The "Nice" Addiction: Why People Pleasing is Actually a Trauma Response

We often treat "people pleasing" as a personality quirk or a virtue—a sign that someone is just really kind, generous, or easygoing. But if we look under the hood, chronic people pleasing is rarely about altruism. It isn’t just about making others happy.

At its core, people pleasing is an addiction to external validation. It is a frantic attempt to fill an internal void because the internal compass—the part of you that knows who you are and what you need—has been silenced.

If you find yourself unable to say no, over-explaining yourself, or shapeshifting to fit every room you walk into, you aren’t just "being nice." You are likely engaging in a survival strategy known as Fawning.

It’s Not "Fun," It’s Fawn: The Fourth Trauma Response

Most people know the first three acute stress responses:

• Fight: Aggression and defense.

• Flight: Running away or avoiding.

• Freeze: Shutting down or dissociating.

The fourth response, identified prominently by psychotherapist and trauma expert Pete Walker, is Fawn.

Fawning is the use of people pleasing, appeasing, and helpfulness to diffuse a threat. In a dysfunctional or unsafe environment (often in childhood), fighting back or running away might have been impossible. So, the brain chose a different route: “If I can make myself useful, if I can make them happy, if I can be exactly who they want me to be, I will be safe.”

Fawning is not a choice; it is a neurological imperative to merge your needs with the needs of others to avoid conflict. It is a surrender of the self to buy safety.

The Addiction to the External

When you spend a lifetime fawning, you lose touch with your "internal compass"—your own intuition, desires, and boundaries. This creates a terrifying void inside.

Because you cannot generate a sense of worth or direction internally, you have to source it externally. This is where people pleasing morphs into an addiction. You become addicted to:

• Validation: Hearing "good job" or "you're so helpful."

• People: Relying on others to regulate your emotions.

• Achievements: Using accolades to prove you exist and matter.

As Dr. Gabor Maté often discusses regarding addiction and trauma, the behavior is an attempt to solve a problem of pain. The "high" of pleasing someone momentarily soothes the anxiety of the internal void. But like any addiction, the high wears off, the void returns, and you have to please again—often at the cost of your own health and identity.

How to Pivot: Embracing the Uncomfortableness

Breaking the cycle of people pleasing is not about "learning to say no." That is just the mechanic. The real work is learning to tolerate the withdrawal symptoms of not pleasing.

When you stop fawning, you will not feel relieved immediately; you will feel anxious. You will feel "bad." You will feel selfish. This is the "uncomfortableness" you must learn to sit with.

Here is how to start shrinking the void so you don't have to fill it with other people:

1. The Pause (Disrupting the Reflex)

Fawning is a reflex. To break it, you must insert a pause between the request and your answer.

• The Practice: Do not answer any request immediately. Use a script: "Let me check my capacity and get back to you."

• The Goal: This buys you time to check your internal compass before your trauma response says "yes."

2. Sit with the "Guilt"

When you finally say no or set a boundary, your body will likely scream that you are in danger. This is a false alarm from your past.

• The Practice: Instead of rushing to fix the feeling by apologizing or changing your mind, sit in the discomfort. Acknowledge it: "I feel anxious right now because I am breaking a pattern, not because I did something wrong."

3. Rebuilding the Internal Compass

To make the void smaller, you must fill it with you. You cannot know what you need if you don't know who you are.

• The Practice: Start with low-stakes identity work. What do you actually like to eat? What music do you like? (Not what your partner or parents like).

• The Goal: Every time you identify a preference and honor it, you lay a brick in the foundation of your self-identity. The more solid your foundation, the less you need to reach outside yourself for stability.

Conclusion

People pleasing is an exhausting hustle. It is the job of managing everyone else's emotions because you were never taught how to manage your own.

Healing begins when you realize that "No" is a complete sentence, and that your worth is an inside job. It requires stepping into the discomfort of being disliked by others so that you can finally start being loved by yourself.

References & Further Reading

• Pete Walker, M.A., MFT: Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving. (Specifically for the definition of the "Fawn" response and the 4Fs of trauma).

• Dr. Gabor Maté: In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts. (For understanding the mechanics of addiction and how trauma creates voids we try to fill externally).

• Dr. Nicole LePera (The Holistic Psychologist): How to Do the Work. (For practical steps on breaking cycles and nervous system regulation).

• Alice Miller: The Drama of the Gifted Child. (A classic text on how children lose their true selves to gratify the needs of their parents).