Lyrics from MILCK’s Undercover
Often a childhood of abuse and/or neglect can lead a person to feel the need to be liked by everyone. This way of being in the world helped them to survive their childhood.
Once into adulthood though, this way of being often does not serve them very well. When you want to be liked by everyone, you end up living someone else’s life.
This is dysfunctional and leads to a lot of identity confusion and unhappiness.
It is not the person’s fault that they have not adjusted their interpersonal style in adulthood. Once that way of being is learned in childhood it becomes a template for all future relationships. It is automatic and often out of the person’s awareness.
Once the person becomes aware of this style of relating they often find it is hard to change. This is because there are a host of memories and emotions that reinforce their behavior as well as core beliefs about the self. This can result in feeling defeated and can reinforce negative beliefs about themselves. This is why therapy is so important in these situations.
In EMDR therapy we help transform those negative beliefs into more adaptive and positive beliefs about the self. This along with desensitizing their painful memories allows the person to transform their lives and ways of interacting with others.