Funny - I was just going to start a post on this subject! Wanted to ask if being a people pleasing approval seeker is more common amongst people with full BPD or borderline/emotional instability traits - or if is nothing to do with borderline?

I think I was brought up to ignore or dismiss or deny a lot of my feelings. They were not acceptable. Parents probably taught me this by invalidation - laugh at or deny or disapprove of showing real feelings they considered unacceptable. Now I know through therapy that feelings are just given to us to feel and we do not choose them - although we can choose or control the actions we take or do not take as a result of those feelings.

So I on occasions when I let my real feelings about something out (usually when I drank), I would be so worried, in fact terrified about the reaction / disapproval /rejection by others that I would be in a crisis of self hate for ages afterwards.
Also at times if i felt angry or resentful about something someone did to me, I lacked
the feeling of entitlement to feel that way
the courage to confront them and
would feel fear of rejection by them.

Did not expect a mature, assertive discussion that might resolve issues or resolve problems and perhaps involve things like the other person understanding me or even apologizing if appropriate. (Of course I would not expect that - I never had it much before!). So I would be more likely to turn all those unresolved feelings in and hate myself for being "ugly" and "full of hate" inside.

And then that feeds the self hate and makes you more likely to be more approval seeking in future to make yourself feel better - so I would end up seeking the approval of the person who I had the justified anger towards in the first place. Then i would feel more confused and resentful!?

Sometimes I pretend not to know something that I do so the person I am speaking to does not think I am too "smart arsed" . Maybe i also do this because i do not want to say - "Yeah, of course I know that!". Then i have to listen to them tell me something I already know. Maybe I act the dumb blond / child like - for approval?

So does what I have written above sound like emotional instability / a borderline trait to others?