Proof of Life with Preston Rakovsky
Jun 21, 2026 · 25 min · 10 segments
A lifelong people pleaser who befriended everyone from her classmates to the nurse drawing her blood explains why being liked by everyone left her feeling known by no one, what a $3,000 trip to…
Preston RakovskyHostI think that growing up I somehow internalized that I had control over other people.
Like, almost like they were my puppets.
Sort of like I could do things to make them like me and I could do things to make them not like me.
Like, whatever happened, however people were feeling, it was always on me.
So whenever I made friends, I'd go about it super intensely.
Like, they talk about a movie series they liked, I would go home and spend hours just binging that one movie series so that we could have, like, one thing to talk about.
And it would be like 3:00 AM.
And I'd have to go to school the next day.
And yeah, I still kept doing this because I thought, "If I don't do this, you know, we'll have nothing to talk about.
We're not gonna get along.
They're not gonna like me, you know?"
And if they don't like me, that's the end of the world.
Um-
Exactly.
I remember once [laughs] I got into an argument with someone that I'd become good friends with.
Um, and I went home and I just spent hours filling up this entire journal about why I had felt the way that I'd felt and why I did what I did and how sorry I was.
And I didn't even end up giving it to her 'cause I thought, "Oh, this is so lame." But it's just like insane large gestures that I thought would help me win someone over, because I felt like I had to prove myself, you know, somehow.
That, like, they wouldn't wanna be friends with me if I was just me.
I think that growing up I somehow internalized that I had control over other people.
Like, almost like they were my puppets.
Sort of like I could do things to make them like me and I could do things to make them not like me.
Like, whatever happened, however people were feeling, it was always on me.
So whenever I made friends, I'd go about it super intensely.
Like, they talk about a movie series they liked, I would go home and spend hours just binging that one movie series so that we could have, like, one thing to talk about.
And it would be like 3:00 AM.
And I'd have to go to school the next day.
And yeah, I still kept doing this because I thought, "If I don't do this, you know, we'll have nothing to talk about.
We're not gonna get along.
They're not gonna like me, you know?"
And if they don't like me, that's the end of the world.
Um-
Exactly.
I remember once [laughs] I got into an argument with someone that I'd become good friends with.
Um, and I went home and I just spent hours filling up this entire journal about why I had felt the way that I'd felt and why I did what I did and how sorry I was.
And I didn't even end up giving it to her 'cause I thought, "Oh, this is so lame." But it's just like insane large gestures that I thought would help me win someone over, because I felt like I had to prove myself, you know, somehow.
That, like, they wouldn't wanna be friends with me if I was just me.
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