In my last post, I expressed in very honest terms the state of my mental health at this time. While most of the sentiments in that (rather scary) post still ring true on some level, there has been a subtle shift in the last several months. It’s been a little difficult to put my finger on quite what has changed, because I’m still in a lot of pain. But I think it boils down to a few central things, and one of the most significant has been my changing attitude towards my own needs.
If we were to draw a diagram of the way I used to think about this subject, there would be a very large circle labeled “wants” with a tiny circle in the middle labeled “needs.” For my entire life, this was how I conceptualized my wants and needs. My needs were the bare-bones, basic stuff—food to eat (enough to survive and be at least somewhat healthy), water to drink, a roof, clothes to wear. My wants were everything else—the larger circle. I had the mindset that I needed to be content with as little as possible, so I drew the circle for my needs small. Drawing the circle small was important, so I wouldn’t become “selfish” or entitled.
It took a visit to the ER for me to finally realize how harmful this style of thinking has been to me and how deeply it has been ingrained in my psyche. In February I had a bad reaction to a medication and a friend had to drive me to the hospital for emergency care. I have a tendency to feel intensely guilty for being even a slight inconvenience to anyone, so I apologized profusely in the car, but she insisted I had nothing to apologize for. And it finally dawned on me—why did I feel so awful for simply being in need? And no matter how small you draw the circle representing your needs, I’m pretty sure a trip to the ER is always classified as a need.
The reason I tend to see my wants and needs as bad is because I am stuck in a scarcity mindset. There is only enough pie for me or for you, not both, so one of us has to get by with whatever crumbs are left over. And I am terrified of being selfish or mean, so I usually give up my pie for everyone else and serve myself last.
H.L. thinks a lot differently. He talks a lot about how when one person suffers, we all suffer, and when one is blessed, so is everyone else. If I am blessed, I will become a blessing to others, not because I labored to be selfless but simply because I have too much to keep to myself. When you put enough water in a bucket, it spills over and gets everyone else wet, too.
While I appreciate this perspective, I feel like I can’t embrace the idea when I see so much scarcity and suffering around me, and like a fine-tuned instrument, I detect it everywhere, always, constantly. I’m really disgusted by the wealth and privilege held by the few in society, but I’m also disgusted with the idea that we should go around punishing people for being blessed. I’m disillusioned with both capitalism and socialism. (And in all fairness, I’m not sure I understand either of them well enough to judge.) In my own life I tend to see myself as bad if I have any kind of excess or margin. But I’ve run myself so ragged that I’m physically not capable of living that way anymore.
I am learning that I have to draw the circle of my needs as big as possible. I need to. For the most part it has meant changing little things—not skipping breaks at work, not thinking about things that distress me, saying no when I need more time for myself. It has also meant some big things. I blew $2,000 on an impromptu beach vacation just to try to get my head above the water. And frankly, I was miserable almost the entire time. It moved the needle on my mental health by only about an inch. And it was worth it. An inch can be the difference between drowning and having your mouth above the water. If I’m broke by the end of the year it won’t matter. I just need to survive. I bowed out of a major commitment that was preventing me from pursuing my own dreams, even though I knew it would have serious repercussions for everyone else involved. I didn’t have a choice. This was classified as a need now. When you find yourself wishing you could go to bed and never get up again, that’s a pretty good indication you need to run a new operating system.
And the operating system I was running was pretty much this: do the right thing, the thing that hurts people as little as possible. Unless it’s yourself. But I am just as valuable as anyone else. I have needs, too. And by recognizing that I was drawing the circle of needs too small, I have more-or-less put myself in a position where I have to honor those needs now, no matter what. Due to a combination of obsessive-compulsive disorder and religious trauma, I can’t do something even a little bit “wrong” without somehow likening myself to Putin or something equally terrible; the emotional response is hardwired in. But if I have to hurt people (i.e. not make sacrifices for their needs anymore) for me to get well and meet my own needs, that’s a much different ordeal than someone like Putin who is hurting millions of people to build an empire and feed the needs of his ego (his non-self, not his self). I’m comparing apples to oranges again—something I tend to do a lot.
I’m finally realizing that it is physically impossible to live in this world without hurting someone. We do live in a world of scarcity. Taking care of myself does often mean saying no to others, and others will pay the price. And ninety percent of the time, others will understand. I have to care for my needs. If I don’t I will suffer, and either die, or want to die. Which would still hurt others, too! People don’t just need to have their needs met; they need to see me thrive as well!
My quest to be a “good person” has basically failed. And part of me is enraged, because it makes me feel awful about myself. It makes me want to lash out and say I might as well go around doing whatever the bleep I want and be a hedonist since being a good person is impossible. But I think this represents black-and-white thinking—something else I tend to do a lot. The world is like a canvas shot with holes. Since I can’t paint what I wanted to on the canvas, I go to the other extreme and act as if the canvas was just a giant hole, something nobody can paint on at all. But that’s not true. You can still paint around the holes.
I long to express my heart, my love in the world, but feel like I can’t because all I see is the holes. I look at things like the abortion issue (which is all the more pertinent in the wake of Roe v. Wade being overturned a week ago) and am frustrated that it is not on my heart to deny life or choice, and I feel like a bad person no matter where I stand on the issue. But then I use that as evidence that since I can’t conceive of a way to do right in one ethical dilemma that therefore love doesn’t exist in the world anywhere. I make a cosmic leap without realizing I’m doing it. Light and darkness by definition can’t exist in the same place at the same time (since darkness is an absence of light), so I make the assumption that since I see darkness in the world, light must not exist. A more realistic and nuanced statement would be to say that darkness is proof light does exist (without light, darkness would be meaningless), but something is standing in the way, casting a shadow on me. And whatever that something is, it’s not something that can be tossed aside right away without consequence; it is something that must be healed slowly over time, and in some cases may not be healed at all in this universe. I know religious people would call that “sin” but I don’t think the bad things we do are the problem. I think it’s the bad things we believe. (Honestly, conceptualizing “sin” as dysfunctional beliefs instead of bad behaviors would be a welcome change in definition to me.) And forcing someone to believe something they don’t would be abusive, so Love has to wait, patiently, for our beliefs to heal.
I have a lot of beliefs that need to heal, but at least one belief has started to shift. My needs are good. They are lovely! They are necessary—that is why they are called needs. And they don’t just include food and water, but things like connection and flowers and long showers and happiness and sexual expression and more money. And I’m allowed to say that. Even if the pursuit of my own needs ends up “hurting” or even hurting someone along the way. Even if people don’t understand (though I have a hunch that more people will understand than I think).
And as an aside, for those of you wondering where I stand on the abortion issue, yes, I am pro-choice. I can’t in good conscience give myself permission to care for my own needs, even at the expense of others, without also giving others permission to do the same. No, I don’t think a fetus is the equivalent of a hangnail. No, I don’t believe life isn’t sacred or isn’t valuable or believe one life is more precious and another less. But yes, I do believe that your needs are good—we must see them as good, lovely even, to heal. And yes, if you need an abortion, I believe you should get one. And yes, I think you should draw the “need” circle large. And no, I don’t think the government should be able to make these kind of decisions for you. And yes, it sucks. Unwanted pregnancies suck, and no matter whether the baby is aborted, or the mother is stuck caring for a child she can’t afford, or the baby is adopted out to someone else—all of these situations suck. Which situation sucks the least is probably itself situational. This world sucks. Let’s stop legislating what people are supposed to do in sucky situations (or telling people it’s their fault for being in a sucky situation) and focus our energy on painting love on the parts of the canvas that aren’t sucky. Let’s stop trying to repair the holes. Maybe we can find a way to incorporate the holes into our artwork; maybe we can’t. Either way, we must paint. We must care for ourselves. We must prioritize our own needs.
I know at least, for my own life, I physically can’t afford to do anything else any longer. I care about suffering, I care about pain, I care about others. But I must care for myself. I must put myself first. And after I’ve been cared for—not just a little, but abundantly—then I will have the excess to share with others, not as an act of obligation but out of the generosity of someone rich and happy to share. It is not wrong to be rich, or blessed. It is not wrong to have excess. It is good to have what you need, and to have much.
And it is even good, perhaps, to have what you need and to draw the circle big even at others’ expense, because your needs are good and need to be honored. Caring for your needs is crucial, hurting others is inevitable, and neither are the same as feeding the ego of your non-self. You are a good person, and you are allowed to have needs, and you are allowed to put yourself first, not because you are “more worthy,” but because you are loved. You deserve the world. Nobody owes it to you. But you are allowed to pursue what you need, and not just that, but what you want, what you dream of. And you are allowed to give others permission to do the same, without any kind of obligation to sacrifice for them. Relationships are about vulnerability and freedom and honoring each other the best we know how, not sacrifice and rules-following and serving each other. Obviously if your heart is led to make a sacrifice for someone, that’s different—you are free not just to put yourself first, but to also put someone else first instead. But we must take great care to distinguish what our heart is truly asking of us from what simply makes us feel good by alleviating our shame.
A few months ago, a friend sent out a mass email asking for donations for some people he knows in Kenya who are in great need. I don’t exactly have a ton of extra money lying around, but I usually try to donate at least a little bit when something like this comes up, especially when it involves real people who I know (or who know someone I know) and who I trust to put the money to good use (as opposed to some charitable organizations that spend half of your donation on their marketing budget). I was trying to decide how much to give, and settled on $300. I didn’t feel comfortable donating much less or much more. But then H.L. piped up and suggested I don’t give any money at all.
“It’s more important that Caleb knows he is loved than it is that people have food,” he explained.
I was incredulous. I was indignant. I started to argue with him. If the whole world embraced that philosophy, people would starve. At least, that’s what I assume. But regardless, in that moment, what I needed most was to know that I was still loved even if I did nothing. And the only way to find that out? Doing nothing, and feeling pretty miserable and guilty while doing it. And in the middle of that moment, saying the oh so important words, “You are Loved. Your needs are lovely. You matter. You are enough.”
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