Is this who i am? Wow, at the age of 34 I just learned that I am addicted to acceptance and approval! I saw Dr. Phil tell Sarah Ferguson on Oprah a few days ago that she’s like an addict, addicted to acceptance and approval. She never felt loved as a child, always wanted her mom to tell her she love her, and her dad often told her to stop acting like a sheep’s ass. So given that Sarah was a girl that looked to be loved and accepted Dr. Phil advised her that she would do anything to get approval, including placing herself around people who are clearly not for her best interest. Hearing him tell her this made me say hummmm, and I tilted my head to the side. I said to myself “it all makes sense” I always wondered why people attempt to take advantage of me or mistreat me. I always asked myself “what did I do?” or “did I do something wrong?” Sarah said the same thing. I think she also had problems with knowing her self-worth. I know my self-worth but could never understand why I always ended up in the same pattern of second guessing and questioning myself and at the same time witnessing how others enjoy taking advantage of the situation. Sometimes they put on extra attitude to help me convict myself or sometimes I’m deliberately over looked. I've never been a follower nor did i try to fit in but like everyone else, i want to be accepted and liked.
So again, I will use my experiences and what I’ve learned to help others. Sometimes it is not about not knowing your worth. It is about not realizing that you are trying to seek approval from people to make up for the approval you never got. It is about thinking that you are the reason you were rejected and doing everything in your power to make people see how nice of a person you are. Well here’s a dose of reality for you all including myself. You already know what type of person you are so there is no need to convince anyone of who you are. By always trying to please, you give people power over you and since they recognize that you want to be liked, they will never paint a good picture of you and will always treat you as if you’ve done something wrong and you will always be asking yourself “did I do something wrong?” That is an exhausting pattern and it has to STOP! Start to tell yourself this, if you’ve done something or said something so wrong, they have the power to tell you exactly how they feel about it. Now, if they don’t say anything, they don’t have the right to mistreat you and you don’t have to take it. You are not wrong unless they’ve brought it to your attention and you understand what you’ve done or said wrong. This will give you the opportunity to correct yourself or explain yourself which mean you will have *power* over you. Here’s a perfect way to see it. See it as this, if people do not let you know how they feel and choose to mistreat you, it is because they do not want you to fix it, they want you to wonder what the problem is so they can have the power to mistreat you. Either they tell you what their gripe with you is or they can step off because their problem is not your problem. You guys have some homework which is focus on not being Mr. and Mrs. FIX IT, PLEASER, NEED APPROVAL OR ACCEPTANCE. If they do not tell you what the problem is, you do not have a problem! 
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