Are You "Needy"?
Every human being has needs, including but not limited to attention and care from our loved ones. When we are infants, we need food, warmth. constant care and attunement from caregivers. When we are children we need to be kept safe by our loved ones but we also need room to explore. Adolescents need love and support but also need peer interaction to begin to formulate independent ideas about the world and create identities separate from the identities of caregivers. As adults we need attention from our families, our friends, our significant others, teachers, and a host of other people around us in order to feel loved, connected and accepted.
It's part of our hard-wiring to tune in with those around us. The well-researched and documented scientific research of attachment and neurobiology is clear cut on this issue. (But for curious minds, please read: John Bowlby, Mary Ainsworth, Alan Schore, Daniel Siegel, Bonnie Badenock, Arlene Montgomery, Bessel van der Kolk and many other talented minds in the field of interpersonal neurobiology and attachment. Also see Stan Tatkin re: relational INTER-dependence.)
Our specific needs change as we develop over time, but it is normal and healthy to have needs. It is normal and healthy to eat food, drink water and to desire care from the people around you - these are all basic needs. I think that the negativity toward "neediness" occurs when someone appears to need more than another can give or more than they “should” developmentally require.
For example - developmentally speaking - an adult who has been given love, consistency, and affection throughout his life will not require constant affirmation and admiration from loved ones to maintain his sense of self and security in relationships. His antithesis, an adult who was not given love, boundaries, and affection is likely to seek confirmation of his unworthiness in relationships, repeat patterns that lead to abandonment or punishment and suffer from loneliness.
MAINTAINING A SENSE OF SELF
When we label people as "needy" and denigrate the idea of having needs, we allow ourselves to diminish the importance of honoring our very real and legitimate needs. In separating ourselves from that which we do not want to emulate (e.g. having “no needs” or having no awareness of what we need or want), we detach ourselves from our humanity, putting stress on the nervous system, the body, the mind and our relationships. To need becomes shameful instead of normal. In so doing, we are more likely to deny ourselves what we need in addition to being less available in relationships.
In my work with teens and adults it is abundantly clear that being taught that we should not express (or even have) many needs has negative impacts on self-esteem, self-worth, and the ability to maintain satisfying relationships. The inability to express and have needs allows us to tolerate abusive or neglectful behavior in relationships and foster low expectations from those around us. Our relationships can become mirrors of our unworthiness - we believe that how we are treated is how we deserve to be treated and vice versa. Regret, resentment, and most conflicts between partners, children and parents are born in the tug of war between unmet needs and unspoken expectations. Our societal and familial denial of emotional need can be powerful and silencing. If unchecked, beliefs become codified into behavioral patterns such as chronic care-giving, self-neglect, shame/blame dynamics, co-dependent behavior, enabling, "doormat syndrome" etc.
The denial of needs creates shame, distance, and thwarts attempts at closeness and success in relationships. It creates scenarios in which people are labeled "attention-seeking" because they have grown desperate for loving attention and compassion but may have no idea how to ask for or receive it. When our basic human needs go unrecognized and unacknowledged it can create heartbreak that is so overwhelming that people hurt themselves to feel as though some kind of need is being met - a feeling, a sensation or temporary respite from the pain or loneliness. They may cut their skin, or throw up their food, or control and restrict so that they feel like there is a semblance of boundaries and safety in the world around them. I am not suggesting that these are effective ways of meeting one's needs, but that cutting, eating disorders, and many other outward shows of self-harm are subverted attempts at being heard, seen, acknowledged, and cared for.
If there is one other thing that treating teenagers has taught me, it is that Google searches are very informative - not necessarily the content, but the prediction of the search. When people feel or think something, they often turn to Google as a way to validate or clarify these thoughts and feelings. As an illustration, I started by typing, "need" and this is what I got...
Sheesh…
SO WHAT DO YOU NEED?
While I can't say exactly what you may need, I can say that most people who have been called "too needy" by their partners, parents, and friends are seeking love and connection. I can also estimate that the most pervasively unmet need among all people is that they do not feel valued, understood, heard, or seen by important others. In short, we need to feel loved and there is nothing wrong with that. Whatever your needs and wants may be, it is helpful to think and talk about them. Getting your needs met is a life-long process, ever-changing and not always easy, but definitely worth the time and effort.
7 quick tips about needs
The fact that someone cannot give you what you need is not evidence that you should not need it.
No one, as in not one person, can provide everything that you need all the time. It is important to build a support network for this very reason. It is important to maintain enough of a sense of worth and self-love to reach out a second and third time when you are in need. If one person is currently busy or lacking space, on to the next. Do not decide that you are unworthy because one person cannot meet your needs in any moment.
Other people will have feelings about your needs, especially when they are in contrast with his or her competing needs. That doesn't mean that either or both people's needs are illegitimate.
We may go about getting our needs met in unhelpful or unhealthy ways (e.g. passive aggression, withdrawal, or aggression) if they are unmet for long enough, but that doesn't mean that one should not have love, support, respect, attention, and care in relationships. It is never too late to directly ask for what you need. Avoid shaming yourself about how you have behaved in the past - you were doing the best you could do with the tools you had at the time.
If you don't know what you need, it is unlikely that others will know what you need. There is an all too common, unfair expectation, especially in romantic relationships, that people should anticipate the needs of others without knowing what they are. Be as open as possible about what you need when you need it.
You will face disappointment when someone inevitably does not meet your needs after working so hard to assert them. It's okay; we are all imperfect and need second and third chances. Try again and again. If you express your feelings about your experience and you are still not being respected, don't be afraid to talk to someone who will respect and hear you.
Trust yourself. Your life begins and ends with you, so trust that you know what's best for you.
