When We Don't Feel Wanted, We Make Ourselves Feel Needed...

Someone said this the other day and it landed.  I think most of my life I did not feel wanted, with a few rare exceptions, and so I set about the work of being needed.  And I was very good at being needed.  Now, mind you, I was not really showing up for myself, and I would become very resentful at how much you needed me and also how very little you seemed to care about me or my needs.  But I know now, it was all a set up from the beginning because I have learned, the hard way, that when you act like you don’t have needs, no one thinks you do.  And that extended to myself.  I really believed for the better part of two decades that I didn’t really have needs.  Such a bunch of hooey.

So the ultimate question is “why do we not feel wanted?”  I am sure that I was wanted.  I have always had friends and boyfriends and friend groups.  I have always been social and had a host of people in my life.  But I think my issue has always been that I didn’t really value my place within that social circle.  Like I didn’t feel like I was that important to it.  I failed to value my own station within that social dynamic and this resulted in me feeling like I wasn’t wanted.  I honestly have no idea about how people really felt about me.

And so I have flitted in and out of social realms for my whole life never really feeling a part of; not being able to actually value my place within that same dynamic.  Was I not wanted so therefore I didn’t feel important and so I left?  Or did I not value my own intrinsic value so it was impossible for me to understand my importance to others?  I think the whole “wanted” thing was too big and hard a question for me so I just set about skipping it and then moving on to what I did feel like I had control over:  being needed.  That I knew how to do.

And when you are needed and not needing it gives one the idea that you have something to offer.  That you are the giver and they the receiver.  That this feels like a good balance in all its unbalancedness.  I guess what it really feels like is control.  And that has been my choice over intimacy repeatedly.  You cannot control what you are intimate with.  I mean you can choose what and who you are intimate with but you cannot control the person.  To control in intimate relationships is an immediate vibe killer and will ultimately lead to the relational death of a sweet union.

So why the fuck didn’t I feel wanted?  And despite years of therapy, and a lot of inventory, I am still not really sure.  I am sure my early childhood experiences played a role.  I mean how could they not?  But ultimately what I have landed on is that I was just born feeling like I didn’t belong and that belief, toxic though it was, was what I invested in heavily and completely.  And so it has become the plot of my life.

And whenever I made that decision to give up being wanted and only seek to be needed, I set us all up for a very dissatisfying relationship which I have played out over and over again with varied results.

Being needed is a good cover.  It allows you to be there and not be there at the same time.  Being needed is a one way street.  You the giver, them the receiver.  And intimacy requires a give and take that occurs on both sides of the relationship.  I can see now that I have rarely experienced that because of the way I set it up to be needed from the very start.

In summary, I didn’t know how to be wanted.  And I didn’t want me, so I guess I figured you didn’t either.  And so I gave up that whole endeavor and began seeking to be needed.  Which presupposed that I had anything to offer in the first place.   I mean to give to you I must actually have something to offer.  And I can see now, what I have offered has been faulty and flawed.

I am still working on this whole wanted thing.  I want me now. It has taken a very long time but I am not flinging myself into whatever the fuck come next anymore.  I have, instead, been sitting back and spending time with myself and learning how to want me.  And I think that is the whole deal for me.  I think I have always wanted me, but I was so busy out there trying to give myself away there was never anything left for me.  I gave it all to you and then resented you for taking it and offering me so very little in return.

So I have learned slowly that in order to feel wanted, you have to want you. And you have to have some pretty fucking rad boundaries about how much of yourself you are willing to give and how much of yourself you are not.  It all starts with the wanting...if you don’t want you, why would anyone else?  And then the giving becomes the default but it is a zero sum game because you have nothing really to offer except the tiny bits of your soul that you don’t even want or value.  Again, why would anyone else? But people will take when you give.  And they largely do not ask a lot of questions.  They just take what you offer and move on with it.

I didn’t want me so I didn’t really think you did either. And then I set us all up on this needing obstacle course.  Which has resulted in me being in a place where I want me so much that I have very little to offer anyone else.  I am not sure this will change, but I am not sure it won’t either.  I am grappling with the idea that, perhaps, I cannot change.  Perhaps this is just who I am in relationship with others; I am going to always default to giving and the wanting will always erode the endeavor.

Fuck, I don’t know.  Relating is hard.  And I am tired.  It is just easier to come home and relax on the couch with a myriad of cats and just not think about it.  So that is what I do most nights.  Largely traumatized by my own dysfunction, and unsure if there is a different kind of relating possible for me.

I am gonna have to let you know...right now, it feels so impossible despite the fact that I very much do want me now.  I seem to have gone so far in the other direction that I want me so much that I don’t want to give much of me to you at all.

I exhaust me, again, still...