Who's Showing Up for You? The Truth About People-Pleasing and Self-Abandonment
You're the one people call when things fall apart. You keep the peace, say yes when you're already stretched thin, and somehow always find a way to show up for everyone around you. And honestly? You're great at it.
But when's the last time someone showed up for you — or you showed up for yourself?
If you're a midlife woman who's been running on obligation and everyone else's needs for longer than you can remember, this one's for you. Because people-pleasing isn't a personality quirk or a character flaw. It's a pattern. And it comes at a cost that most people never talk about.
It's Not About Being "Too Nice"
Here's what nobody tells you: people-pleasing usually has nothing to do with being a pushover. It started as a way to survive.
Maybe you grew up in a home where keeping the peace felt necessary. Maybe love or approval felt like it had conditions attached. Maybe you learned early that your needs were inconvenient, that conflict was dangerous, or that being low maintenance was the safest way to be loved.
So you adapted. You got really good at reading the room. At anticipating what people needed before they even asked. At making yourself smaller so everyone else could feel more comfortable.
That's not weakness. That's a nervous system response to an environment where prioritizing yourself didn't feel safe. Your body learned a pattern and stuck with it, even after the original situation was long gone.
The problem is that what once protected you can quietly take over your whole life.
What Self-Abandonment Actually Looks Like
Self-abandonment doesn't usually look dramatic. It's subtle. It's everyday. It accumulates.
It's saying "I'm fine" when you're really not, because checking in on your own feelings has stopped feeling like a priority. It's going along with plans you don't actually want to make because disappointing someone feels unbearable. It's staying quiet when you disagree because keeping the peace feels more important than telling the truth.
It's knowing exactly what everyone else needs and having absolutely no idea what you need.
For a lot of midlife women, especially those navigating perimenopause alongside everything else, this pattern gets louder. Your body has less reserve. Your sleep is off, your energy is unpredictable, and the emotional load feels heavier than it used to. And yet the pull to keep showing up for everyone else, no matter what, stays just as strong.
That low hum of resentment you're feeling? The irritability that feels disproportionate to what's actually happening? The vague sense that you've lost track of who you actually are underneath all your responsibilities? That's what self-abandonment looks like when it's been going on for a while.
It makes sense that you feel this way. It doesn't have to stay this way.
Why "Just Say No" Doesn't Actually Help
If you've ever Googled people-pleasing, you've probably landed on some version of "set limits" or "use assertive communication" or "put yourself first." And those ideas aren't wrong, exactly. But they skip over the most important part.
People-pleasing isn't a thinking problem. It's a nervous system problem.
You can know intellectually that you're allowed to say no and still feel a full-body wave of panic the moment you try it. That panic is real. It's your nervous system doing exactly what it was trained to do, flagging potential danger and trying to protect you.
That's why the advice to "just set limits" falls flat for so many people. You can't think your way out of a pattern that lives in your body.
How Therapy Actually Helps
In our work together, we don't start with scripts or tips. We start with curiosity about what's actually happening underneath the pattern.
Using approaches like Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Mindful Self-Compassion, and inner child work, we slow things down enough to notice what's going on in your body when you feel that urge to people-please. We work on nervous system regulation so that prioritizing yourself doesn't automatically feel like a threat. We trace these patterns back to where they started, gently and without judgment, so they start to make sense in a new way.
From there, the real work begins: figuring out what you actually want, what you actually feel, and what kind of life you want to be living. Not the life that keeps everyone else comfortable. Yours.
Boundary setting becomes less about a magic phrase and more about a felt sense in your body that you are allowed to take up space. Self-trust starts to rebuild. The constant low-level anxiety about what other people think of you starts to loosen its grip.
It's not a fast process. But it is a meaningful one.
You Don't Have to Earn the Right to Rest
If you are exhausted from constantly prioritizing everyone else, please hear this: you don't have to wait until you're completely falling apart to get support. You don't have to justify needing help. You don't have to earn it.
If you're a midlife woman navigating people-pleasing, self-abandonment, anxiety, burnout, or the layered transitions of perimenopause, I'd love to talk. I offer in-person sessions in Collegeville, PA and online therapy across Pennsylvania and North Carolina.
Jaclyn Burwell, LCSW is a licensed therapist with over 10 years of experience supporting women in Pennsylvania and North Carolina. She specializes in anxiety, burnout, people-pleasing, and midlife transitions including perimenopause, and uses ACT, Mindful Self-Compassion, and inner child work to help clients reconnect with themselves and build lives that actually feel like theirs. She offers in-person sessions in Collegeville, PA and online therapy across Pennsylvania and North Carolina. At JHB Therapy, LLC, she's committed to providing honest, compassionate care that meets you where you are.
