The approval syndrome

There is a very popular syndrome that most ladies suffer from. It doesn’t have the regular symptoms that can be treated with a couple of pills taken at specific times of the day. It doesn’t come up at certain periods in a month and go down unless it has been completely satisfied. You cannot wish it away or bully yourself into looking past its existence. It can sometimes raise your temperature so high that even the world’s strongest thermometer would hesitate to detect it. I am talking about something that is often overlooked but always rears its head up in the lives of most ladies. It’s called the approval syndrome.

It happens to even the best of us, especially when we are overly concerned about the way people view us. We see it in most areas of our lives. Every lady wants to be the best looking lady in the room. Even the shyest girl still feels special when she’s got eyes on her. Somehow it makes her feel like she’s very attractive and special. Well, that’s for the times when you actually look good. The approval syndrome doesn’t seem like a very harmful one when you are being appreciated by people you come across. When however, you enter a gathering and find that your dress appears to be the least expensive or the dullest, I can only imagine what your mood will be throughout that day. Some girls have been known to enter bouts of depression just because she’s the least attractive in a gathering.

Just think about the last time you dressed up just before leaving your house, perhaps it was just this morning. What were the thoughts that centered on your mind before you chose the outfit you eventually wore? If I am to make a guess I’ll say you were probably thinking of wearing something that would give people a good impression about you, or you dressed for the role that you want to fit into (maybe you wore a formal dress because you need people to see you as a serious working-class lady) or you wore something comfortable for the activities you planned to engage in that day (you wouldn’t want to be caught dead wearing an evening gown to ‘daytime’ lectures). There’s an appropriate code in every civilized society and everyone suffering from the approval syndrome needs those pills to feel normal.

We all have a little bit of the approval syndrome manifesting in us. I realized that for very simple things like the dress I wear, I would only feel happy about myself if I felt that other people approved of it. A friend of mine once said that if she lives through a day without anyone telling her she looks beautiful then she would feel very bad throughout that day. Now that’s a bit extreme and it would be a very silly reason to feel good about yourself.

Why would we need someone to approve us? It is like saying someone holds the key to your happiness. How difficult can it be to just sign the approval yourself? It is still your life right? I’ve realized that sometimes we lock ourselves in the prison of our own making and hand over the keys to persons that don’t matter. Now I’m not trying to say that we should not listen to other people’s contributions to our lives or their opinions regarding us. On the contrary, it is quite normal to adhere to the regular codes of society. Don’t leave your house wearing only your birthday suit except of course you are in the early stages of ‘man in the state of nature’…lol…that’s my way of saying ‘early stages of madness. Those codes are there for a reason. The only difference is that you shouldn’t let the opinions of other people who you may not even know control your happiness. Are you still constantly battling with people’s approval before you take a decision? Do you give up on things just because someone does not approve? Have you let go of ideas for lack of approval from people? This may be your chance to seek God’s approval and once you have it then take the wheels and find what you want yourself.

Femmetotale