Having Your Needs Met

Never Being a Burden Can Look Like:

• Isolating when you are struggling

• Ensuring that your choices don’t upset others

• A belief that people eventually drop you if you’re not being positive

• Working hard to show you “have it all together”

• Apologizing for having to meet your basic needs

• Only sharing your pain through dark humor and only on ‘good days’

These are examples of the trauma response known as “fawn” (or chronic people-pleasing), where we betray ourselves and our own needs to avoid conflict or to avoid being seen as “needy.” Guess what? All humans have legitimate needs — emotional, physical, and spiritual — and you have every right to ask for those needs to be met. That does not make you a burden. That does not make you “too needy.” Not only that but having your needs consistently go unmet can have a lot of long-term health consequences, including deep resentment and anger issues and/or anxiety and depression. Speak up. Practice identifying and verbalizing your needs — no, you will not get them met 100% of the time, but you will learn to feel more confident in your relationships. Anyone who calls you a “burden,” “needy,” or “high maintenance” is just not your person. It doesn’t make them a bad person; it just is not an aligned relationship, for many possible reasons. There are other humans more than willing to better meet your needs.

— Shannan Cason, Psy.D.