Recognising Your Needs

[Sideways]

The topic at my last group was How To Recognise Your Needs. My response was to switch during group and I scrawled all over the handouts various angry comments, which were mostly versions of "You are not allowed to talk about this". Unproductive.

The premise is that as an adult, in order to start looking after ourselves, we have to know what our needs are. This is going to impact everything, from self-harming to the way I interact with my family.

Obviously I have a huge resistance to the idea that I have needs which I'm entitled to recognise. So how do you approach this issue? When all your life, you've survived on Not recognising your own needs, how do you start to understand what they are? And how do you distinguish helpful needs (like, I need to have positive, respectful human contact) from unhelpful learned needs (like, I need to sexually satisfy old men that come onto me)?

How do you recognise your needs when your brain is putting up a brick wall because it believes that you're not allowed to recognise your needs, and that recognising your needs is, in fact, a dangerous exercise?

 

[lostforgottensoul]

How do you recognise your needs when your brain is putting up a brick wall because it believes that you're not allowed to recognise your needs, and that recognising your needs is, in fact, a dangerous exercise?

Well, I dont have DID, so may be completely useless, but I had/have the same brick wall.

This, for me, is a process. A LONG process and is directly connected to my self hatred. And id likely write all sorts of angry stuff on that paper too.

Is that a counseling class? Is it for trauma survivors? PTSD? DID? Other disorders? I ask because "normal self help" was just useless to me but angered me more at myself.

For me, I had to dig out the reasons I hated myself and work on each one, one at a time. And as I started to work out each one, the abilty for self care started to become possible and a bit easier (easier, not easy).

Still, 8 years in therapy, working on it. So its been a LONG process. Thats why I asked if this class is specific for those of severe trauma or if its more like the mainstream self help which ive found completely useless and made it all worse.

 

[Sideways]

@lostforgottensoul - yeah, it's a trauma class, so everyone there has cptsd and at least half have DID on board. I have no idea how everyone else in the class dealt with it. All I've got is the rubbish that I've written all over the papers!!

In my case, I think shifting the self-loathing is going to have to become secondary. Like, fake it till you make it. Because it's not shifting. I'm kind of hoping if I start to treat myself like I'm a decent and worthy human being, that will make the self-loathing budge. But I'm stuck at square 1: how do I figure out how to treat myself? It's all completely foreign, and seems to be pissing off my parts!

 

[Justmehere]

Start with the very simple. Every time you have a need and you meet it, just notice. When you need food, you eat, when you need sleep... Etc.

You need to have symptom reduction so you went to group. No, it didn't go the way you would have liked. But you went.

Ok I know this might seem stupid and maybe it is, but one of the first things I started doing when I was trying to tackle this was to notice where I was already having a little success.

I still struggle with this every single day of my life, but it's gotten better.

How to figure out what is a good need to meet or not - I'd reframe the examples you gave. You have a need for Positive respectful human contact. You also have a need for safety.

When you refer to the need to sexually satisfy older men - you are describing a behavior. What's the need behind that?

For me, I tend to try to prove to authority figures they are not better than me. It feels like a need. It's not. It's a behvaior. The need that drives this behavior is a desire for safety and control. Identifying that need opens up a door to meet the need in a different way.

So as for what feels like a need to sexually satisfy older men and other things that you are not sure about if thy are a healthy need to meet or not - ask f there is a deeper need that the behavior is trying to solve. That might get you to a more neutral need and a way to identify a new healthier way to meet the need.

It's so so super tough to do, and I have thrown a few worksheets in the the trash myself on this. I still have so much work to do on this myself... I hope you find ways to make some headway on it that work for you.

 

[theshadowoftheliving]

I don't know. I wish I did.

I vacillate between being overly demanding (in an attempt to "fake it till you make it") and too complacent and pleasing (my natural state, where I have no needs, just the need to please others). I can never settle in the middle. And I don't know how to determine what I need and what I want. And then what I think I need changes depending on what part is out front. Some parts get really hungry. Others don't feel hunger or pain or need to sleep. Some throw fits when over tired. How do I manage all of this mess? If I knew, I would surely share.

So, no advice, But I'm listening.

 

[Sideways]

What's the need behind that?

Oh...dear. Throws a spanner in the works.

Head starts doing its same old routine: NEEEED to do this Ragdoll, NOT allowed to question that...

Argh! Simple questions are the WORST:banghead:

 

[Sideways]

Ok, lightbulb moment!

Sooo, keeping the family placated is a behaviour. Need to figure out what the need is there.

This is one of those exercises that make your head start spinning. Seperating learned behaviours from needs. They make that sound simple. Bastards.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

Seperating learned behaviours from needs. They make that sound simple. Bastards.

Def not simple!

So since a part came out, could you get to why thay part came out and work on that? Talk to your therapist about it and work on that area? Is that part forthcoming on what it was about?

Whats written on the paper? Not something that im asking you to answer here but whats written could be important, you know?

ETA: Total ignore my posts if they are useless. I just realize that Im not able to wrap my head around "my needs" either. Im sitting thinking "I have needs?" Apparently something im still working on lol.

 

[Sideways]

Im sitting thinking "I have needs?"

Yeah, that's what I keep bumping into.

Mostly I think a couple of my parts don't want me to disrupt the status quo - it's how we've survived so far, you know? I mean, if I decide that I'm going to start treating myself, and my relationship with others differently, the world might explode or spin off its axis. All of the ways I know how to keep myself surviving are being tossed out the window, and a big part of me is like, "Duh, why would you do that!?"

Needs are hard, though. Even when you recognise them, it's hard to know what is genuine 'need' and what is "This is what I've been taught I need".

Baby steps. Eating is a big one. We don't all agree on when I need to eat. I get a LOT of grief from one of my parts every time I open my mouth, and then there's the emotional eating (isn't that why I eat in the first place? Because I "feeeeel" like it?).

Shelter. I think I've nailed that one. But beyond that it feels like I'm an alien and someone just gave me a human baby to look after and I'm like "What the hell? How would I know what the damn thing needs!?":alien::confused:

 

[lostforgottensoul]

the world might explode or spin off its axis.

I know that feeling well.

Eating was hard for me and today, when im very symptomatic (like today) i forget to eat and remember at like 2am that i had forgotten to eat that day. Im hardly ever actually hungry. Or what most know as hungry.

I dont know what its like to have parts fighting you. That must be hard. My thoughts fight me and so i guess i have a small idea of what thats like.

I had to start to eat on a schedule and downloaded an app that told me "Time for breakfast", "Time for lunch", "Time for dinner". And it took a while to not just ignore it too. And took much longer to be able to eat in times of "punishment" or when my thoughts were saying that i wasnt "allowed to" because of XYZ. Or wasnt suppose to because of ABC.

Ive gotten a bit better at eating but cant connect much beyond shelter, food, water to needs. You know?

like, I need to sexually satisfy old men that come onto me

This to me wasnt a 'i need to' but rather "im supposed to". Maybe thats the difference? Just like going on "the prowl". Im supposed to.

 

[NaeNae75]

I don't know. I wish I did.

I vacillate between being overly demanding (in an attempt to...

I could have written this myself...

 

[Friday]

One trick I've found in recognizing my needs is that I actively go out of my way to prevent them being filled. So if there's something I'm deliberately avoiding? I need to take a closer look at what & why.

Just 2 examples because they are in the palm of my hand at the moment... I know what I actually need to do right now is go blow off some stream. I have hatred & self loathing & fury & despair pounding through my veins right now. I know I need to take my ass outside and go burn off some of these chems -relatively quickly- or I will have a major meltdown. Am I doing it? Nope. I'm here in the forum, instead, distracting myself from the -everything my body is telling me it needs- in a hundred different ways. Some subtle, some reeeeally obvious. Why? For good reason, earlier, that now has turned into stubbornness. I. Don't. Want. To. :facepalm: & "I'm fine."

I also need to eat. I know this. Feel it? No. But know it. Also know it's not helping the other situation by not eating.

It's honestly 50/50 at this point whether I will do what I need to do, or not. I might just sit here and smoke another cigarette and keep distracting myself, and avoiding what my body is screaming for, until my body STFU or it becomes entirely out of my control what happens, next.

If I do? It will be a step closer to actually recognizing and acting on my needs, which -from experience- will start to transition into recognizing and acting on my wants.

<flips coin>