On Needs, Needing Things, And Not Wanting to Admit It

Apparently? I would think its the opposite. Someone said here attachment is human, being social. Freeze, flight or fight response would be more animal, more instinctual. But definitely attachment issues happen pre-verbally, and that is a problem.

Eta - and where hazel says she "should" feel more comfortable asking, otherwise there is something wrong with her - in a sense that is true; you "should" have been raised by a good enough mother who didnt leave you alone and screaming for hours. But you werent, so how you feel now DOES match how you were raised, to feel fear about asking for help.

So weird about the dentist - i had that exact thing happen to me as a kid. The dentist wouldnt let me walk home after a tooth pulling, even tho my mother had made my gf accompany me. I told the receptionist, i aint calling my mom, shes gonna yell. I still remember the receptionist saying, well im not scared of your mom! Then my mother yelled at me for telling the dentist she didnt want to pick me up. Mixed messages.

Attachment needs are about safety and survival. Animals probably have them too. Humans are only different in the sense that a human infant is far more helpless at birth than many other animals.

Stopdog. See thats the issue. You are telling MY need is not a need.

I am not the one who responded to you. You have me confused with a different poster.

But I do believe, as a general rule, there are very few true needs for adults. Food, shelter and clothing are it as far as the way I define adult needs. I think true need is narrow.
Wants are fine too. There is nothing wrong with a want - I believe people get to have wants and ask for what they want and I hope they get it.

Don't want to hijack the thread, but maybe it is helpful to talk about the role of attachment in all of this. First the basics. We all have attachment styles. All. It is universal (meaning cross-cultural). There are secure and insecure styles that are formed with early caregivers. Insecure types (there are 4 of them) are quite common; you don't have to have severe abuse or neglect to have an insecure attachment style.

With avoid ant remember though it sounds as though there is no "need" avoid ant attachment is still an attachment. Get it? When they do a little experiment with avoid ant kids, the kids appear on the outside to not be distressed and not seek out comfort or need anyone, but sensors show that they are in fact quite distressed. So one important step is to recognize and accept that no matter what your outside behavior is like (rejecting needs) or your internal story (I don't have needs), there is still distress that you are denying. It is human to be interdependent, not weakness. We can't be entirely self-sufficient; that is a myth. We are social primates who need to balance cooperative joining with independent action. Infants are born hard-wired for relatedness, which is now considered a primary if not the primary drive.

Allowing that ability to develop a relationship with my therapist, who unlike others, is bound by his profession to not abandon, demand, or harm me, made it safe for me to explore and even test this. At first I felt reluctant and bad about reaching out. Then I swung the other way and was too demanding. In many ways, I was like a very young child still trying to figure out how to express distress and get the right level of response. Once I made progress on that, everything calmed down. I found that I could internalize some of the relationship so that I could soothe myself and take care of my needs with newly developed skills about truly being able to be there for myself. The next step was to try this outside of the safety of the therapeutic relationship and see what happened. My attachment style by then was more or less secure so I was handling relationships differently anyway. There were difficulties since people are more reactive and do not restrain themselves in the way that therapists do, but I was more able to tolerate this and willing to work with it to connect. And I was more able to step away if my needs were not being met. The shift in attachment has shifted my whole life. It isn't only attachment but it is largely attachment.

I know what you mean, like I don't fit in or act like everyone else, like something is wrong with me.


I know...I just can't do this IRL. It's okay here, but not there.


That's another thing: I can't admit that anyone is important to me or matters to me. Which is crazy because almost everyone enjoys being told they're important to someone, but I always feel like I am sharing too much and that people are uncomfortable if I tell them they're important to me, even if they've said the exact same thing to me. I can't tell people I love them, I can't tell people they matter to me or that I appreciate them, I can't tell people that I value them, or that they have impacted my life. I am so cold to people, even when I want to be warmer and I know I "should" be. I feel like a lot of people eventually give up because I don't show warmth.


I really understand what you mean. And it is a million times harder if someone rejects me. I can't handle it and I end up completely running away from whoever it is because they obviously hate me and don't want anything to do with me. For example, last week, I asked someone if I could take some time soon to talk to them about some difficult things going on in my life. This is someone I trust quite a bit and go to a lot for help. She said she would get in touch with me once she knew something about her schedule, but it's been a week and she has t said anything. So I feel like I shouldn't have asked and like she doesn't want to see me or talk to me. I will be seeing her today because we both go to the same church, but I probably won't approach her or talk to her. I will avoid her and make sure I don't bump into her. I feel like I am bad for asking and like I asked for too much, and I shouldn't be so selfish or self-focused to demand people's time like that.


Yes. It does. And I agree. It is a good chance to practice before taking it out into the real world.


I think one of my problems is that I try to fulfill too many of my own needs, and if I can't fulfill them, I ignore them. So my needs for companionship, connection, love, and understanding all go unmet because I can't meet them myself.

But you don't strictly need that car drive, do you? You can wait in the car or on a park bench outside the dentist's office until the anesthesia wears off. It would just be terribly inconvenient. I'd consider it a want, because you don't want to go through all the trouble.

I'm glad you're in a position to consider inconvenience a reason to ask for help, though.