Tap Dancing

An essay for the perpetual people pleaser

I’m so quick to see things from someone else’s perspective that I forget to have my own thoughts or feelings. I’ve been like this a long time.

Maybe it’s a gendered thing, those of us born with tits and a yoni are expected to nurture others long before we even decide if we want to nurture anyone. God forbid us femme’s learn how to nurture ourselves first. Things are clearly not black and white, and there is nothing wrong with being nurturing, so get off my back and deploy some nuance, thanks!

Maybe it’s how I was raised. I was raised in a home where I had to grow up quickly. I was the youngest of three and there was instability, and while I don’t remember feeling like I had to be perfect then, I sure as shit can see when that behavior rears its ugly head now. And of course they don’t care if I am perfect, but when you’re a little girl and the world around you feels like it’s crumbling, you do what you can to patch the walls. I was never taught how to nurture myself, and instead thought I was as good as how helpful I could be to those around me.

I like to help. I have a strong work ethic and I believe in showing up for my people because, well, I love them. But helping for approval, for that pat on the back that soothes the ache of my sad, scared inner child, well that really isn’t help at all. It’s balm on an old wound, but really, it stings. Helping for love, that’s the ticket.

I get these panic attacks; I have since I was a teenager, though different periods of my life have brought different flavors. When I was young it was real panic, the “is this a heart attack?” kind of feeling. Now it’s more a general anxious fixation, sometimes mixed with stress-induced vertigo, or maybe a TMJ flare up. Woe is me (that’s sarcasm, by the way). And let’s be honest, there are a lot thing to be anxious about. But one of the things I’d be happy to feel less anxious about is what other people think of me, and how I should bend myself into a pretzel to please them.

I had a job offer recently. I really struggle to hear my own inner voice, because you know, people-pleaser!—and through the interview process it was like I was watching myself from outside my body bending and bowing and contorting for these people. “I can be your anything girl!” I’d proclaim in slightly more professional vernacular before standing on the conference room table to tap dance while simultaneously keeping excellent meeting minutes. I was a star! And then they said, “You’re hired!”

I sat on my bed 15 minutes before the phone call where they gave me their verbal offer, and I knew I had to say no. I knew I couldn’t be their anything girl, the tap dance simply couldn’t go on.

And panic set it. Dread. Right on time! Anxiousness raced through my mind and sent tingles through my body while my mind darted from thought to thought. “They won’t like me.” “I’ll upset them by saying no.” “I’ve wasted their time.” And so on. Always their perspective, never my own.

I decided to do some box breathing: four second in, hold, four second out, hold, repeat. It calms the nervous system, and can help us panic-lords’ minds chill the fuck out. And then it happened. A thought broke through, a quiet voice that I could have easily missed amidst the chaos anxiety spiral: “I only have to please myself.”

This thought may not be profound to some of you, but for those of us who are chronic givers and people-pleasers, who were groomed from the day we came out of the womb to take care of others at the cost of our own self, it is.

Say it with me: I only have to please myself. Stop tap dancing for them and start wiggling for yourself.