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CaringandReal -> RE: A Question About Being Needy... (9/18/2010 6:27:13 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: losttreasure
“Neediness” is brought up quite often in the threads... usually with great derision... when the discussion turns to long distance relationships, abandonment issues relating to trust, and separation anxiety.
Good observation. When I see this "great derision" over neediness I always snort and think, "the more fools, them." Here's why: many otherwise dissatified people would find exactly what they need a lot more efficiently if they were to increase their neediness (or allow themselves to acknowledge it). Pride and vanity, thinking you're far cooler than you actually are, an a culture that encourages this pride and vanity, calling it "self-esteem," twist the concept of neediness into a vice instead of the remarkably useful tool that it actually is. How is it a tool? Simple: when you pay attention to the fact that you are needy, you can then, if you're luckly, figure out what it is exactly that you need. Until you admit neediness in yourself, you're not going to be thinking in terms of "what do I need?" just as children don't walk before they crawl. Once you figure out what you need you are well on the way to finding it, as you won't waste your time looking for something that you think is more socially acceptable to desire.
There are a lot of frightened people who are particularly terrified of appearing vulnerable in any fashion. You run into more of them online than offline because this protective, cocooned form of halfway relating allows one to so easily mask vulnerability behind a tough girl or cool boy facade. I really don't understand why people are so scared of admitting neediness or other vulnerability online. At worst, all that happens is a handful of rather foolish bullies imagine you're an easy target and try to peck you to death with their itty bitty beakies. But you know what? Cyber pecks (just like cyber whippings, alas) just do not hurt. :) (Well, that is, unless you feel like you need to be the sort of person who is hurt by such things. The mind is a most accomodating machine!)
quote:
"But what exactly is “being needy”? How is it that you would identify someone as being needy, or, if you consider yourself to be needy, why?"
I have two definitions of needy. One is internal/subjective, the other external/potentially objective.
Internal: Being aware, however vaguely, that you lack something important. Admitting to yourself that you lack something is an idea we--at this particular turn on the cultural wheel--are heavily brainwashed to reject ("What you mean _I_ lack something! How dare you! I'm perfect just the way I am and I have GREAT self-esteem, and don't you ever forget it! It is mentally ill to think anything else!"). But let's say it was physical? Let's say you needed water and were dying of thirst from that need. Copping an "I'm so cool I don't need anything--take that canteen away from my oh-so-independent lips" attitude would kill you in that situation. In case it's not obvious, the point of the analogy is that there are other kinds of "death" besides the physical.
External: Most of us can observe physical neediness in others in very crude ways, but unless we're medically trained or have a lot of experience with certain symptoms, even then we might misinterpret what we see. For example, if I see a cat I own is distressed, I often won't have a clue intially from the way she is acting. Cats are odd and each one acts a bit differently than others. So I just go down the list: offer her food, offer her water, feel her for signs of injury, take her to a professional., etc. And a cat is relatively simple: its lies--cats don't like to show they are in pain--are simple, predictable ones. Internal neediness in other humans is far more that hit and miss. It takes a lot of informed experience to know how to read the signs and what they portend, although at various stages of my life I've often thought I was an expert on such symptoms (big mistake). Someone just coming out and saying they are needy is not necessarily such as sign as most people are very confused inside about what they need and do not need and when they need it and so on. Often, such an admission simply means, "I'm not particularly needy but I romanticize neediness and really want to feel needy." At other times it's the real McCoy. But I imagine there are external giveaways of human neediness and maybe you can learn to read them just the way you can learn to recognize when someone is close to heatstroke. I think is is very hard to do, but perhaps I think that only because I don't know how to do it very well.
Yes, I think I am needy. Why? Here's some of the symptoms:
* Dissatisfaction (not constant, but flashes)
* Too much time on my hands and at loose ends, a need to find ways to eat up all the time
* Very quick loss of satisfaction when it does occur, even when I acquire or acomplish something I really wanted and a rush to move on to the next thing. No savoring of the achievement, in other words
* Anxiety about specific situations, usually the ones that I believe are exciting my need. Sometimes I seek respite from that anxiety, but more often I just experience it. Other than that I don't seek much outside affirmation, probably because my needs are not particularly directed toward affirmation.
* Lonliness in the midst of good company
* A half-empty mentality rather than half-full mentality
* Social isolation, a feeling of being cutoff, castoff, left behind, different from, cast out of the hive, etc. (interestingly, this feeling never arises in regards to the world, particularly the natural world, only toward people and my current social mileu. The natural world and I seem to be on extremely good terms. I wouldn't say BFF, especially the second F part, but we are tight. :D )
* And, most prominently, longing, and sometimes fantasies about what I long for.
There have been times when I had almost none of these symptoms, except for perhaps the social isoltation, which, since it hasn't left me since the age of 5, I suspect is a core part of my makeup. I remember being extremely happy during those times and of course I know why. :)
PS: This was a very clever necro-thread revival. Kudos! (I wondered briefly how a thread started "yesterday" got so many responses so fast, but hey, that happens in forums.")
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