On being a recovering people-pleaser

Every time I write a piece for my blog or my Substack – I suppose, any public writing that I vaguely plan to share – I have to try really hard not to open it with an apology to you, my reader. Recently, it’s felt easier.

I also try hard not to over-explain myself unnecessarily.

But, I’m just an eldest daughter in her healing era. A recovering people-pleaser.

Since leaving Instagram (I’m so dramatic, I’m still on there, just in a different iteration and cadence), I’ve felt lighter. More me. Those 13 years I’d spent under that account had changed me into somebody I know longer recognised or aligned with. Under the gaze of a couple of thousand people, I performed a malleable, agreeable version of myself that preempted public opinion to shape who I’d be in that moment. No longer did I excitedly share my newest style find or favourite beauty product or earworm of a song, I trimmed down my reaction in case somebody didn’t agree with me. I’ll likely never forget when I rushed to share my Taylor Swift ‘Midnights’ album ranking and was bombarded with 50+ messages telling me I had terrible taste and wasn’t a real Swiftie. Yikes.

That moment marked a bit of a before-and-after shift for me, particularly in terms of how I showed up or presented myself online.

After that moment, I found that sharing any genuine part of my life, my interests, or my thoughts came laden with fear and a fear of being judged. You often hear people saying that anybody sharing their lives online ‘deserves’ to be judged, yet I don’t feel this is fair, particularly within a community I’d steadfastly built for years.

Perhaps there’d been a shift.

The thing is, whether you share yourself online or not, people will pass judgement on you in some way. It happens during appraisal season at work, when you encounter people in the street, or even when you order your coffee. It’s not always negative. When I finally realised this after weeks and weeks of hashing it out with myself in my journal, right before I decided to leave Instagram, everything felt lighter.

In many ways, leaving Instagram was the catalyst to me reclaiming my life for myself. Now, I was on a more level playing field with other thirty-somethings trying to forge their way forward in life. Now, I’d just be judged like my peers! Living unapologetically in this way has been magical. I often receive long, heartwarming messages from long-term readers and followers, either by email or in my bookstagram DMs, asking if they can see a little more of my life again. l’m proud of myself for maintaining my new boundaries and reserving most of it to just me and my IRL circle.

The same boundaries apply to my personal life too: I’m no longer apologising for how I choose to show up in my life or for prioritising myself every now and again. As somebody that spent their whole life putting their siblings, cousins, parents, partner first no matter what, it’s been gratifying to realise they can still be my priority, but when I’ve looked after myself first. Sometimes that means I have to say ‘no’, other times that means I can run a favour, but not if that means sacrificing my own sanity or energy.