Is being a good girl a syndrome?
The good girl adapts to please others, to fulfill other people’s expectations to the point that she forgets herself. Technically it is called overadaptation syndrome.
Is fitting in a problem?
It is if the needs of others are more important than yours, if you seek to please in order to feel valid, because this leads you to instability, to not being motivated by anything and to feeling exhausted.
Does overfitting damage self-esteem?
A lot, because in the end what is prioritized is the other person’s vision and need and you become a secondary character in your own life.
Is living for others a mistake?
it damages the relationship with oneself and with others, because in the end unbalanced relationships are generated. When you live for others it is not unusual to feel life dissatisfaction.
Define life dissatisfaction for me.
A sense of emptiness, of having no purpose, because when you focus so much on other people you stop listening to yourself and therefore stop doing introspection, knowing where you want to direct your life and even knowing what you want to do today.
What is the profile of the good girl?
It is difficult for him to make decisions because of what others may think, and he usually establishes very superficial or very conflicting relationships, because there is an ambivalence between over-adapting to the other and rebelling.
And what about unexpressed anger?
That it moves: one day there is a disproportionate anger about something absurd, but in reality he is feeling anger about other situations to which he is subjected.
How can it be regulated?
Setting boundaries for others; if you don’t, repressed anger can become somatized and appear with physical symptoms and a lot of anxiety.
Is there a socio-demographic profile?
Especially girls between 20 and 40 years old with a high educational profile linked to a self-demand with academic merits and who have probably lived since childhood.
See the infantess?
Yes, for example if your family has established your value in what you are capable of achieving. And it has a lot to do with gender mandates towards women. We have been taught that to be good we must be fragile, docile, sweet, correct, generous… perfect, in general.
I thought that with the empowerment of women, the liberation…
Sometimes this mandate of liberation is what lies behind the good girl. Now you have to have a good feminist card, and many times this self-demand ends up being a noose around your neck.
Doesn’t it happen to boys?
It also happens to them, but not as much, and it has to do with the fact that they have acquired more feminized roles throughout their lives, as caretakers of their siblings, their mother or their father.
Tell me more strategies the good girl uses to feel validated.
Saving the other, something that happens a lot in couples, especially heterosexual ones. Save the boy who is conflicted or who has a complicated life, and who are anchored in the role of victim.
And the good girl holds it?
Yes, because it depends on the same dependence that he has towards her; base the relationship only on trying to save that person from a possible fatal fate. And so you enter a pattern of intermittent reinforcement.
explain it to me
For example, the sex in the couple is very pleasant, but there is a conflict and the girl is not able to leave the relationship, she maintains the bond despite the fact that the relationship is harmful.
What must be done to overcome this syndrome?
Self-listening, learning to take care of ourselves even in the most basic things; and self-esteem, which will allow us to work on relationships and break those that reinforce the syndrome.
Does the good girl end up depending on a reward that never comes?
Indeed, and it doesn’t come because no one will ever be able to fill that void that can only be filled by oneself.
What is the most painful?
The self-fulfilling prophecy. By being so dependent on the other’s needs, you don’t connect with your own and you don’t express them. By not expressing them, the other person does not see them, therefore, does not pay attention to them, and in the end you end up feeling abandoned. This is the self-fulfilling prophecy: what you fear most comes true.
What else do you need to run away from?
Of toxic positivity. One of the core beliefs of good girls is that if you are good and do good things, good things will happen to you.
Boundaries are essential.
Love is not unconditional as it is often said, it requires conditions, which are these limits: what is acceptable and what is unacceptable. And this is what allows us to care for the bond.
