I am a daughter of a narcissistic mother with bipolar and delusional disorder, and a father who was emotionally absent long before he physically left when I was nine, then died when I was sixteen. I don’t even have to explain the level of people-pleasing that created in me, you can probably guess it.
Still, the level was so intense that if I had to ask someone to do a task I had already paid them for, my heart would race like I was about to commit a crime. I’d overthink it so much that I wouldn’t sleep for nights, all because of one tiny moment where I was supposed to choose myself, and I didn’t. People took advantage of me left and right. I let them, because the guilt of saying no felt heavier than the discomfort of being used.
I’m mostly recovered now. Today someone tried to say something inappropriate to me, and again I felt that familiar crossroad. either say what’s right or slip back into politeness that isn’t even politeness, it’s fear. I took a pause, felt my body, and replied in a way that made them apologise on the spot. That moment reminded me how far I’ve come. I cancel plans with ease now if I’m not feeling it. But for most of my life, even that felt impossible.
Since I said no today, I thought maybe it’s time to tell you the work behind that one small word.
The real reason behind the automatic yes
This pattern of self-betrayal didn’t come out of nowhere. It grew inside me the same way it grows inside many children who are born into unsafe emotional spaces. My narcissistic mother never said, “You must take care of my feelings,” but her whole presence demanded it. I learned early that when her mood dipped, the house dipped with it. When she felt hurt, I had to smooth it. When she exploded, I had to shrink.
Children don’t choose these roles. They fall into them because the nervous system wants safety more than it wants truth.
By the time I was a teenager, saying no felt dangerous. It felt like it would break the fragile balance I kept trying to hold at home. So I became the girl who overextended, who gave more than she had, who didn’t want to bother anyone with her needs. I carried that identity into adulthood without realising it wasn’t an identity at all. it was conditioning.
That’s the awful part. What you think is your personality is often just your childhood coping mechanism wearing adult clothes.
How the brain wires self-sacrifice
When a child grows up in a place where feelings don’t matter, the brain adjusts to survive. It learns that staying quiet keeps things safe. The amygdala, part of the brain that watches for danger becomes jumpy, reacting to small things like they’re big threats. And the prefrontal cortex, that helps you make choices begins holding your real reactions back, just so the house stays calm.
Your brain doesn’t care about your future boundaries. It cares about getting you through the next minute without chaos.
Repeated often enough, these reactions turn into a familiar route in the brain, like a shortcut your mind stops questioning. Instead of pausing to ask yourself what you actually want, the brain pulls you into the old pattern because it feels predictable. Safety becomes tied to being agreeable, pleasant, helpful, endlessly available, even when those choices drain you. The brain keeps choosing what once protected you, not what supports you now.
Cortisol also plays a role here. Chronic people-pleasing triggers low-level stress, which means the body stays stuck in a state of alert. The more you suppress your anger and needs, the more your immune system becomes confused. Studies shows how emotional repression leads to inflammation, hormonal imbalance and weakened defences. It’s not dramatic stress that destroys your health, it’s the constant small betrayals.
Self-sacrifice becomes a biological burden.
Small moments show the real damage
If you’ve lived your life as the caretaker or the “good one,” you know the micro-moments I’m talking about.
There’s the way your chest tightens when someone hints they’re upset with you. Or when you rehearse your words ten times before expressing a simple preference. Or when your stomach twists because you’re about to cancel plans even though you desperately need rest. Or when you apologise for something that wasn’t your fault just to keep the room calm.
One of the strangest signs for me was how my body reacted after doing someone a favour. You’d think helping would make me feel warm. Instead, my shoulders tensed. My breath shortened. It felt like my body was whispering, “We did it again. We abandoned ourselves.”
Your nervous system always knows the difference between a loving yes and a fearful one.
How inner work helped me break the pattern
When I began doing the deep meditations, I wasn’t trying to become someone new. I was trying to meet the part of myself I had abandoned a long time ago. Inner work taught me that the self we act from each day is only a memorized pattern in the brain. And that pattern can be rewired.
During meditation, when the brain shifts from its fast survival waves into slower, calmer ones, something interesting happens. The mind enters theta, a state where we’re more open and suggestible, almost like the brain loosens its grip on old stories. In theta, the patterns we repeat to ourselves sink in deeper, so when you rehearse new behaviours or new emotional responses, they don’t stay as ideas. they begin turning into real neural pathways. That’s why the version of me that always said yes without thinking didn’t feel as solid anymore. I could observe her. I could see where she came from. I could feel the guilt that kept her alive, and for the first time, I had enough space inside myself to choose something different.
With time, I learned to pause. That tiny pause changed everything.
What awareness feels like
Awareness isn’t peaceful. At first, it was uncomfortable. I had to feel the guilt I used to run from. I had to hear the fear in my own body. I had to notice the way my hands got cold when someone asked for something. This was my nervous system learning that saying no wasn’t a threat.
Slowly, as I practiced this, my biology changed. The tightness in my gut faded. My shoulders weren’t lifting to my ears anymore. I didn’t get those sudden energy crashes after saying yes. My body began trusting me.
Your body needs to know that you’re on its side.
How to start breaking the yes-pattern
There are things you can do to teach your nervous system that your needs matter. This isn’t about forcing boundaries or becoming harsh. It’s about learning how to stop abandoning yourself.
- Notice your guilt. When guilt shows up, don’t fight it. Ask it what rule from childhood it’s trying to protect.
- Practice micro-no’s. You don’t have to start with big boundaries. Start with small ones. Saying, “I can do it later,” instead of jumping into action.
- Sit with discomfort. Saying no will feel scary. Your body is rewriting years of conditioning. Breathe through the fear.
- Understand your anger. Anger isn’t bad. It’s a signal that your boundary has been crossed. Let it inform you.
- Check in with your body. If your chest tightens, if your breath stops, if your jaw locks, that’s your body telling you the yes isn’t coming from love.
- Use meditation to rehearse new patterns. When your mind slips into calmer brain states, especially theta, it becomes easier to plant new behaviours. Think of it as giving your brain a rehearsal room where no one is judging you. Visualise yourself saying no in situations that normally trigger fear. Imagine your body staying steady. Picture the conversation going well. The brain doesn’t know the difference between a real and vividly imagined experience, so with enough repetition in this relaxed state, your nervous system begins accepting the new pattern as normal. This makes it much easier to follow through in real life.
Each of these steps slowly rewires the brain. New pathways form. The old pattern weakens. Your biology begins to align with your truth instead of your fear.
When the science finally made it real
There’s a moment in every healing journey when the body stops whispering and starts showing you the science of what you’ve been doing to it. For me, that moment didn’t come with a dramatic scene or a big confrontation. It came when I learned why the automatic yes is not just emotional, it changes your physiology.
Research shows that when you say yes while your whole system is screaming no, the body treats it like a threat. Cortisol spikes. Inflammation rises. Even heart rate variability drops, which is one of the strongest indicators of chronic stress. The immune system becomes confused because it keeps receiving a mixed message, you look calm on the outside, but internally you’re signalling danger.
Studies show that self-silencing is a major predictor of autoimmune disorders and chronic illness. When anger is suppressed, the prefrontal cortex dampens emotional expression while the limbic system stays activated. This mismatch creates long-term wear and tear on the body, something researchers call allostatic load. It’s what happens when your physiology pays the price for your politeness.
Saying no isn’t just about boundaries. It’s literally about reducing the biological cost of self-betrayal.
Once I understood this, things shifted. I wasn’t just protecting my time or energy, I was protecting my cells, my hormones, my immune system. Neuroscience finally gave me permission to do what my childhood never allowed. It taught me that honouring myself isn’t attitude. It’s regulation. It’s health.
You’re allowed to choose yourself
When you grow up as the caretaker, choosing yourself feels like a crime. But the truth is that your health depends on it. The body wasn’t designed to live in constant self-denial. It wasn’t built to carry everyone’s needs while yours gather dust in the corner.
Rest doesn’t need an explanation. Saying no doesn’t make you unkind. Having needs doesn’t make you a burden.
Every time you honour your limit, your body learns safety again.
Final thoughts
If no one has told you this before, let me say it clearly… you matter outside of what you do for people. Your worth isn’t measured in favours or compliance. It’s written in your biology, your breath, your nervous system.
And if any part of this feels familiar, if you’ve spent years saying yes when your whole self was whispering no, you’re not alone. I’ve lived that life. I’ve healed from that life.
If you want to unpack these patterns more deeply, you can book a 1:1 session through my homepage. You can join my newsletter where I share weekly reflections on healing. And if you’re on Threads, I’m there every day posting small, honest pieces of my journey.
We’re learning how to stop abandoning ourselves. We’re learning how to come home to our own bodies. And we don’t have to do it alone.
