The Nice Girl Syndrome by Beverly Engel Read Free Book Online Page B

feelings. Their own needs seemed utterly expendable. They learned to shrink their prob- lems and feelings into “little things,” calling them “unimportant,” “stupid,” and “not worth a fight,” and to stow them away somewhere inside.
    For many girls, the message of putting others ahead of them- selves is conveyed more by the examples of their mothers than by actual words. It is a powerful message, nevertheless. Girls who watch their mothers sacrifice their own needs and desires for those of their husbands on a daily basis receive the message loud and clear that their fathers’ needs are more important than their mothers’.
    In some homes, particularly where there is rampant misogyny, girls are taught that the feelings and needs of males are more impor- tant than those of females. They are forced to wait on the male members of the family and allow the boys and men (including even younger brothers) to tell them what to do. The definition of misogyny is “a distrust, fear, dislike, or hatred of females.” Inherent in misogynistic beliefs is that males are superior to females. As anti- quated as misogyny may seem to be, it is a powerful force in many cultures and religions today—both in the United States and in the rest of the world.
    In other families, particularly those where parents are self- absorbed or even narcissistic, the message is: My needs are more important than yours, or anyone else’s, for that matter. Self-absorbed and narcissistic parents teach their child that his or her own needs do not matter. Instead of meeting their child’s needs, these parents expect him or her to cater to and take care of them. In some cases, there is a reversal of roles: the child becomes the parent and vice versa. A child in this kind of family situation is often referred to as “parentified.” Such a child functions the way a parent should,
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    making sure that the parent’s emotional and sometimes physical needs are met. We will discuss this phenomenon in much more depth in part 2.

    Sherry: “I’d Rather Be the One Who Is Hurt”
    Another version of the false belief “Other people’s feelings and needs are far more important than my own” is the belief “I’d rather be the one who is hurt than to hurt someone else.” Although many of my Nice Girl clients have acted on this belief, no one actually verbalized it to me until I began working with Sherry. During one of our sessions, much to my surprise, Sherry uttered these words: “It hurts me too much to disappoint or hurt someone else. I feel so guilty. I’d rather be the one who is hurt. I can take that. But I can’t take knowing that I was the one to hurt someone else.”
    When Sherry was growing up, her mother always made her feel horribly guilty when she focused on her own needs or tried to stand up for herself. “How can you do this to me? You know I need you so much, you’re the only one who is there for me,” her mother would say. Sherry’s mother and father fought constantly, and her mother used her as a confidante, telling her private information about her father and their relationship—information she should not have been privy to.

False Belief #2: If I Am Nice (and Fair) to Other People, They Will Be Nice (and Fair) to Me
    At the core of this belief is the assumption that by being nice, you can avoid painful experiences such as someone getting angry with you, disapproving of you, or rejecting or abandoning you.
    But this belief borders on superstition—and is just as effective. You might as well throw salt over your shoulder to ward off evil spir- its as to believe that being nice to other people will guarantee that they will be nice to you.
    On the surface, this belief makes sense. It only stands to reason that by doing unto others as we would have them do unto us, we will elicit positive responses from them. Generally speaking, this is what happens. But there are four major flaws to this belief:
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