Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Depression and expressing my needs and wants

I carry an ideal around in my head about what I should be able to accomplish: I should be able to be told something once, understand it once, and then never have to be told again.
Real life doesn’t work that way, of course, and the hardest lessons take time and repeated instruction.
I have found that out in the therapy that I’m undergoing for chronic depression.
I’m still having difficulty in expression my needs and wants to others.
Now, my therapist doesn’t want me to turn into a self-centered, selfish person who cares only about my own wants.
He doesn’t want me to become demanding or shove my wants down someone else’s throat.
But he does think it’s important to my emotional development and to my depressive moods for me to learn that my needs and wants are important.
Through my upbringing, I learned that my needs and wants were not important and I was selfish and spoiled to want them considered.
Even though intellectually, I know that people’s own needs and wants are important, even my own, I don’t accept it emotionally.
And therein lies my problem.
I recently failed once again to tell my husband what I was really feeling about something, what I was really wanting. It wasn’t over anything earthshaking, but it was important enough that I needed to express myself.
Instead, I resisted, and then later when my husband asked me what was wrong, that I seemed far away, I answered with my old standby: “I’m tired.”
I wasn’t making that up. It wasn’t like I was full of energy and raring to go. I really was tired. But I was tired with the fatigue of depression more than the fatigue of work.
My therapist said that when I don’t speak up about my needs and wants, I might avoid conflict. But I push the feelings down.
“And who keeps score?” he asked.
“I do,” I said.
“Your body does,” he said.
When I’ve acted in a way that is consistent with helplessness—not expressing myself, believing that it’s not important, believing that my needs and wants are not important—then I feel helpless.
That shows up in my body with a depressed mood and fatigue.
What can change that? My behavior.
I have to act like I’m not helpless. I have to express myself. I have to act like my needs and wants are important, even if emotionally I don’t yet get it.
If I watch closely, my therapist told me, I will begin to notice that when I don’t express myself, my mood is lowered. When I do begin to speak up, my mood will be better.
The brain is a social organ. Interpersonal relations affect how I feel, he said.
So once again I’m learning that my behavior can make a huge difference in how I feel.

  Do you have a difficult time expressing your needs and wants? How does that affect how you feel?

31 comments:

  1. As always Tina, this is such a great post!!

    I don't have difficulty expressing my needs and wants, at all. Maybe it's too easy for me to set expectations. I can be a bit demanding, and I guess the way that it affects how I feel is that I have no control over how people react to my demands and sometimes I don't get the reaction that I feel I deserve.

    On the other hand, my boyfriend is 'tired' often when I want to discuss things and what not. He is emotionally drained by how intense I can be, and I get the 'tired' bit a lot. I now understand more that it is done as an avoidance tactic and to prevent conflict.

    Thank you for sharing this with us, this helps me understand my boyfriend more and will make me make a more conscious effort to not be so overbearing and let him express his needs and wants in a 'natural' way instead of beating it out of him. (Figuratively, not literally.)

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    1. Yaya, I'm glad you found this helpful. I think it's great that you don't have difficulty expressing your needs and wants. I think that's healthier than keeping things inside.

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  2. I used to have a hard time with it, Tina. Especially with my husband. My problem was that I thought that he should just know what was going on with me. I felt it was not "romantic" if I had to tell him. I wanted him to just instantly know what I needed. ha ha Silly, I know. My counselor had to drill it in my head that if I needed something, I had to TELL him, that he wasn't a mind reader. After a while it started getting easier. But it definitely took practice. Now on the other hand, my hubby still has a hard time telling me what he needs/wants because he doesn't want to be selfish. Because I know that about him, I try to encourage him to be more "demanding," if you know what I mean. The thing is, if we are both honest with each other, then our relationship is better and healthier for both of us. It's definitely a learning process that we're both still working on. Hang in there - just like ERP - lots of practice!!

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    1. Thanks, Sunny. I'm working on it! I don't have problems sharing with my husband on the big things. It's the things that I fear are too inconsequential and silly that I hold back. But if it's bothering me, I should just say it.

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  3. Hmm, good question. I don't have trouble speaking my needs to my husband. In fact, he appreciates that he always knows where he stands with me, and he never has to worry that I'm harboring some secret resentment toward him.

    As I started to type my response, though, a deeper truth started to emerge. That is, I don't always speak my needs and wants to myself...or, I may speak them but not act on them. Yikes! I have work to do on that.

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    1. Nadine, Interesting--I haven't thought about whether or not I'm being open to myself about my needs and wants. Thanks for bringing this up--I need to think about this!

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  4. I have a problem with it too Tina. Most of the time I'm too afraid to speak up for myself and it's like you say; you pay the price of that yourself.
    Fortunately this is not the case when it comes to my husband. To him I can be totally honest about my needs and wants.

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    1. Klaaske, I have such a habit of holding things in and feeling selfish if I express what I want. It's a habit I'm trying to break.

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  5. I do okay but then when a person doesn't listen or hear what I say, then I stop trying, and this is where the problems come in.

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    1. Lisa, I know what you mean. I have learned, though, that it's important to my health to express myself anyway, knowing I can't control the other person's response. It's hard!

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  6. There are so many aspects to depression, but yes, I've found this one to be true. Validating our own thoughts and feelings is important! I've also had things that I've had to learn over and over and I've thought: but I already learned this! and now I'm learning it again.

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    1. Kristina, it is so frustrating to me to not learn something the first time around, but I know that's my perfectionism talking. And you're right--validating our thoughts and feelings is important.

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  7. Great post, Tina. I used to have a lot of trouble with this. In fact, I still have a knee-jerk reaction to not express my wants and needs clearly, but I fight it. I've come to realize it puts a burden on the other person if I expect him/her to read my mind, and I've come to see for myself how much easier life is if everyone is upfront about how they're feeling.

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    1. Jean, you make a good point--not being open with others puts a burden on them. I agree.

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  8. --Tina,
    all I can say is "I UNDERSTAND COMPLETELY."

    Xxxxxx

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  9. I have gotten a little better about expressing my needs and wants, but as I think about it now, part of that is because I've just withdrawn from people so that I can take care of more of my own needs and wants.

    I've also thought about it using oversimplification and catastrophizing, but to my advantage. Once, I was in the hospital for bad depression. That is humiliating and rough and probably helpful and all, but it costs a lot of money, and it leaves me in a position where I HAVE to get needs met by other people, including the nurses and doctors and all. But I have this theory (I think a friend may have helped me come up with it) that if I ask for help NOW, then I am more likely to stay out of the hospital, thus, in a way, needing less help long term (or at least not needing that large of an amount of help all at once). I guess that reasoning has a lot of imperfections, but it does help me sometimes to work up the nerve to take care of myself now.

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    1. Abigail, It's hard for me to ask for help, too, but I like your theory that it's best to ask for help beford things get really bad and we need a lot more help.

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  10. "The brain is a social organ. Interpersonal relations affect how I feel." This is so interesting. I've never heard it put quite like this. I like it. Expressing my needs is something I have to work at too. Sometimes I'm better at it than other times. It's a process, right?

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    1. Grace, yes, a process indeed! My therapist keeps telling me that the brain is a social organ. I think he wants to impress upon me the important effects interpersonal relations have on me.

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  11. I think the only people I feel safe with is my husband and children who I would express my needs with but outside of them, I never ask for help. Never. I think your therapist is correct in that our body keeps count and I think my stress and anxiety is directly related to it all.

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    1. Krystal Lynn, I wonder why we have such a hard time asking for help except from those that are the very closest to us? That's something I'm going to think about.

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    2. I have analyzed it, and I think in my situation it is because it was not something modeled for me at home. I am not trying to set blame or be nasty about it (though I do go through periods where I get angry that a child would be treated as I was) but asking something from my parents for anything left me feeling like I was putting them out and made into such a big deal that it was better to take what they gave me, when they felt like giving it to me (everything from school supplies to comfort/hugs) or figuring out how to do it myself. I completely fear asking for help and being rejected, I may as well be 5 years old again the way it makes me feel. So I protect myself and don't ask, don't risk the hurt.
      Ironically , I also pride myself on my self-sufficiency . That is my take on how I came out this way.

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    3. Krystal Lynn, I'm sorry you had that kind of experience in childhood. In a lot of ways, I had a similar experience, and I think it affects me today, too.

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  12. Like Krystal Lynn, I'm able to express my needs to my family, but it's not always easy outside the safety of my home. I don't want to come off as pushy, or assertive, or selfish, but deep down I know that's not how I would likely be perceived. I am finding it easier as I get older, though........finally getting comfortable with just being myself. I'm sure you can get there, Tina...it's just a lot of hard work, as you know.

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    1. Janet, I have that fear of being perceived as pushy, too. But it has become easier to express myself the older I get.

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  13. I have been there so many times... not able to express my wants and needs and then feeling "far away" and when people ask me what's wrong I'll say "nothing" or "just tired."

    This is a great post and something that I have to remind myself to work on.

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    1. Thanks, Elizabeth, I have to remind myself to work on it, too.

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  14. Yes, i know how hard it is to state my needs. But i'm practising it and it is getting easier. It always helps when i even KNOW what i feel. For example when my dh asked if his dad could visit, i said 'yes'. Because i knew that was the 'proper' thing to say. As it got closer and my stress level went up, dh and i had a chat about how i really wasn't comfortable with having FIL stay at the house. B;s sister freaked when she heard he was staying at a hotel instead ofour house. Fortunately it was dh who had to calm her down, not me :). OCD has helped me notice and express my needs because i HAVE to. I can't just suck it up and be 'nice'.

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    1. Karin, you make a good point about noticing our needs in the first place, and how OCD helps you express yourself.

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  15. I find it always hard to say what I need or want. Sometimes I feel very bad and make a huge effort to tell a friend that I need to talk, but then I feel i have nothing to say.

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