martyrdom?

In that moment, something clicked — violently and clearly.

I realised I wasn’t tired from doing too much.

I was tired from doing too much for everyone else.

I realised that this identity I had built — rescuer, fixer, saviour, the dependable one — wasn’t noble.

It was exhausting.

It was unsustainable.

And worst of all, it was self-inflicted.

The truth is that people-pleasing is just self-abandonment disguised as kindness.

And as the years have passed, and after a lot of therapy, unlearning, and painful honesty with myself, I’ve understood something that shook me:

Being “selfless” isn’t always noble.

Sometimes, it’s actually selfish — because you’re doing for others what you secretly wish someone would finally do for you.

I had spent years giving, hoping someone would notice.

Helping, hoping someone would reciprocate.

Sacrificing, hoping someone would save me the way I was trying to save them.

But healing starts when the expectation ends.

When you stop performing for appreciation.

When you stop bending for validation.

When you finally realise your worth doesn’t lie in how much you give — but in how much you refuse to give away.

That one cold sentence didn’t break me.

It woke me.

And I’ve been reclaiming myself ever since.