Dr. Lindsay C. Gibson Told Me This And It Changed My Life.

I always feel like I’m imposing.
I feel anxious asking for help.
It’s hard for me to ask for what I need.

If any of these resonate with you, you’re not alone. Google searches for "people-pleasing" have skyrocketed in the past five years as its toll on emotional well-being has come into global awareness.

But just because we understand the mechanism, doesn’t mean we can always escape it—at least not fully.

Despite decades of work on my own wounds, I still see their effects seep into my life. Fortunately, it was in one of these moments that Dr. Lindsay C. Gibson—author of Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents—changed my life in a way few things have.

The Secret To Healthy Relationships

Early in our work on The Emotionally Immature Parents Intensive, I had to make three separate requests from Dr. Gibson back to back to back—and I was dreading it.

Having been conditioned to handle my problems alone, making the third of these requests felt incredibly triggering.

To hedge my anxiety, I ended the request with something to the effect of I’m sorry to impose or I apologize if I’m overloading you. Dr. Gibson’s response shifted how I see relationships forever.

She said:

I'm a big advocate of asking for everything you want and then trusting that the other person will honestly tell you what they can and can't do. When we do that, it creates an honest interaction, and we feel a little closer and more comfortable with each other.

The Belief Of Burden

When we grow up in environments where asking for help leads to rejection, anger, or guilt, we internalize the belief that our needs are a burden. Over time, this belief doesn’t just shape how we interact with family—it infiltrates our friendships, romantic relationships, and work life. We hesitate to ask for support, downplay our struggles, and take on more than we should because deep down, we are terrified of facing that familiar rejections or feeling like a nuisance.

Dr. Gibson’s perspective helped me see the obvious truth that without the danger of a toxic response, something that has no place in a close personal relationship, there’s no reason to fear asking for what you need.

In a good relationship, the part that scares us most—saying no, setting boundaries—is actually what gives the other person the freedom to ask for exactly what they need.

That’s how healthy relationships are supposed to work. They thrive on honesty and being there for one another. They allow space for both people to voice their needs and trust that the other will respond in a way that honors their own limits, not out of resentment, but out of mutual respect.

Needing support is just being human—reaching out to others should deepen trust rather than jeopardize it.

With that lesson, Dr. Gibson gave me more than just permission to ask for what I need—she taught me what a safe emotional connection looks like and reminded me that I, and you, deserve to have it in all our personal relationships.

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Very few people know this, but there was a moment not too long ago when I seriously considered walking away from social media for good. The pressure I put on myself to constantly ‘provide value’ left me with a gnawing feeling that nothing I did was ever enough. I was exhausted—completely drained by the admittedly self-imposed expectation that my work should always serve others and that my online existence should justify itself through usefulness.

In a moment of inner conflict, I reached out to Dr. Gibson for guidance. Her response was deeply insightful, as it always seems to be, and one that I suspect many children of emotionally immature parents could use hearing:

“Having a good heart is not a life sentence to put others first all the time. You can just be on this earth.”

I sat with those words for a long time. What would it mean to just be? To not constantly measure our worth by what we produce, how much we help, or how well we meet the expectations of others?

The idea that we could just exist—without justification, without obligation—feels liberating, doesn’t it?

But Dr. Gibson wasn’t done wisdoming just yet.

I often think, she said, that really creative people who've been emotionally injured are moved to help others, but then at some point, they come back to their creative roots—or maybe they come back to their right-to-live and enjoy-life roots. We need fresh water flowing through the system on a regular basis.

Those words resonated with me so deeply. So many people who have been through emotional turmoil feel a pull to do good, to give back, to help others heal. And that’s beautiful. It really is. Like flowers blossoming in uninhabitable terrain. But at some point, we also need to return to ourselves. Creativity shouldn’t just be a tool for helping others—it should be a source of joy, a form of play, an expression of life for its own sake.

That reminder saved me in a way I didn’t realize I needed. It gave me permission to step back when I felt drained, to create out of passion rather than obligation, and to remember that I don’t have to earn my right to be here, not online and not in my personal relationships.

And in case you forgot too—neither do you. 💛

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Hi friend, thank you so much for taking time out of your day to read my article, it really means a lot to me! If you’re looking for more support on your healing journey, here are some resources that might help:

• Recovering From Emotionally Immature Parents Course - featuring Dr. Lindsay C. Gibson.

• Book Club & Women’s Support Group - led by Academy of Self Help co-founder Michelle and therapist Nicole Johnson, author of the upcoming book Reparenting Your Inner Child.

• My book As Far As I Can Tell.