She was a one eyed, one horned, flying purple people pleaser.

The concept of addiction is all around us. People for centuries have been addicted to alcohol and drugs. The concept of addiction has now stretched into our modern world - we can be addicted to social media, addicted to technology, addicted to sex.

But what about the more subtle and subconscious addictions that can manifest without you even realising? These can go months, years, even a whole lifetime without ever being recognised, named, and 'treated'. They might impact your health and happiness in ways that you can't articulate and may never even notice, and you might go through life feeling stuck or not quite right in some aspect of your life.

My addiction? People pleasing.

Yeah. Weird, right?

It started long before I was an adult for reasons I won't get into here, but suffice to say, it's been evident for most of my life. Being perfect, getting the tick of approval, always being there to offer a solution or assistance to anyone, making sure I worry about everything else and everyone else.

Not such a bad thing on the face of it. I mean, what's wrong with wanting to be liked? What's wrong with wanting to help others? Especially when those people are the people close to you - people you'd go to the ends of the earth for, or even watch an Adam Sandler film with.

Nothing, on the face of it. Just as drugs and alcohol aren't problematic, in and of themselves. That's the thing with addiction - it only a problem when it becomes a problem, right?

For me, being a little purple people pleaser has manifested itself in some less than ideal behaviours for me. The perception of being perfect, capable of anything. The fear of asking for help or showing vulnerability. The stress when someone has a problem or issue that I can't fix. The exhaustion of trying to be 'all things to all people' (a concept that anyone who has read the excellent Rushing Woman's Syndrome by Dr Libby Weaver will be familiar with).

This year has really brought this to the fore for me and I can see it causing damage.  I'll get into that in a later post. So how to tackle any addiction?

Action plan - to break the cycle of habit. For the next two weeks, I will:

 - Put a buffer between being asked to do something and responding
 - Asking for help (I will be writing a list tomorrow of all the things I am going to ask for help with)
 - Starting to accept help where it is offered to me


Bananas, right? All seems pretty intuitive, right? Well, not for this little purple people pleaser. It's gonna be hard. Here goes....