Not a People Pleaser, Just a Control Freak

On learning, unlearning, and trying to be better

Dear whomever,

I have two cats. Each morning, at around 6AM, they start trying to rouse me out of bed. A head-butt here, a meow there, a paw in my face, sometimes a claw. They have become my alarm clocks, but I could sleep in until 8 and still make it to work - and sleep is a better pastime for me than thinking. When awake, I am always thinking, so I am often frustrated with the two, pulling the covers over my head to protect me from their love.

I try to ignore them, to ensure this habit doesn’t ensue. I’ve done all the right things: I don’t feed them as soon as I’m awake, so they aren’t trained to believe me waking up equates food, but regardless, my cat Moon is a cuddler, and around sunrise, he likes to paw his way through my hands and blankets and find a comfortable spot. We’ll sleep a bit together, but then he’s hungry again, ramming his head into my face.

Cats are untrainable things.

Look, I can make it to work, no matter what. I’ve always been in charge of my sleep - when I was younger my mother was a teacher at my school, so it meant a lot for her job security that we were there on time. After a few years of screaming at me to get out of bed she told me, point blank, that she would not raise a finger. That she didn’t care how late I slept - or how late I woke up - but if I wasn’t ready and in the car on time, she was leaving without me.

So I know how to wake up in the morning. Perhaps this is a good thing she taught me in my youth. She also always allowed me sick days if I was feeling unwell - or often, depressed. My dogma has always been, regardless, to get as much sleep as possible, so I have perfected the act of making myself presentable in less than 30 minutes - 15 is my standard. But this is no good thing, this morning routine of mine. I am always rushing to make up for those blissful 30 to 60 minutes of sleep, which are never as blissful as I wish, and the cats, well, they are annoying little things. Sure, I can do it. But am I doing it right?

Am I doing this right?

It’s a thought that comes into my mind as soon as I’m awake. Since visiting my doctor friend and getting a full-body check up, I’ve realized that many of the symptoms I have are just from the depression. The sleeping until the last minute, well, I think it’s depression as well. It’s my way of prolonging my entrance into the world. While it’s nice I’m physically healthy, I am almost in a perpetual state of exhaustion, with no cure to look forward to, no vitamin deficiency, no reliable excuse.

I’m able to say, This is just depression. You are not sick. Get out of bed, get going. But getting out of bed may be the hardest part of being depressed. One day of my weekends is spent in my bed, in its entirety. If not, if I don’t have that space, to just sit in silence and turn my brain off for 24-hours, I don’t have a great week. It sours my mood, to not rot, for at least one full day. I’ve realized that this is burn-out.

Funny enough, as I began this first draft, just as I typed that last word in the paragraph above, I could smell my dinner burning. Dinner - a small piece of lamb, which was hidden in my freezer since Eid. Though I’m sure I don’t cook them right, last time it made for a tasty dish. I’m Arab - I like meat. Don’t need any appetizers or side dishes, just the buttery piece of meat. Chefs kiss. Alas, I burnt it, and opened the door to my kitchen, which was thick with smoke. Thick enough that I couldn’t see in front of me at all, and was sure that there was a fire. Somehow, I made my way through it, to the oven, I switched it off, and opened the windows. No fire - just the skin burning, black, against the bottom of the pan.

That’s what it feels like to wake up with depression.

It is difficult to walk into the thick fog of life, cyclicly, daily. Stepping into that fog and opening the windows of the kitchen is equivalent to forcing myself upwards at 8AM, and drinking some water. Sometimes, I pull the blinds open with whatever energy I’ve mustered, and hope the Tik Tok advice is true - that immediate sunlight helps energize you. But for as long as I remember, waking up is a thick cloud, so heavy, and everyday, I must force myself through it, and live.

But my issue isn’t only the thick, murky presence of depression. It’s my anxious thoughts on top of that, and my relationship to the people around me. I’ve somehow perfected a way of life that is a constant hyper vigilance mixed with an infinite amount of sadness - there a heaviness burning inside of me, and an anxiousness protruding outside of me. There is no space in my body for relief, or rest. I am always hoping and trying to ensure things are okay. Are you okay? Am I okay? Is anything okay? I thought sleeping earlier would cure my exhaustion, but no sleep is enough for depression - sleeping earlier was just barring me from the world.

These past few weeks, I’ve been reflecting on all these things. Currently, my Instagram algorithm is feeding me “people pleasing” and “anxious attachment” therapist-influencers psychoanalyzing their audiences, and often, their words feel incredibly curated to my situation. Worse, their words make me overthink my conundrum: is it depression? Is it anxiety? Is it my attachment issues? What is it?

My Bumble profile has a line that says “Message me and I’ll psycho-analyze you,” which was funny then, but now, I’m looking into it deeper. People call me an empath, but in reality I am but a storyteller, dreaming up stories about them and hoping it’s truth. Hoping they like me. Hoping they can manage me. Hoping I’m not too much or too little, but a perfect balance in-between. Mild. Lukewarm.

Sometimes, I sit my friends in a circle around me and ask what they like about me, and what they don’t. It’s a joke, now - “Please, please, please, let’s not start this,” they’ll moan, giggling from behind the smoke-fog we’ve created in my living room. If one of them quiets, I keep asking, “Are you okay?” on a never-ending loop. The other day, my friend quieted me with one sentence: “I’m not mad at you, but now that you’ve asked so much, I kind of am.”

It stopped me in my tracks. I feigned a smile and looked down at my phone, and realized that they were right. I was trying to ensure control over their emotions, to make sure that I had the opportunity to apologize before I’d even done anything wrong. I’d exhausted myself with the possibilities, with running through my words to ensure I hadn’t said anything hurtful, and all of it was meaningless, because I didn’t even trust them enough to flag if something had hurt them. I’d ate up all my mental load by asking and thinking and asking and thinking - it made me wonder if I trusted anyone at all. That isn’t love, now, is it?

You are nothing if you are rotting inside, and less if you are working only to please the world. What’s left for you?

When I feel something, I run to Google Docs or Notes app and write a poem or a piece about them. My biggest project has always been myself - and perhaps that’s true of any human - but this project, my dear reader, is sipping all life-force from inside of me.

I am tired of hiding behind this empathetic persona that is… in reality… nothing but a role I’ve learned to play that I assume everyone will like. And, in some sense, that I will one day wake up to and like myself, too.

Everything is a reflection.

When we think about people-pleasing, we think of that girl I described above: asking if everything is okay, adjusting her actions to suit those around her. Always saying Yes. Always doing more. And that’s true, yes, but underneath all of those actions is only someone hoping for control over an uncontrollable world. Hoping for a sense of peace that was never theirs to force.

A tip from my 24 year old self: cry. A lot. Release what’s inside of you, and start again. Stop trying to understand things. Stop trying to preemptively place the blame on yourself, or prepare yourself for blame to be set on you. Constantly looking for answers in this world is a rush to more questions.

Find your middle, and remind yourself that when someone’s upset, they will tell you. And that the first person you must listen to is yourself - if yourself is upset with you. Are you upset with yourself and assuming the world is, too?

Could that be it?

I wake up so cold, wishing to shut out the world and stay in my bed, where it is warm and quiet and safe. Where I don’t have to exert any energy on living - and what is living to me? Living, to me, has been only expecting. Expecting pain, expecting blame, expecting people’s love for me to shift into hate. And what have I gotten from that except an exhausted body and a tired mind? What have I gained from this precognition that saved someone from hating me, eventually, somehow?

I grab onto relationships by the throat - and I try to keep that person there, tamed, forever. Are you mad at me? I shout, into their face, over and over again, a smile so wide, cheeks so pink, hands so fucking soft. Don’t be mad at me - I can apologize before you’ve even thought to be.

I’m sorry is the most familiar word to me.

And where has that gotten me, in the end?

when you subscribe you’ll become my pen-pal, and i will mail you about four letters a month, ranging between:

• a letter about a situation in my life and maybe what it taught me (personal essay)

• a letter i write in one-go that i try not to overthink (stream of consciousness)

• a letter with a piece i wrote and/or published (poetry)