A great conversation over at WellRoundedType2 has proven inspirational. It got me thinking about the “need-phobia” that I have experienced in my life and have seen in my family and some people I know and I wonder if anyone else has experienced this…?
From a very young age, I was a) afraid of having needs, b) ashamed of having needs and c) proud in cases where I could deny/suppress my needs and tell myself that I didn’t have them. It even got to the point where I taught myself to breathe shallowly to deny my need for air. I tried not to eat, drink, sleep, exercise… my “ideal” was sitting quietly in a chair reading a book and needing nothing, being productive for the sake of pride only or helping someone else out with something.
Eventually, this “need-phobia” became more of a focus on food and drinks with (god forbid) calories in them…
My guess is that I was born into the perfect “need-phobia” (and eating disorder) storm. I see a lot of this thinking in my family (even family I wasn’t raised anywhere near), so I’m sure there is some genetic component. At the same time, my mother and step-father taught me quite clearly that needs were “bad” and my having needs was proof of “weakness”. These messages were further reinforced by some of the things I saw on TV and in movies.
All that said, I am sure there are people in the world who have developed similar problems who didn’t grow up in a “perfect storm” like I did. Maybe nature or nuture played more of a part for them… who knows… but I am interested in hearing the stories of anyone willing to share!
There is an FA blog out there (I can’t remember which one! If you know which one, let me know and I will link it in properly 😉 ) that has the definition of “nourish” at the top of the opening blog page. From dictionary.com:
nour⋅ish [nur-ish]
–verb (used with object)
1. to sustain with food or nutriment; supply with what is necessary for life, health, and growth.
2. to cherish, foster, keep alive, etc.: He had long nourished the dream of living abroad.
3. to strengthen, build up, or promote: to nourish discontent among the workers; to nourish the arts in one’s community.
ɪʃ
When I saw the definition of “nourish” on whatever blog it was… it really struck me that nourishing is really a beautiful thing. Why would I want to deprive myself of nourishment?
For me, framing in my recovery work can be so important. I’m realizing that framing needs as NOURISHMENT could be a much better framing for me that will have less negative loaded meaning for me. At some point, I think reclaiming the word “need” for myself will be helpful, but right now I think I need a break from beating my head against the word “need” and trying to work through all the loaded meaning associated with it for me.
Why a photo of a panda? I love how animals intuitively take care of their needs and themselves in most cases… and a picture of a panda with his/her bamboo helps take me to a nourishing state of mind.
Questions for readers…
Is/or has the word “need” been negatively loaded for you? Where do you think this came from for you? Can you relate to a “need-phobia”? How are you or have you worked through it? Have you felt the pride of deprivation? How are you working through that? 🙂
–AngryGrayRainbows
Angry Gray Rainbows 
O lordy..! AGR, you are in my brain. I have talked about this in therapy many times. I’m an only child, and both my parents were fairly self-involved (now dead)…the cardinal rule of my life, most of the time thus far, has been, “Do not NEED.”
NEEDless to say (*haha!*) most of my relationships have sucked!! I will meet all of your needs without expecting any of my own to be met.
As long as I don’t need anything or anybody, I’ll be fine. I win.
Need = weakness, and I am strong.
Because my needs were not fulfilled in childhood, I have grown up expecting them never to be fulfilled.
My mom wanted me to be an Independent Woman, but this is vastly different than Never Needing Anything, Ever, which was how I was trained. Even the self-sufficient have needs! Our soul/spirit has needs…the need for respect, the need to trust and be trusted, the need to feel safe and cared-for….
I’m re-parenting myself, so this has come up quite a bit. Thanks for writing about it!!
Hope,
I am an only child too… I had the self-involved parents as well.
I think you’re in my head too …
I also have had some spectacularly bad relationships as an adult… a lot of the problems stemmed from me believing I should have no needs or boundaries.
I love the re-parenting technique. I spent years using that one myself and it has yielded some really lovely results. I’m wishing you all the best in your therapy work. It sounds like you’re doing some really great and important work right now… and that is just awesome!
oh. my. lord. I can so, so relate to this. “neediness” is just about one of the worst things I can imagine. I can’t stand it in myself and I have a hard time tolerating it in other people (which I don’t like to admit, but it’s true).
I think I was overlooked for so long. I just learned that if I needed something I would have to take care of it myself. And then it became something to hide. Like a defect, a flaw. And it became impossible for me to express need.
I’m working on this a lot, right now, with my therapist, actually.
The hardest, and best, but seriously the hardest, thing I have ever done is say
I need help.
my therapist said something last week that has completely stuck in my head (and messed up my restricting). I was talking about restricting and she rephrased it. she said something like, “you mean, giving yourself less than what you need.” I can’t stop thinking about that.
great post.
Sarah,
My therapist told me something very similar once. She noted that I only fed myself the bare minimum that I needed and sometimes even less than that… she then asked me if I saw someone feeling a child that way, what would I think of that person? Oh man… that was brilliant. It had a big impact on me.
Something that helped me work through my “need-phobia” was thinking about what I was actually afraid would happen if I actually met one of my needs. Then I’d ask myself if those fears were realistic in the hear and now. Sure, meeting my own needs WERE fairly dangerous for me… I grew up in a very abusive home. But are the rules of the abusive home still applicable now? Nope.
I don’t know your history, so maybe the way you need to work through this is different… just thought I’d share what came up when I read your comment, in case it is of some use.
Take care, Sarah. You deserve loving care – especially from YOU.