Defend the Indefensible: Emotional Neediness

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1. I don't blame people who run away when faced with emotional neediness.

2. I'm mentally exhausted from trying to rein in my emotional neediness, and trying to understand how I must appear to others.

3. Can anyone say anything in defense of neediness?

― j.lu (j.lu), Saturday, 20 December 2003 06:27 (twenty-one years ago)

can you define your level of neediness?

theres nothing wrong with needing people emotionally, it only becomes a pain to other people when their 'boundaries' are being trampled on.
to me, it becomes an issue if someone is constantly begging / bugging me for my attention / time / ear / love. without giving me any space for myself or my own 'stuff'.....oh i just described my son, but hes not 2 yet.

how do you mean 'reining in' yours?

― donna (donna), Saturday, 20 December 2003 06:38 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm one of the big proponents of the theory that states that humans are by nature social animals, and that it is part of our nature to need other human beings. Therefore, one should not feel ashamed at all about feeling the need to reach out to other individuals during rough patches in one's life, particularly if the individuals one is turning toward are trustworthy, true friends. Sure, you could try to cope with things on your own, but that wouldn't be particularly healthy unless the trials happen to be very minor. This is all according to the Gospel According To Dee, though.

― Tenacious Dee (Dee the Lurker), Saturday, 20 December 2003 08:21 (twenty-one years ago)

My two-year+ relationship broke down three months ago because of emotional neediness, depression, familial problems which were never addressed. Yes, we are social animals, but don't forget that this entails being sociable above and before it entails being demanding.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Saturday, 20 December 2003 11:23 (twenty-one years ago)

I understand where you are coming from j.lu - i have the same problem. it has gotten worse over the years and my experience is that people do run away from it, you are right. whilst even the closest people to us will put up with emotional neediness for a while, they get drained and eventually irritated by the boundary-trampling, as donna described. It ends up pushing them away, and in a whole vicious circle kinda thing, u/me/whoever ends up even needier than before, because we can sense them pulling away and that in turn ends up pushing them away even further till it all ends in tears .

― Melly E (Melly E), Saturday, 20 December 2003 21:58 (twenty-one years ago)

But in defence of emotional neediness - well mine is insecurity based, am sure lots of people's is, and often other people's affection and understanding can help to overcome that. Being told by the non-needy (as I have been) that i just need to get a grip, is not really going to help, it just makes things worse.

― Melly E (Melly E), Saturday, 20 December 2003 22:02 (twenty-one years ago)

Quite apart from defending neediness though - I have just re-read my posts, can anyone defend my awful sentence structure....

― Melly E (Melly E), Saturday, 20 December 2003 22:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Yes, we are social animals, but don't forget that this entails being sociable above and before it entails being demanding.

Ok, point taken. No relationship, no matter what the type, can survive without an equal amount of give and take and keeping in mind the needs of the other. However, one must expect to find a certain, reasonable level of requiring the assistance of others absolutely necessary, and should not think oneself as some sort of failure for having those impulses.

(Please let me know if that wording's too awkward for you, BTW.)

― Tenacious Dee (Dee the Lurker), Sunday, 21 December 2003 00:52 (twenty-one years ago)

the more you keep a lid on it, the more you find emotional fulfillment thru ppl. not getting sick of it, i've found.

i still think its cool with s/o's though, to a certain degree, to demand (and give) more.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Sunday, 21 December 2003 04:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Emotional fulfillment is not something you can demand. You can't demand any fulfillment.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Sunday, 21 December 2003 09:54 (twenty-one years ago)

okay, expect then.

as in its in the s/o rulebook that you have a sympathetic ear for your shitty day.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Sunday, 21 December 2003 10:45 (twenty-one years ago)

I wasn't directly referencing you, Sterling, even though my post followed yours and mentioned 'demand'! With s/o's obviously there is a degree of space where expectation and demand flow into one another.

I don't like the idea of a relationship where one party approaches it from the perspective of "fill my emotional void" rather than "I really enjoy being with you".

However, one must expect to find a certain, reasonable level of requiring the assistance of others absolutely necessary, and should not think oneself as some sort of failure for having those impulses.

You cannot rely on soemone else to teach you that you are not a failure though, especially if their attempts to do so consistently fail resulting in them feeling like a failure too. I've posted something very similar to this before and it still holds. I guess emotionally I'm pretty right-wing in terms of the fact that I think people should take more responsibility for themselves, i.e. I would encourage emotional self-reliance to a (larger) degree.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Sunday, 21 December 2003 11:31 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't think that's what Dee intended to say (correct me Dee if I'm full of shit, as I often am). My interpretation of what she said is that people shouldn't consider themselves failures for having a need for the friendship of others. Sometimes *needing* friends/support can be seen as a form of weakness, when in all actuality it's just part of being human.

I agree that it is important to have a degree of emotional self-reliance so that you can deal with your everyday life and problems without overwhelming your friends. It is very true that others can't teach you that you're not a failure. That knowledge has to come from within .

I generally feel flattered when people confide their problems to me. I'm happy to listen and try to help, and I want to be a person that friends can depend on. Some have taken advantage of this and become emotional vampires. That seems to be the difference--the line between relying on your friends to a reasonable degree and being overwhelming with neediness. People have different boundaries in regards to that, so it tends to be a very individual thing.

(someone has probably said all of this upthread somewhere, but I just thought I'd respond to Nick's post)

― JuliaA (j_bdules), Sunday, 21 December 2003 17:37 (twenty-one years ago)

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