Do you have feelings of neediness? If so, how does it make you feel to be “needy” at times? Talk about anything with regard to neediness.
New Landscape ~ DID/MPD Support Group
New York support group for people with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) / Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD)
I am really struggling with this issue. I don’t know what healthy is with regard to needing other people. Should I expect anything from other people?
Currently, me and my aliens it seems – are pulling back from everyone. Pulling back from expecting anything from anyone, and from asking for anything. It is seeming to us, that the only way to be content, is if we don’t rely on anyone else too much at all.
I personally am tired of “needing” my partner to be this way or that way, to meet my needs/desires/wants – and feeling let down. I can’t keep living like this. Sloshing around in my emotions when someone is or isn’t there for me.
I’m currently testing out the idea of trying to depend on my God and myself only. And not expecting anything much from anyone else. If I am lonely – then work it out. Get back in touch with God, and find my peace there.
And the aliens – well, they seem to be doing something similar. They have moved further down inside my internal “house” and are not really coming out much. Trying to entertain themselves with games and with each other only.
Maybe this won’t work. Or maybe I’m supposed to get to this kind of realization – that any human will let me down (and I will let every other human down as well). And that my only security has to come from me, myself and I – with God (I couldn’t do it if it was really only me – and I didn’t believe in God).
PS – if anyone has comments on what they think “normal” is, in the neediness department, please share! My inquiring minds want to know….
well, i don’t have a great grasp on “normal” given that i was raised to believe it was “normal” to keep functioning no matter how sick or injured i was. and i was taught that it was “too needy” to need help of any kind, at any time.
your first post resonated with me, but when collective-i start thinking that way, it’s only a short step for us from thinking like that to becoming suicidal. because no matter how ambivalent i am about my “neediness”, and no matter how guilty i feel for having people meet those needs, and no matter how much i would rather shut them off… i can’t. apparently, this is healthy.
i guess i compromise by recognizing that it’s ok for me to want, or even to need, whatever i want or need. and while it’s good to look inside myself and be resilient, it’s also good to let other people meet those needs. people keep telling me that they (and others) *like* to help me. that they feel closer to me if i let them see i have needs.
what’s interesting is that as much as i try not to let other people see that i have needs, and not to expect them to fill the needs, i kind of automatically take care of others, at least when i’m able to. and it does feel good, at least when i’m doing it by choice, rather than because i think i have to.
one thing i’ve noticed is that while people may let me down, the best people tend to meet my needs more often than they don’t. the problem is, i’m so focused on my fear that they will let me down or reject me that i don’t notice the good stuff. it’s like i’m waiting and waiting for the disappointment, so that shows up way more clearly than the times when they are there for me. so i’m working on that, on paying more attention to the good stuff.
i guess another important thing that i struggle with is recognizing the difference between now and when i was first learning this whole ambivalence about being too needy.
beginning when i was 6 months old, i got punished for being too demanding or needy. i kind of assume that this is where i learned to be afraid of things like crying, or wanting help, and where i learned to try to take care of my own needs, because i couldn’t count on someone else meeting them. and the thing is, i really wasn’t all that well equipped for meeting my own needs when i was little, and it made me feel really bad. and it also means that i associate self-soothing with not having gotten vital needs met. so that kind of sucks, because things that someone else might learn to do, well, i’ve been doing those since i was tiny, and they’re really tied up with feeling unsafe and abandoned.
the thing i’m learning in therapy is that those needs are natural and normal, and even if they can’t be met when or how i need them to be met, they are still ok things to need.
well, at least that’s how i’m thinking right now. and i get you about wanting to avoid the pain of someone failing you. the problem is, you also avoid the chance to heal that pain, or to have the good feeling of someone coming through for you.
Hmm – so my master plan won’t work? Blah. I think there’s a certain amount of letting go that I still need to do though, for my own sake. Maybe. I guess there’s no way for me to know, until I try various things. I don’t know. I do know I’m tired of feeling angry and lonely. And I’ve been wanting to distance myself more so I can stop feeling these things so intensely.
I’m certainly ready to disappear into the aether – as you can see from my “suicide” post. So maybe how you say that acting this way leads you toward suicidal ideation – is already what’s happening for me. I don’t know.
Thanks for sharing your experience Jigsaw. I’ll keep on thinking…..
my experience, not that it necessarily carries over (or that i pay attention to this when i’m going through a hard time) is that emotions pass more quickly when i let myself feel them. also, i’ve found that allowing myself to admit that i need other people–as in, admit to *them*–actually eases the loneliness and anger. it’s still a risk, and things will still sometimes suck.
w and i had a hard time a while ago. it’s frustrating, cause we’d worked things out so they were pretty good and then she said and did some things that made me not trust her so i was thinking it was better not to trust her at all so i wouldnt get hurt and upset but instead what happened was i felt really really bad and trapped and just awful and i started wanting to try to trust her again because it felt so good when things were going ok and the only way to get back to that good feeling was to trust her again. and i guess for me the good feeling is good enough that it makes up for the hurt if im willing to believe the hurt was not on purpose and i guess i do think that she didnt hurt me on purpose.
i guess the thing is im afraid that if i ask for things then its not ok to get them cause i was taught when i was a kid that you only deserve things people give without you asking for them and if you ask then its not ok cause people are only giving it because they feel sorry or guilty or something. but i guess what is really true is that people dont know what you need unless you ask for it. i know that is true with me and w it is way less stressful for me if she asks instead of expecting me to just know what she wants.
I hide my feelings of neediness. I’m afraid that if I express them, they will not be met and I will be tortured. So, I’m not needy (ha ha).
I function well in the “real” world, but only I do–my parts are crying out for help. My therapist hears them. I ignore them.
Whatever “normal” is, I’m not. I have the norms from my childhood. They were “normal” for me then, but not now. So, today is another day. I’ll try to live it the best I can.
maybe you can learn to rely on friends when you feel needy and your partner can not be there for you. It is not his job to take care of you, although yes, I admit it is so much easier when SO is here and able to help. I have to remember that feelings come and go. The more I am able to take responsibility for my feelings, the better things are. Doing it this way really, really SUCKS, but knowing it has worked in the past helps. There is no way I can do it all the time, but sometimes it works.
We hate needing anyone. There is a big argument going on inside about backing away from people, or letting “safe” people in, even though these “safe” people mess up and hurt us sometimes too.
I think God made us to need each other. THAT SUCKS.
I actually believe we’re supposed to need each other too – and that we’re supposed to “be there” for others in our life as well. And somehow, we’re supposed to take responsibility for our own feelings as well so that we don’t suck the life out of someone else with our neediness.
I’m sure there’s some kind of balance. Always seems to be the answer to many things – BALANCE. Yet in the end, if no one else decides to “be there” for me – I have to find a way to live and be ok.
ramble ramble ramble going around in circles.. ya, it SUCKS!