My neediness…

On By Lucy King

After a few months of my intense ‘neediness’ heightening (noticing my avoidant/distancing parts receding and the needy parts becoming more powerful and all consuming), I experienced my needs being expressed loudly and with agonising urgency and passion, and then experienced having the needs MET by Mark… which has been so deeply healing. And the one occasion where he missed a cry for help and we worked on it tenderly and with genuine compassion and holding. I thought I’d write a poem about the experience because it’s been so huge.

Needs

‘Need’ – turns out it’s not a dirty word,
Deserving of shame and contempt.
And maybe I’m not too much…
Just the people I was asking, had nothing to give.  

All those years…
Believing I was a damn needy child. 
To ask for anything, felt like I was robbing a charity…
Their need always greater than mine. 
Of course they held on tight
To what little they had.
I’d give them the shirt off my back if it made them stay. 
Two sizes too small but they squeezed themselves into it anyway. 
Then left. 
Leaving me naked and wanting. 
Always wanting. 

Bone dry with need. 
Always so fucking thirsty. 
Gasping for a drop,
Tapping their dry wells.
Trying to get what I needed,
From desert folk.

‘You were starved of what you needed as a child…’ 
Starved of what you needed. 
What you needed. 
Needed. 
How can a need be wrong?
Being starved is what’s wrong! 

Always so fucking hungry and empty with the aching pain of it. 
Hollow and gulping down the shame of the need in an attempt to fill up the gaping spaces inside me. 
Who wouldn’t need, when they’ve been starving all their life. 
Spent all my life pushing it down under the water. 
It haunted me. 
Taunted me. 
It screams beneath the surface of the ice.
Drowning in its own expansive emptiness.
It lies there like a turgid corpse,
Glass eyed face pressed against the frozen blanket of silence – full of its own want. 
Staring up at me through the freezing glass. 
I stare back like my life depends on it…
A sense of so much wasted time,
Hurry up. 
She’s drowning! 
Urgently, impatiently waiting for the cracks, the heat of another, the thawing. 
Waiting for the hand. 

And this time – a hand is willingly given. 
With no catch?
Who knew…?
Some people want to help!
My needs don’t scare him. 
When able, he’ll meet them, 
Fill the cup, 
Offer the plate, 
Wrap with a blanket, 
Extend a hand.
And when it can’t be met,
It’s felt through with kindness. 
An open hearted kindness that’s so fucking gentle it’ll blow your skin off with it’s delicate touch. 
Tenderly, tenderly exposing the naked need. 

And the hand 
didn’t demand. 
It waited. 
For trust. 
There’s no rush. Slowly, slowly. 
‘One little piece at a time’. 

And I learn…
Met needs don’t breed… 
Like the rapidly multiplying cells of a bacterial culture in a pitri dish. 
They melt,
Like flakes of snow on a river. 
They’re absorbed. 
And slowly, slowly
The ice cracks,
The barrier melts. 
A hand is grasped. 
A breath is gasped
And many more!
Breathing. Breathing. 
Delicious and satiating. 
Hunger satisfied. 
Thirst quenched. 
Shame neutralised. 
Need met. 

And life feels a little easier to live. 

9 thoughts on “My neediness…”

  1. Love this Lucy. You are very talented and I ‘feel’ what you write (if that makes sense?). I’m sorry your needs were not met, and am glad Mark is so wonderful at meeting them now xx

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    1. Yeah it’s actually incredible to me that I’m able to take his kindness in. I was so defended with Anna it’s heartbreaking how much of her care I couldn’t tolerate. It feels so nourishing to be able to accept it from him.

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  3. Wow Lucy, having needs, asking for what we want is so terrifying. You expressed this well. Just yesterday I listened to a talk on paradoxes. I have read before that trauma often makes us see life as black and white. Many things I read about treating trauma that don’t acknowledge our need for connection and attachment often triggers me deeply. Yesterday I blurted out that I don’t like paradoxes, I don’t want two opposing things to both be true and valid, I just want the opposing paradox to be wrong… so that I don’t have to ask for my needs to be met. If it is just wrong then I won’t have to ask. This is such painful stuff. I am so glad Mark is incredibly safe for you!

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    1. Yeah this is fascinating. I wonder if you’d be willing to share more about what you mean about the paradox thing coz it resonates with me but I can’t put my finger on how it comes out in my life.

      And you hit the nail on the head with your last sentence. He is so safe and I could cry at how glad I am about that. I sent him the poem and he was so lovely about it.

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      1. I find myself being deeply triggered by therapists who talk about trauma, with what feels like a quick fix, and even avoids or denies the need for attachment. I don’t like how it makes me feel though because I feel defensive. My therapist agrees completely with my views on this, but has helped me realize that some therapists work with patients who only have a limited number of sessions available, for whatever reason. This caused me distress because I just wanted it to be completely wrong without exception, and this left me feeling vulnerable. It was easier to argue how wrong it is than to ask for what I need. Surviving trauma makes us desperately want and need certainty because our lives were so chaotic. We want things to be right or wrong. Grey areas are vulnerable and unstable. Acknowledging our own needs, much less asking for what we need is terrifying.

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      2. Ah yes I totally see what you mean. And I agree with what you said at the start. Also your therapist is right but yeah, it shouldn’t be that way. It should be that everyone can get exactly the help they need. It’s great you were able to work through that with your therapist and come to understand that about yourself.

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