I love to make people happy. I used to go out of my way to make life easier for others or to prevent anyone from having any sort of conflict with me. I was a self-diagnosed people pleaser.

If you reread that introduction, you'll notice that I am mainly speaking in past-tense. I used to go out of my way to make people happy. I was a people pleaser. However, the very first sentence isn't like the rest. I STILL love to make people happy.

I've learned over time that making people happy isn't my worth or value.

When I first started college I didn't have a lot of friends. I was the freshman who went to class and went back to my dorm room. This led to a very lonely few months. Then I was quickly taken in by a friend group and off to the races I went. I hung out with these people all day, every day, most of the time until the early hours of the morning (sorry, mom). These friends weren't anything like the friends I had in high school so it wasn't long until I noticed myself changing to conform to their "norms."

Over the course of a year, I became someone I didn't recognize.

You see, I didn't think much about how this was affecting my health until I hit a brick wall during my second year of college. Fall semester of my sophomore year I noticed myself start to withdraw back to my apartment after every obligatory class or event that required me to leave. I lived with three other people who I never saw even though we lived a few feet away from each other.

All of my extroverted tendencies vanished and I was really just the shell of a girl that I once was.

This was my first encounter with a depressive period.

I wasn't quite sure why I was so sad and why it came on so quick but it completely reshaped my life. The winter break following that rough semester, I separated myself completely from everything that could have possibly been a trigger and focused on spending my month off doing the things I loved with the people that I love who love me exactly as I am. I stopped trying to please other people just for the sake of making them happy.

I lived for me and acted the way I wanted to act as opposed to playing this character I had morphed into.

When I stopped being a people pleaser, I started being a me-pleaser.

That month away from a very hectic and almost false life was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. I learned how to make people happy without sacrificing my own well-being. I started doing things that made me happy, not what was going to make me seem like the "perfect" friend or leader. For the first time in a long time, I put myself first.

I encourage anyone who considers themselves a people pleaser to take a step back and analyze why they perform the way that they do. Are you hurting yourself to build others up? Are you giving more than you're receiving?

I've learned that relationships of any kind whether they be romantic, platonic, or familial are a two-way street. You can only give so much before you are out of fuel. So take some time off and spend time doing the things you love. Read books, go to concerts, spend time with the people who love you just the way you are. You can't please others if you can't please yourself.

You're a unique human being for a reason. We are not carbon copies of each other and I don't intend to spend the rest of my life as a knockoff version of someone else when I'm the original, limited-edition version of me. You should be the original, limited-edition version of yourself too.