How I'm Learning To Express My Needs, & Common Needs I Think Many Of Us Hide

A further exploration of my damning narrative that to be different or have needs makes me selfish.

I’ve been dissecting the difference between authenticity and entitlement. Trying to navigate the dark places where I was taught to sacrifice my own wants and needs in the name of putting others first, so as to feed the maternal, obedient ‘good girl’ narrative. It’s’ not easy to parcel apart.

I’m learning that when I have a soul-led want or need that differs from the status quo, my instinct is to feel shame. Then I jump to: either finding excuses for it, or minimize it with some self-deprecating means. God forbid people know I have needs and preferences, right? (The story being: if they were to know, they’d call me entitled and selfish, because I don’t deserve people making accommodations for me.

As I talked about recently, the examples I had growing up of other kids with unique needs around learning, schedules, and responsibilities were examples that instilled in me the idea that to be different is to be difficult. To need things at all, let alone needs things distinctly tailored to me, would make me a burden.

The kid who couldn’t and wouldn’t do his homework was lazy, rather than observed for his learning disabilities. The kid who never had chores and was taught to expect others to do everything for them was - and still is, as an adult - regarded as selfish and delusional. I didn’t have any examples back then, nor do I have many now of people who rightfully, gracefully ask for the unique needs to be met and realize that, even in places they go against the status quo, needs and preferences do not make them selfish, lazy, or entitled.

I’m choosing to step into these new waters with curiosity. Because I really and truly don’t even solidly know what needs and wants of mine are different to begin with, let alone knowing if they are unreasonable or how to ask for and expect them met with self-worth and self-respect.

I still feel the shame and messages of unworthiness rise up in me every time I acknowledge places I need things to be altered, changed for me, tailored to what would make me comfortable. It’s easier, my shame tells me, to just shut up and put up with whatever. I feel myself cringe at the idea that I might put someone else out. That - gasp - someone else would be uncomfortable. I’ll take that bullet myself, I think to myself.

But I’m trying. I’m really trying to allow others their discomfort. I’m really efforting to express when I need things to be changed and not to feel guilty or shameful. Because I know that me at my best and highest self is never a burden on anyone else. It’s a gift to us all.

The other night, Jake grazed his finger tips across my chest bone. Right in the center of my ribs. He tapped his fingers so lightly, an act of love. That skin, stretched thin across my breast plate, is some of the tenderest on my body.

“Could you not touch me like that?” I asked as softly as I could. I watched him and felt him recoil the tiniest bit.

“That’s where the radiation treatment was, and it made the skin really sensitive. It kind of hurts when you do that.” I told him.

We are one of those annoying couples where touching anywhere at any time is never off limits. We never, ever turn each other’s bids for affection away. He knows the pains of the past I’ve endured with partners who brashly turned my touch away, and made me believe they were embarrassed and ashamed to be with me in public. He approaches me like those traumatized kittens who don’t want to be touched at all; he’s patient. He will literally let me shove my tongue down his throat in the middle of a grocery store if that’s what I want. Not even need, just want.

So it’s hard when little moments like this come up, and I have to ask him for something different. It’s hard not because I’m asking him to change; but because I have to tell him he’s hurting me. I watch him pull back the slightest amount, a look of shock barely grazing his face, and I have to let him feel that in order for me to tell him the truth.

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I noticed it in other places, too. Bigger places, harder places to confront, where I bury my needs in order to not be seen as ‘difficult’ and end up coming off without a backbone. As I transitioned into freelance work with the freedom to set my own schedule….but adhered to the schedule demands of clients, rather than my own creative needs. Or while I re-establish my relationship with my family, whom I’ve lived far away from for the last 17 years and we now have to reacquaint ourselves to each other, seeing and learning to treat each other as equals, not as a hierarchy.

I thought it might be helpful to share some places where I’ve found myself tripping up over asking for my needs and allowing myself to be different. Elements of everyday life where I make myself small so as not to be a problem or seen as selfish, where I’d truly be better of standing up for what I need. So that hopefully, you might see places you are shaming yourself for your uniqueness and differences, and maybe create better expectations for what you receive in your own life.

The following can be used as journal prompts, or simple reflection points:

At work

How I spend my time, and where I use my talent on

What work hours I adhere to; when I am accessible and can be reached

How I’m talked to by peers and authorities

How my work is received; the tone of criticism I tolerate

How I feel - in my physical body, and in my emotional body

Whether my growth path is clear and respected; whether I am fostered to grow and succeed

If I am comfortable speaking to necessary parties about changes that need to be made

At home

My responsibilities to keep up the home and our routines

The time I spend on household duties compared to others in the home

Whether my home and lifestyle truly fulfill me