always agreeing?

My T and I have kind of realized that I agree with people to (I hope) keep them liking me. I find myself fearing that if I don't agree with them, then they wont like me anymore.

She catches me doing the same thing in T. She likes it when I don't agree with her because it means that I'm not just agreeing with her. But sometimes I find myself agreeing to be agreeable. She caught me at it last week. She said something and I only partly understood what she was saying, but told her that it sounded good. She then asked me if I understood but I couldn't really say that I did. I think she was somewhat exasperated that I had just agreed with her when I didn't totally understand. I think part of the problem that time was that I understood part of what she was saying, but not all of it.

How do I keep myself with agreeing with someone when I don't agree? If you have read about my school issues, I feel like it has pushed me really back in this. I was working on this before school started. And was getting better at it. But now I feel with all of the criticism I've gotten at school for sharing my opinion, I have regressed in my ability to state what I think.

What do I do? How do I go back? Why am I so afraid? Why can't I even do this in T? Why is my automatic response to agree?

Googley, I understand what you are saying. There may be deep reasons linked to very early childhood that keeps you in fear of disagreement. A big part of child developement at two years of age is when the child learns how to say "NO" for the first time. Healthy parents realize that a child at this age is discovering his/her voice. It is normal and healthy for the child to experiment with "NO" at this age.

What can happen though is that if a parent over-reacts to the child at this stage, they can cause a child to feel that if "NO" is said, punishment results. Or the parent removes love. That causes harm. A good parent will allow the two year old to say "NO" without removing love from them or harming them. They may not accept "No" for an answer, but the child is never denied love for having a voice.

I agree with WePow, you were molded this way, you just need to discover what happened and then you can dismantle that automatic response if you understand it.

googley, she's helping you notice something important. And she wants to know how you really feel
I do the same thing and my T has encouraged me to say when something doesn't resonate with me or I don't agree. It's hard. I also told her that she talks over my head sometimes and I have wondered if she does on purpose, although she says no. So now I take it as a compliment that she thinks I would get it, but I can usually tell her.. "Huh?"

Thank you WePow for your reply. You took it to a level that I wasn't seeing; I was seeing only that when I do this, it is because I am afraid of conflict. But I am fortunate that I was the last child and got to see my mother respond to my siblings children, how controlling she was even with babies and how furious she was when the babies became thinking and talking toddlers. Fortunate because she was surely that way with me and your post brought up for me to think about.

ive had clients like this; where their knee-jerk reaction is to just go along with what im saying. i found that one of the things that helped them was to have a pause between question and response. i would say/ask something and he (im thinking of one person in particular but its worked for several people) would start nodding his head in agreement before i was done talking and the minute i finished he would verbally agree. i made him wait about 10 seconds and then repeat back what i had said/asked of him and THEN respond.

he said that taking the time to first make sure he understand what im saying and then think about whether or not he agrees before responding was something that he found helpful. i think slowing down processes is usually a good thing and gives us an opportunity to stop doing something or start doing something...

agreeing just to be agreeable is not a problem ive ever had! i have always been contrary, so i take joy in teaching my clients to be too! and i also think its important for me to foster an environment where its OKAY to disagree with me. once they see its okay to question or disagree with me, communication starts to get much more honest...which is what i need if im going to be of any help! i always tell my clients, ive read some books and taken some classes. i know a lotta crap about a lotta crap, but YOU are the expert on you.

Dr. Muffin,

You reminded me of how I used to say yes to anything anyone would ask me to do. Not as much any more as less people are asking me to do things. They asked and the first thing out of my mouth was "sure I'll do that for you." I did have to stop myself and make time before I answered. I worked really hard to get to the point where the first thing out of my mouth was "let me think about it" instead of "yes". It would keep me from the knee-jerk yes response. It kept me from saying 'yes' to everything and let me decide if I actually wanted to do something.

I should talk about that with my T and have her make me take time to think about what she says. Thanks for the reminder and the idea.

thats a great idea, googley.