The Need to be Needy

There is an animal shelter right down the street from my house that has a giant sign outside. Most times this sign says things designed to pull the heart strings – like describing a lonely kitten or puppy that needs a home. But frequently, it simply says “Need dry dog food – Purina” or “Need kitty litter – any kind”. I have seen it a million times over the years, but this time it struck me differently.

I am a person who really lives to be needed. I have finally realized this about myself. I love to listen and be there for people when they go through crisis. I know how to sit in the hard times and give of my time and energy. I love it when someone comes to me for advice or when they are sad. Because deep down I feel needed – like there is a purpose for the pain I have gone through. That I was wired up a certain way for a reason. I like this feeling.

But the feeling I don’t like – is being needy. The very word “needy” makes me start to twitch and cringe. I don’t want anyone to know when I feel needy because this is not where I am comfortable. Being the needed one – I got that one down. But being needy – is not okay.

I was taught not to be needy. I was taught to be strong, to face adversity, to suck it up. And I do this REALLY well. So well, that most people have zero idea what is really going on with me. I used to wear this as a badge of honor. I can do it all by myself. I don’t need help.

But the problem with that strategy is that it is stupid. Let’s just be real. It is not possible for someone to never need anything. And by pretending I was fine and not letting others see that I was needy sometimes, I was doing myself a disservice. I was not allowing others to show they care for me. I wasn’t letting others walk with me.

I had lunch with a friend yesterday who asked me point blank, “how do you handle asking for help?” A few months ago I would have had a stock answer, making it look like I had it all together. I would use some platitudes and shrug aside the personal question by turning it back on the asker. But I have a different perspective now.

Because I have been working on showing when I am needy. I had tangible examples to give. And I was honest. “It sucks. It is awful. It is never comfortable to show when I need help. It doesn’t get easier – sometimes it actually gets harder. But you have to do it. Because guess what, we are all needy. And others want to help, but they aren’t going to magically see your need. I tried that for years and it didn’t work. I just got bitter that no one noticed the neediness that I hid inside. So you just have to do it. You have to ask.”

So today I am wondering, as I pass the sign for the animal shelter, what would it look like if we all just let our neediness hang out there. Put a sign on our desk or doorways – wore a nametag that stated very clearly what we needed. I can’t think of anything scarier. BUT, without naming the neediness, without letting others know the need, they don’t know. They are not given the opportunity to help.

There are days I just need a few words of encouragement. Every day I need people to say good morning to me. Some days I just need someone to ask me how I am doing. Some really hard days I need a hug. I have actually verbalized all of those needs over the past few months. And while it feels awful to have to ask, I have gotten my needs met that way. Rather than sitting there alone hoping someone somehow discerned I needed extra attention, rather than worrying that I am “too needy” or “too much”, I just say, “hey, I miss you and want to hang out.” Or “I am having a sad day and just need a hug”.

Really crazy stuff. Really scary stuff. But as always, I am surprised by how effective it is. I am surprised by how a simple question can deepen a relationship or make a new friend. Because vulnerability is attractive to others. So rather than coming off looking like a mess, I have been told I am really brave, or really open.

So maybe we all really should wear nametags stating our greatest needs. Who knows what might happen if we just let people know what we need?

A Bad Case of Laryngitis, A Softball Game and a Brick Wall

Recently I got really sick and lost my voice so completely that I couldn’t make a sound squeeze through my vocal cords. This is a helpless feeling. I didn’t realize how much I do talk until I actually couldn’t – at all. My daughter and I figured out a way to work around it. We had a little system. She would talk and I would answer via extreme gesture or with text messages. My puppy was just forlorn. He kept looking at me with his giant puppy dog eyes begging me to praise him. But I couldn’t. I tried to continue normal life and even called into a work meeting but unable to make a sound it quickly deteriorated as they relentlessly made fun of me while I answered back via instant messages that my male co-worker read out in a high pitched whine. It was humiliating.

On strict vocal rest, but bored out of my mind, I decided to brave the work softball game. Every Thursday night in the summer, a large group of faithful fans gather to cheer on our coworkers as they play other local teams (and usually lose). While there is cheering going on, there is much more talking and laughing as these times are often the only time I see these friends even though we work in the same building.

I figured I could at least go and be with people, even though I couldn’t speak. After all, I could listen. I didn’t realize how difficult this was going to be. For some reason, that night it felt like everyone wanted to talk to me. They asked me questions and I had great answers and I wanted to talk but I literally couldn’t. It was the most frustrating thing.

But that night something happened that I won’t forget. My friend Jillian stepped in to be my voice. At first, she just told people I lost my voice. But then when a question was asked of me, she would know the answer and she would tell it. She knew stories about my week, my kids, what the doctor had said to me. A few times I would text the start of the story to her and she would finish it unaided. So many people laughed and finally her roommate said, “I didn’t realize you knew so much about Amie’s life.”

Up until this point, if asked, I would have called Jillian a good friend –but I probably would have thought that my main role in her life was as a mentor or listener. That was typical for me and a role I was comfortable in. But in that moment, I realized how much Jillian knew me. Like really knew me. In sharing life together, I had told her stories from mine – examples, heartaches and even current struggles. Not all at once, but bit by bit over the last year. And she had listened. And heard me. And wasn’t afraid to tell other people.

While this seems normal to most people, this was new for me. I listened to others, asked good questions and made people feel heard. But I rarely shared what was going on with me and was rarely asked. This was probably less about the other people and more about the giant brick wall I had firmly built around my heart. After years of rejection, I no longer really even tried to let people in. I stopped hoping for someone to even realize a wall was there.

But somehow this 25-year-old girl had broken through the wall and I hadn’t even realized it. I hadn’t been paying attention.

But in this moment – at this silly softball game, it was obvious. She knew me so well, she could actually speak for me and advocate for me when I literally could not.

Of course, my voice eventually came back, but I think it was that very moment of realization that I started to wonder what life would be like if I started to dismantle the wall and let people see me. I wanted to be known like this. It felt right and affirming. I felt more alive than I had in a long while.

I looked around myself at the players in my life and didn’t see anyone like me. This had always been my excuse in the past. I was older and had kids and had struggles that people couldn’t understand. But there were people here in my life. There was this 25-year-old girl and a 27-year-old single guy and a bunch of other “not age appropriate” people who seemed to enjoy talking to me. I decided that life is what you make it and you can only play the game with those who are willing to step up to the table. And these were my players today. Was I willing to take a risk?

Apparently I was. I slowly and deliberately started to tear down the wall – brick by brick. And while it has not been without fumbling missteps and buckets of pain, I can say this. I have learned more about how important it is to feel emotions and be real from that 25-year-old girl than I ever have from anyone else. I have learned more about loyalty and sticking with people in the midst of their mess from that 27-year-old guy than I would have thought possible (and he has forever redeemed the male species for me). I have learned that it is okay to be a mess and not have it all together and that if people really like you they will allow you to fall apart and not make sense. I have learned that there are people willing to drop everything and talk to you when you are just sad and don’t know why and that won’t run when you need to have a difficult conversation even when it makes them uncomfortable.

I have also learned that friendship hurts and is hard. And that sometimes it feels easier to have a wall protecting your heart from pain. But even with the pain, there is nothing that can compare with knowing that you have someone to call in a crisis. Someone that won’t hesitate to help – even if it costs them. There is nothing that can compare with that feeling of being known – someone who knows all of your stories and your contexts and your crap. The wall is firmly down now, and hopefully won’t be rebuilt any time soon.

Who knew laryngitis could change your life forever?

The Art of Asking

I am reading a book called “The Art of Asking” by Amanda Palmer. I have no idea who this woman is and hadn’t heard about her before I started reading this book – but it is intriguing to me. Because asking for help is something I typically don’t do.

There are many reasons really. I am sure I could spend thousands of dollars in therapy (and have!) figuring out all of the reasons why. I was raised to be “fine” – to keep emotions to myself. Having feelings at all was frowned upon – being good was the goal. When I grew up, this persisted as I stayed in a marriage for fifteen years with a man who verbally and emotionally abused me…not every day but often enough to keep me in line. Hearing for years that you are not worth anything makes you start to believe it. You don’t even know how to ask for help. It is not a thing on your radar…surviving every day is all you can do. How can someone help with that?

I may be one of the few people in the world who is grateful for her husband’s multiple affairs – not because they didn’t devastate me and shatter my heart into a million pieces – but because with the leaving came the freedom and the healing and the recognization of the lies and manipulation I had lived under for fifteen years. I was able to finally be myself and be okay with that. BUT that didn’t mean that I learned to ask for help. I was strong. I could do it all by myself.

I had been for years after all.

So I was reading this book today and a guy was telling a story about how he had worked up the courage to ask his aunt to talk to his dying mother. They had been feuding for years. It was ugly. But this guy decided to call his aunt and lay out his heart. He laid it all out there, he asked her to come see his mother.

And she said no.

“It was so hard for me to ask,” he said, “I never ask for anything. And I’d finally asked. That answer…it crushed me.”

I had to put the book down and cry.

Because I get that. I so get that.

Having lived the way I had for so many years – afraid to be myself, afraid to let people see me – it took me a long time to ask for help. I did it so rarely, I can actually remember each and every time in the last ten years.

The first time I tangibly asked for help…I was ignored. I asked explicitly…the person heard me…and then ignored my request.

It took me 2 more years to ask for help again. This time it was a rather easy task related request. I asked with a level of vulnerability this time. I explained that it was hard for me to ask and why. The person said they would help. They didn’t show up.

I stopped asking. If I needed help with something, I either figured out a way to do it myself or left it undone. I learned to live with broken light fixtures, sink faucets and without a small group. Because I had learned that it was easier to do that then to get rejected.

But what happens when you live life that way? For me, that ended up in walled off emotions and lonely nights. I have spent nights in the hospital waiting rooms alone, gone to the mental hospital to visit my child alone, dealt with the aftermath of car accidents alone, spent sleepless nights worrying alone…probably more than the average person. All because asking for help didn’t go well for me.

So recently, I decided to stop doing that. I decided that risking and vulnerability needed to replace the fear of rejection. And I am not going to lie. It has not been easy or without gut wrenching pain. I have risked talking about things I don’t talk about. I have asked explicitly for what I need in friendships, in work and in life in general. And I have been hurt. And I have been rejected. And I have been devastated.

But in the midst of that, there have been moments of pure joy and freedom. There have been people who have stepped up and cared when you haven’t thought they would. There have been offers of help when I haven’t been able to even formulate the question. There have been crisis times when I have actually had someone to call.

While not everything has gone the way I had hoped it would, and I have some regrets about things I have shared, I have learned that even with the pain – it can still be worth it. It is worth it to open yourself up to others – even if they let you down sometimes. It is worth it to be your authentic self – scars and all. It is worth it to ask for help – even if the answer is no. Because although it hurts, you have to risk in order to get a reward. And the rewards do come…the trick is to hold onto them and not let the fear overtake you.

 

The Long Road Trip

The trip had started so many days ago. I had watched the scenery change as the miles flew past. What began in the congested traffic of San Francisco over bridges and bodies of water had given way to hills and valleys. We had passed the flower fields with acres and acres of daffodils and poppies and the redwood trees towering majestically overhead.

All the exciting scenery had passed and the monotonous forest felt like the only thing I had seen for hours. We had visited Grandma on her ranch, played with the animals, read books by the fire pit, endured hundreds of questions from relatives I had never met before, stolen frozen Twinkies out of the freezer in the guest room and begged Uncle Stephen to saddle up the old mare so I could ride. All that was left now of our grand adventure was the monotonous drive home. Three days of driving. We had listened to all of our books on tape and now the car was silent without even radio reception to break the stillness.

My 12 year old self was tired of the trip. What had started as an exciting journey had long since become tedious. I longed for home, my own bed, my own pillow – my own summer days to fill as I pleased. Not with family obligations and forced interaction with people I barely knew.

I wanted to go to the library and continue my journey through the fiction titles. My goal was to read them all and I was already on the letter J. I wanted to curl up inside the lawn chair that I liked to fold into a triangle – making my own personal fort where I was hidden from the world.

The road slipped by – mile after monotonous mile with barely a road sign with which to continue the alphabet game. I had been stuck on Q for what seemed like 3 days but was probably more like three hours.

The forest was misty – rainy and dreary. The sun hid behind a cloud – contributing to my lackluster pre-teen angst. Occasionally we would pass a random shoe on the side of the road or even an abandoned piece of furniture which would give me a few minutes of imaginative wondering on how they could have found their way to such a godforsaken lonely place.

The curves of the road seemed endless. The pine trees enveloped the red car as it carefully navigated the turns. I stared out the window, the beauty of the trees and the forest had long since been noted and dismissed. All that was left was the boredom of the drive.

My little brother sprawled across the backseat tangled in the seatbelt, reading something, always reading something. I don’t think he even looked up for the last 400 miles. The map creased and wrinkled from hours of pondering spread out on my lap forgotten.

Mom drove steadily, her hands positioned properly at exactly 10 and 2. Anxiously glancing in the rear view mirror every few minutes. The road was deserted. It had been forty five minutes since another car had passed in any direction – I was timing it just to pass the time.

I stared aimlessly out the window. The bug splatters smeared my vision, but I didn’t even notice. I didn’t care about anything anymore, lulled by the monotony of the long drive.

The blue smudge that came into my view was just another distraction. As we rounded each bend in the road, it gradually changed from a shapeless blue blur into a station wagon- stopped on the side of the road somewhat crookedly. I considered it idly as it approached – noting the figure standing beside it. He was a scruffy, unshaven man wearing a standard issue brown trench coat and a sinister smile.

I felt a sudden tension in the air as my mother stiffened beside me.

It was raining gently now so the brown trench coat the man was wearing didn’t seem out of place at all. But the way the man was standing struck me as odd. As if he was waiting for us, anticipating something. But he didn’t seem to need a ride.

The road trip had been my mother’s idea, perhaps the most out of character idea she had ever had. It was surprising that she would even suggest it as she feared going to the local mall lest she or her children be kidnapped by the mall predators she heard about on the news. A road trip from California to Washington with only a map and 2 kids and no man to keep them safe was a huge risk. But seemingly a rite of passage.

I was in middle school, old enough to read a map. And despite one detour on an unpaved gravely road that had looked like a solid line on the map, it had gone well so far.

But now, in the forests of Washington with no one but this man in sight, this whole trip seemed like a crazy notion. Despite the windy roads and the ever present fear of crashing, my mom gave a little extra push on the accelerator and kept her eyes straight ahead.

As our tiny red car passed the station wagon, the stranger suddenly opened his trench coat revealing a flash of pasty white skin. It happened so quickly, I was unsure it had happened. I hadn’t really seen anything more than the suggestion of nakedness and thought maybe the tedium of the trip had finally fried my brain.

I spun my head towards mom to see if she had seen anything. My mom couldn’t even say the word “butt” so surely the sight of a naked man on the side of the road would elicit some sort of horrified reaction.

But mom was placidly driving, hands at 10 and 2, just as before, albeit slightly faster. My brother turned the page of his book, just as he did every few minutes oblivious to any drama playing out in the front seat. I glanced out the window again, blinking my eyes rapidly as if to clear them. It must be time to get out of the car. I am hallucinating now.

Years later, I remembered this random incident. Without any context at all one night at a family dinner I said, “Mom, I have a weird memory from my childhood and I wanted to ask you if it actually happened.”

“It did,” she said without hesitation or explanation.

Dumbfounded, I explained briefly what I remembered, certain we must be talking about something else. “Yes, that is what I was referring to,” she said.

“Why did you never acknowledge it at the time? And how on earth did you know that is what I was going to ask you?” I said.

“I didn’t think you noticed and I didn’t know what to do so I stayed silent. But I always wondered if you would someday ask.”

This struck me as such a waste and so dreadfully sad. It had been thirty years since the crazy brief flash of flesh in the deep woods of Washington. Thirty years of denial and hiding something that didn’t matter much in the scheme of life. I didn’t see anything I could identify, it didn’t scar me for life. I didn’t even remember it very clearly.

But what had happened is that it had become one more in a collection of memories that I didn’t trust because it was never spoken of, never acknowledged.

While it was not conscious on my part, this played out in a verbally manipulative marriage. I lived in silence when things got bad because that is what you did. You didn’t acknowledge anything that could be construed as distasteful.

This could have been a funny childhood anecdote to add to our list of things we pull out at holidays. Like the time my brother caught his sweater on fire or the time my mom dropped the turkey or when the lamb cake’s head fell off on the way to the church picnic.

But instead there was silence.