The Shame of Unmet Need

In therapy I did LI about the feeling of being ashamed to want or to give care, and in particular to feel good about giving or receiving care. My default reaction is to imagine that I’m hurting people if I’m involved in caring and it feels good. Even when I walk Dog, my brain is pretty sure that it would be better if I did mine seperately and hated his, because me liking the walk means that he didn’t get what he needed, or even that I somehow stole from him good feelings he might otherwise have. And the idea that I should have care from others is right out. Wanting such care means that I’m selfish and willing to let the people around me suffer for it.

So I took those feels and built a scenario where I was having them in the past. Where I was providing care and felt bad about it. Where I needed care and felt bad for wanting it. And it turns out it’s just lunch. I’m 10. It’s summer so there’s no school lunch. The Kids are home too and there’s nothing for then to eat either. If the day allows it possibly I foraged some fruit for them to have in the afternoon, and if I could afford it maybe I traded some pain for access to sugar (since wild apples taste terrible and toddlers are not always cooperative with unpleasant foods). Or maybe I took some pain to be allowed to open a sleeve of crackers. So the Kids ate something but not very much.

Now it’s 9 PM and Pete gets home. He’s upset that the Kids are still up. Why haven’t I up them to bed yet? Why didn’t you feed them? For christ sake there’s a whole fridge full of food (he says without checking). On good days he might run out to the convenience store and get a frozen pizza but today he decides that he needs to manage Mother. So he authorizes me to use some bit of food. Maybe an old pack of tortillas from the fridge. There’s nothing to go on them but under Pete emergency rules I can add margarine. Maybe ketchup. They would like peanut butter but that’s been gone for days. And so I make the kids the highest calorie, most palatable unheated tortilla I can manage with condiments.

But there’s not enough for three of us for the whole day. There’s probably not even enough for the two Kids with only two tortillas. I am so hungry and they already ate why shouldn’t I get 1/4 of this food. But if I have any it forbids the use of margarine in that one, so the other half is less valuable. Plus I’m 10 now so I should have worked this out earlier. I should have rationed the food I found this afternoon so the kids could have had supper. And then I would have had time to find something for myself. Maybe I could have made just Mother something at like 8 and I could used that noise to cover me having a scoop of shortening or unwrapping a bullion cube. In any case I shouldn’t let my selfish hunger keep the Kids from eating. That’s my problem, and I shouldn’t make it theirs.

So I don’t eat. Or I tried to negotiate with a starving 7-year-old who hates me to not tell Mother that I cut off the crusts (the outside most portion of the tortilla, where there were no condiments). Or I did take my quarter even though I knew it would hurt them. I just accepted that I was going to stave children for the night so that I could feel better for a few minutes. I knew it made me a bad person but I couldn’t help it.

I still had to deal with Mother after Pete and the Kids went to bed. And the next morning I had to deal with Pete — he explained how he was willing to help me with that emergency I created yesterday but he shouldn’t really have to and he expected me to do better today. Mother was really mean to him last night ¹until he went to sleep and I eventually got her calmed down and I should be more helpful to her about the Kids today so she isn’t so upset when he gets home. It’s hard for her with the Kids home all day, so maybe if I kept them out of the house for a couple of days she’d be ready to go grocery shopping ²i.e. take me grocery shopping and complain the entire time and refuse to buy things we needed one evening after the Kids were in bed and he was home to watch them.

The messaging from this was very clear. I already had all the things I needed. If it felt like I didn’t that’s because I was mismanaging my time or other resources. Lots of people had it way worse than me. Some people are actually poor, and they don’t complain. Mother used to be actually poor ³She tells people this. It definitely isn’t true. She was maybe poor (but honestly I’d guess more neglected than poor) for a few months when she was like 7 but she was rich for the entire rest of her life. She had a shitty mother but she wasn’t poor. There was no question that everything I needed was already provided and so the idea that I would ever need to ask for anything was irrefutable proof that I did not appreciate what I had. Was evidence that I couldn’t take care of myself without being wasteful, or that I was just too terrible to care about how much I was demanding and how it hurt people. Whatever the case the fact that it hurt me so much meant that I wasn’t a real human, and that I should never let anyone see that I had needs lest the find out.

So now I’m ashamed to have unmet needs. Being hungry makes me feel bad because only bad people are hungry. Wanting care means I’m a bad person because I have already had all the care that a good person would need. If I’m sick or injured it’s because I wasn’t careful enough. If I’m dirty it’s because I didn’t plan properly to stay clean. If I’m tired it’s because I didn’t take good enough care of myself to be active.

And when people around me need care it’s because I was too lazy to be sure they had it without asking. Too uncaring to ensure everything they needed was already available. Too gluttonous to keep the good they needed for them, too careless to keep them from getting hurt, too attention-seeking to do what they needed without being noticed, too manipulative to actually give them what they wanted instead of talking them into what I want to give.

Which is all crazy nonsense. But it’s what my brain is doing. Feeling bad about survival decisions I made in the 1900s, and believing the obvious lies that Mother told me about why I was in this situation. I had a lot of trouble imagining that going to Cleveland, even for a couple of days, wouldn’t ruin M’s life. I wanted so badly to go that I couldn’t think of anything else, but my feels knew that desire was me being selfish. Was me putting my own interests ahead of yours, and asking you to share a tortilla with me even when I knew you didn’t have enough.

For a while I’ve been sort of making myself do things in this category. To do the things my rational brain has decided are right – like offering care, or seeking it myself – but I still pretty reliably feel terrible for wanting it. After the fact I can often convince myself that it was the right thing to do. I can look at the outcomes and decide my intervention was worth the pain I caused people. It still feels shameful to like it, but I can at least imagine that it was an acceptable thing to do. But looking forward I can only ever predict disaster. I see a way to reduce your pain and all I can feel is guilt about how I’ll like you feeling better. I see a way to cut pain out of my life and all I see is you taking it in for me. It’s a tough fucking life.

So I’m hoping I can learn to feel better about the idea of exchanging care. To imagine that I can actually help you even if I like it. To imagine that I can have help without causing you harm. To believe that I can be loved and still want things, that I don’t have to trade between having my needs met and being a good person. To believe that I am still a human even when I feel hungry or stressed or any of the 10,000 other things I was taught make me inhuman. To believe that I can have enough of things, and that I don’t need to ration basic care or resources.

One of the ways I am trying to do that is by sharing when I’m worried about you. My instinct is to keep my concerns seperate from you, so that I don’t burden you with my need. So that I don’t make you feel judged or pressured. So that I don’t ruin your life by wanting things for you. The things I want aren’t really human and letting them leak onto you is a sure path to harm. But rationally I know there are benefits to both of us. I get to talk about a thing I’m worried about, and you can maybe offer me reassurance. Or maybe you’re worried about it to and would like my help. Maybe it’s a thing you want to change and you need help to notice it’s happening. Or maybe it’s a thing you can help me see isn’t even about you, and you can help me see the true cause. Often after the fact I like how this went (and then feel bad for liking it) but I’m really afraid to try it in the first place. So I could use feedback. Tell me when I do it in a way that’s bad for you, or that you don’t like. And if you can, tell me when I do it in a way that is useful to you, so I can try to convince my brain that it’s okay.

While in Wisconsin Shanda had persistent eye pain and visual artifacts and was diagnosed with optic neuritis ⁴https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/optic-neuritis/symptoms-causes/syc-20354953. The cause isn’t yet clear – it has been a struggle to get in to see a neurologist, even with a referral. It’s likely that this episode will end within a few months but it’s also likely to cause at least some permanent damage, which is scary. Beyond vision impacts it could also be a sign of something like MS, which is even scarier.

Shanda finally talked to me about the meat of your breakup. You’ve been talking about the immediate feels, and I’m glad you have been able to, but it’s also good to see you progressing to more considered substance. It’s closer to a place where you can have real comfort instead of just reassurance, and where you can have some more influence over your feels. You can have all the time you need but it’s good to see feels other than sad.

Got more of my BZ reporting project done. It’s technically functional now for all the things I need it to do. I’ve still got a bunch of display work to do but I’m pretty sure it collects all the data I need. I’m not sure what to do about it being ugly but maybe I can slap in some javascript to layer the pretty on top. Eventually I’m going to pawn off the UI to someone who runs a reporting tool, but my boss doesn’t understand that yet so I have to fake up a medium good version 1. Still, I’m satisfied for this week and can ignore it again until next week.

Got a new robot vacuum for the top floor. A Samsung R7070, though not a new one because they are too expensive. It’s a totally camera-based navigation system, and appears to use upward views for relative position tracking, plus a split camera for (maybe IR) forward vision. I’m tempted to pull it apart just to see how it works, but first I need it to catch up on cleaning. There’s like 6 weeks of dog hair that it will need to collect in small batches before it can really do the whole house. It’s a good bot so far though. It’s wider than the Neato, has better near-obstacle navigation, has a much cooler edging solution, has top vent to avoid blowback, and drives it faster. Between the width and the speed it cleans faster overall too, which is always nice.

Tensions about school are a bit high with graduation nearly here. J asked that we delay piercings until next week in deference to that, so we’re going on the 18th. That plan seems firmer than when I talked to them about the 11th so I think it will actually go. V is having a seperate bad time with school, and the way it asks us to imagine life as a series of events and not a process. It’s been pretty hard for them the last few days, and we’ve had trouble connecting. And everyone is having trouble with the loss of identity and continuity that comes from a change in day job. Even E, who is usually unflappable against such minor things as mandatory education, seems to feel some of the pressure. Hopefully in a few days we can all get back to the complicated task of trying to manage our own lives, sans the unnecessary external deadlines.

I watched the season 3 closer of Better Call Saul ⁵Better Call Saul (AMC) S03E10 “Latern”. It makes me wish I knew how to share media with people, because this one is spot on. But when I try to share specific feels you think I’m pressuring you about something you don’t want to think about. And when I talk about the big picture I rarely get any reaction. I don’t know if you can just jump … Continue reading. It was on topic for this feel about always hurting people just with my existence. Chuck had a big speech about it to Jimmy and I watched Jimmy fall into defense about a thing that’s probably false. I watched him imagine that he only knows how to break things and not how to build them, even though he spent the last 3 seasons building. But all it takes is the right accusation and he is sure it was all self-serving manipulation. I watched him help by leaving – my favorite trick – and I watch how he did manipulate Chuck into actually getting better, even though everyone hated him for it. I don’t want to be Jimmy. I want to be able to feel good about the parts that help people. And I want to believe that they aren’t bad merely because they also help me.

The episode also had a great fall for Chuck, letting him finally “win” all of the battles he picked. And hating it. It reminded us that Chuck pit himself here in the first place, that he refused any offer of help to get out, that his deliberate choices to be a narc made him rich and king of the narcs and completely unlovable even by the people most dedicated to him.

And it had great scenes about KimW pushing herself too far and how taking a break is not worse than being dead, even when there are very compelling reasons to keep working. Even when your brain promises you that it’s only another couple of weeks before you’ll be done. Before taking a breath will finally be safe.

Shanda was a big fan of the stories about your anxiety pile plan. We had discussed some of her hoarding tendencies earlier, with respect to bad childhood feels – like the way trash in the can is still not quite thrown out yet, and how that leads to mounds of trash over the top of receptacles and nearby on the floor. An inclination distinctly contrasting from my place of everything plan. But it’s sort of the same cause – not thinking about things enough to let them go – so maybe it can have some of the same solution. Even if it doesn’t the anxiety pile discussion was worthwhile and inspired both DerbyK and V to write to me about it. You should too. All the cool kids are doing it.

ZiB

—
Sent from a phone.

• 

• 

•