The Approval Junkie

My Journey Out of People-Pleasing Hell

I used to be the person who said "yes" when every cell in my body screamed "no." I was the friend who stayed up until 2 AM helping others with their problems while my own life fell apart. I was addicted to approval, and I didn't even realize it until I read "The Disease to Please" and finally understood what was happening to me.

For years, I walked around with this internal approval meter constantly running in my head: "Do they like me? Are they happy with me? Am I doing enough?" When that meter dropped, I felt genuine panic—like something was seriously wrong with the world. I remember posting something on Instagram and then refreshing obsessively, feeling that familiar flutter of anxiety when the likes didn't come fast enough. Sound familiar?

I was trying to please everyone in a world full of people who wanted completely different things. It was like trying to be everyone's favorite song, which is of course impossible. different people have different interests and different preferences, satisfying everyone is not possible.

but unlike other people who can just accept this fact. I felt like my emotional survival depended on getting validation from every single person I met.

The Pigeon Experiment That Changed Everything

When I first read about this experiment in psychology research, it completely shifted how I understood my own behavior. Scientists put pigeons in cages with levers. The first group got food every time they pressed the lever—consistent rewards. When researchers stopped the food, these pigeons adapted quickly and stopped pressing.

But the second group? They got food randomly—sometimes yes, sometimes nothing. When the food stopped completely, these pigeons kept pressing until they literally dropped from exhaustion. They never gave up.

That's when it hit me: I was the second pigeon. Sometimes my people-pleasing worked beautifully—I'd get that smile, that "thank you," that rush of validation. Other times, the exact same behavior got me nothing. But instead of discouraging me, this inconsistency made me try harder, just like those pigeons frantically pressing the lever.

I realized I was addicted to approval in the most literal sense.

The Dopamine Hit That Kept Me Hooked

I still remember the first time I experienced that approval "high." I was in university, and I gave a presentation that earned me a standing ovation. The feeling was so intoxicating that I've been chasing it ever since, overworking on every project, staying late to help colleagues, saying yes to every request.

This is what psychologists call positive reinforcement—when pleasing others earned me love, praise, or attention, my brain literally lit up with dopamine. But here's what made it so addictive: the unpredictability. Just like slot machines, I never knew when my efforts would hit the jackpot of someone's approval.

I found myself playing more and more "social slot machines"—helping more friends, taking on more projects, expanding my circle of people to please. I thought more opportunities meant more chances to win that approval high. Instead, I was just depleting myself faster while feeding coins into machines that rarely paid out.

The worst part? Soon, my ‘yes’ wasn’t kindness—it was just expected. An assumption, I had trained people to rely on me, and each thank-you was another tiny dopamine hit, that acted as a salary keeping me employed in approval addicted hell.

My Childhood Blueprint for Pleasing Everyone

Reading about conditional love in psychology books was like looking in a mirror. My parents weren't terrible people, but their love came with conditions. I was "good" when I cleaned my room without being asked, when I got straight A's, when I made their lives easier. I learned early that approval equaled safety, and disapproval felt like abandonment.

I became addicted to those words of affirmation—"You're such a good kid," "You're so helpful," "We're so proud of you." But "good" was rarely about what I wanted to do. It was about making other people's lives better or easier.

Looking back, I can see I fell into the "never-good-enough" category. My parents were sparing with their approval, perfectionists who always seemed to expect more. I learned to feel inadequate, and decades later, I'm still chasing that validation I never quite received.

The tragic irony? By living up to everyone else's expectations, I became completely alienated from my own wants and needs. I used other people's approval as my life compass, which is like trying to navigate using someone else's destination.

The Questions That Started My Recovery

The breakthrough came when I started asking myself one simple question every time I felt that familiar urge to please: "Am I doing this to chase a reward... or to escape a feeling?"

Most of the time, I realized I was running from something—fear of conflict, guilt about saying no, suppressed anger at being taken advantage of. I wasn't moving toward something I wanted; I was desperately trying to avoid feelings I couldn't face.

Understanding that I was literally addicted to approval—that my brain was hijacked by the same mechanisms that create gambling addiction—gave me compassion for myself. I wasn't weak or broken. I was responding to a reward system that had been programmed into me since childhood.

What I'm Learning Now

Recovery from people-pleasing isn't about becoming selfish or uncaring. It's about learning to validate myself instead of outsourcing that job to everyone around me. It's about recognizing that my worth isn't determined by how useful I am to others.

I'm still working on this. Some days I catch myself before I automatically say yes to something I don't want to do. Other days, I slip back into old patterns and find myself staying late to help someone who never asked for help in the first place.

But now I understand the game I was playing, and that awareness has changed everything. I see the slot machines for what they are. I recognize when I'm pressing the lever hoping for that random reward of approval.

And slowly, I'm learning to find my worth somewhere more reliable than other people's opinions.

If you've ever felt trapped by your own niceness, if you recognize yourself in these patterns, know that you're not alone. We're all just pigeons who learned to press the wrong lever. But once you see the cage, you can start looking for the door.

I write about this journey every week — the untangling of guilt, boundaries, and finally learning to live for myself. If this resonated, I’d love to have you along for the ride. subscribe if you like.