I am a people pleaser and I want to know how to stop it. I’d like to setup boundaries with my father, an alcoholic. Interesting to me, I always am concerned that he’ll feel badly after I explain new appropriate boundaries. Then I am mad at myself for letting him off the hook for his behavior when I chicken out of setting the boundaries. I know I can’t control his behavior, but it still upsets me, especially when he got drunk and acted terribly the night I brought my newborn home, all I wanted that night was love, support, and quietness. I got loudness, obnoxious drunk behavior that disrupted the entire household. And Brooke, I heard you when you said you have a great relationship with your mom after you set boundaries…I want to know how to do that with my dad.

I’d also like to change ‘the story’ I tell myself surrounding my experiences growing up with an alcoholic dad and dealing with the trauma of a broken family. Not sure how to stop being the victim and proceed with a ‘better’ yet ‘believable’ story.