Hey Fuckers. Guess who’s showing up a week late on this platform? It’s this guy.

You know why? Because this guy (ng’d) has finally started paying attention to their level of chronic self-deprivation.

AKA – The habitual, learned pattern in which I live my life, believing that it’s “good” to have nothing. To neglect myself. To divert attention from “my living experience” to “continually striving, producing, and performing” in the ways that I “should,”  because that’s the “correct” way to be a human being. 

I hope those air quotes came out clearly in my intonations. Because everything I just said was a lot of societal and family abuse bullshit. 

But… here we are. Finally tracing the connection between an early childhood of neglect and a continued lifetime of self-neglect, which has become deeply intertwined with the idea of “being a good person.” 

Not only for this Fucker over here. But, for most of us. 

As demonstrated by… the full list of human needs that nearly none of us give ourselves.

I read it for you a few shows ago, but you know? Let’s do it again, because if you’re like me, your brain will also refuse to believe or acknowledge the significance of these words for as long as possible. 

Connection

Acceptance

Affection

Clarity

Communication

Confirmation

Compassion

Intimacy

Understanding Authenticity

Love

Autonomy

Choice Space

Spontaneity

Peace

Beauty

Ease

Harmony

Order

Wholeness

Interconnection

Belonging

Consideration

Community

Cooperation

Dignity

Mutuality

Support

Trust

Meaning

Contribution

Creativity

Hope

Inspiration

Purpose

Celebration

Joy

Mourning

Play

Competence

Effectiveness

Efficiency

Growth

Learning

Power

Honesty

Authenticity

Integrity

Basic Survival

Shelter

Food & Water

Rest

Safety

Security

Touch

These are the many, innate, evolution-based needs which, in deprived states, go on to create negative emotional experiences for us. When we live in deprivation, our bodies and brains try to signal to us that we need to make changes via unpleasant emotional sensations. Otherwise, if it was comfortable, we’d be content to keep floating along in deprived states without changing a thing. 

But. Having no idea that we’re denying ourselves the basic necessities of healthy functioning (because when have we ever had those things? When have we been allowed to honor these innate drives within ourselves?), instead those emotions aren’t taken as cues for change. They’re just projected outwards onto external circumstances as a way to explain why we’re unhappy. 

Outside events become interpreted as “the cause of our suffering,” when, in fact, our suffering comes from within. From all the ways we’re not fulfilling the foundations of a well-functioning, biologically supported by design, life. From all the ways we don’t know how. And from all the ways we don’t think we’re allowed to.

Lots to cover today. Let’s try to boil about 5 hours of discussion into half an hour. 

So. First of all, lettuce cover the fact that we’re raised by people who need or at least strongly, strongly prefer, that we have no needs, ourselves. They were so overwhelmed by their own experiences and lack of fulfillment that they required US to stay silent about OURS. 

Their emotions are too large and unmanaged. Their life chaos is too constant. Their own needs are too long forgotten. They can’t take care of themselves, so they can’t take care of us. And they resent us if we vocalize what it is we’re missing… because they’ve been missing those things – and more – for decades already. Those negative emotions created by deprivation are projected onto us, the small children in the situation, and we’re informed that we’re the problem. 

So, from this early upbringing, we don’t learn the full scope of WHAT we need, because we have no experience with those aspects of life. No one has been watching out for our comprehensive, holistic, wellbeing – we’re lucky if we get food and shelter as far as need fulfillment goes. 

AND we learn to stay silent about the things we DO know we need… since the alternative experience is being punished for voicing our concerns. Or making any sounds at all, in a lot of circumstances. 

Over time, realizing there’s no positive outcome to recognizing the things we’ll never obtain, we learn not to even notice our needs. 

We stop acknowledging our needs, within ourselves. It’s “incorrect” to do so and we have no power to satiate our needs in the trauma-flailing existences we have, anyways, so we don’t even consciously observe our deprivations anymore at a certain point. 

We just… live that way. Often disassociating to avoid the discomfort that we can’t fix. Unfulfilled. Neglected. Biologically and psychologically imbalanced. Miserable. With no idea why our steady state in life is “I wish I wasn’t here at all.” 

Well, Fuckers. Despite what those early lessons from people who also had complex trauma, imbalanced lives, and immense deprivation vs. entitlement complexes told you… 

It’s because you don’t have the things that you require. Not desire. Require. 

And this is where I assert… a few things. 

1. We learn what our needs are based on what care we observe as children. Not only based on what care we receive, but also what needs are acknowledged by the people around us in their own lives. If your parents didn’t give a shit about community, collaboration, joy, or novelty in their own experiences… guess what, you don’t know that you’re biologically designed to require those things, either. 
2. Based on this… We learn what needs we CAN or “SHOULD” have, based on what the people around us allow themselves and us to have. For me? I learned that I’m allowed to eat, drink, exercise, and be highly efficient. Oh, Fuckers, I can achieve all day long – and, in fact, due to my social class, I MUST. In order to work? I also have to eat, drink, and stay healthy so those needs are required as well. The rest of the things on that human needs list? Especially the interpersonal and self-actualizing ones? Nah, my brain genuinely doesn’t even consider that those are areas of life to pay any attention to.
3. Because of this massive discrepancy in known/accepted/allowed/required needs and completely unknown/dismissed/unallowed/”outlawed-because-they’re-too-fancy-for-US-in-particular” needs… we end up getting into some real fuckery with our lifestyles and habits. And that creates even bigger problems for us.

So, check this out. 

If you have twenty deprivations raging on – things like joy, celebration, creativity, mutuality, love, touch, recognition and dignity – that you 1) don’t know about and 2) don’t feel you’re allowed to have in life, if you do recognize them…

But you have like 3 needs that you WILL allow yourself to fulfill. Or you may feel required to fulfill in order to “be a good, functional, person”….

Well. 

What do you think happens? 

Do you think you pour all your attention into satiating your “allowed” handful of needs, seeking some modicum of comfort and biological balance? Perhaps, well past the point that they’re fulfilled? And therefore do you think you receive zero chemical reward to your brain when you over-fulfill those three “allowed areas of need” on repeat? 

Meanwhile, with all of your real, unacknowledged and impermissable needs… (dozens of them)… just fucking burning in the background, driving those negative emotions that tell you “life is pain, this is pointless, no matter what we do, we always feel just as shitty as before. Something is MISSING.” 

In my eyes… yes. Yes, that’s exactly what happens.

We put all our time, energy, and attention into trying to meet our needs. But if we’ve incorrectly learned that we’re only permitted to have about 5 needs from the full list… we end up fruitlessly toiling away in a manner that returns no positive results for our heads or bodies.  

So, if you’re like me, you maaaaay eat and eat and eat your way towards an attempt at “fulfillment” and “self-care.” But it never helps. Because the effort isn’t targeting the real problem – the real set of unacknowledged need deprivations that are raging on. But, you’re stuck. Your brain doesn’t realize it has any other options; this is the only form of need fulfillment it has come to know. And so? It instructs you to keep trying. Keep reaching for that potential comfort. And so, you eat and eat and eat. 

Or… you work and work and work. On some level, believing productivity, achievement, recognition and efficacy will fill the void in your guts. 

Or… you exercise yourself nearly to death. Or fuck your heart out, while still feeling chronically empty inside. 

Thus… creating way bigger problems for yourself! 

No matter which overemphasis on “allowed needs” strategy you take? Now you have NEW needs, based on those couple of over-satiated needs that have become uncontrollable, compulsive, rigid habits in your life. 

And the more attention you keep diverting towards these out-of-balance needs you have, many of which have been put on maximum overdrive until they created new *emergency* needs for you to chronically address? The less likely it is that you’ll ever realize how many other aspects of life you’ve never satiated. 

Like growth, cooperation, inspiration, purpose, spontaneity, harmony, acceptance, or intimacy. 

And so, those areas of existence continue to be neglected. You continue to churn out shitty emotions. And from those asshole chemical gradients, you continue to assess everything negatively around you as an explanation for the unpleasant state you find yourself in. 

You see what I’m saying?

Well… I hope so, because I have more to say about this connection between unknown needs and self-destruction. 

So, let’s say you live in this consta-deprivation hell prison that I just described. (You… you’re realizing you do, aren’t you? Yeah, I’m sorry, but you’re welcome.)

Your brain has been informed for many years of what it’s NOT allowed to have due to “normal life circumstances.” 

“Because of the way things are, in so many areas of life, this is just how it has to be.” “That’s life, get used to it.” “We all have to make sacrifice and do things we don’t want to do, welcome to earth.” Etc.

That’s the message you’ve been delivered by your family and this fucked up capitalistic, mentally cannibalistic, nightmare we all march through, isn’t it? 

Well your brain isn’t stupid. And your subconscious is always trying to solve problems for you – problems you don’t even know you consciously have. So. What does your brain decide, then? 

Your SUB-C says “well, if these are things I can’t have under NORMAL circumstances… how about I create ABNORMAL ones?” 

And so enters another common trauma experience or two, as a result of that learned self-deprivation.

1) self-sabotage. Your brain figures, “if everything falls apart in this job, this educational experience, this relationship, this living situation, etc… then… I guess the normal rules of self-deprivation conduct don’t apply anymore, huh?” Maybe on purpose or perhaps by accident, you may actually have the opportunity to meet long-forgotten needs of yours, because there’s been a shift in your daily requirements. So, your subconscious goes off, wrecking your shit so there’s a massive shift in what your normal day to day looks like. 

2) psychosomatic illness. Again, if “normal functioning” is what stands between you and you receiving the things you’ve always needed… “guess what,” your SUB-C says. “Let’s just make you too sick to fucking function.” NOW will you have time, space, and energy to care for yourself in different – probably newly mandatory – ways? NOW, if your life is in question, will you pay attention to you, rather than everything else on your plate?” Hm. 

Overall. If life is what stands in the way of getting your needs met for long enough? Your brain can decide to drastically alter your experience of life, so that those needs have a chance at fulfillment. Maybe with a looser schedule, you stumble into fulfilling more of your own needs. Maybe with that free time and space, you purposely get to address long-neglected areas of life. 

OR… maybe you get a chance at need fulfillment… via the care of others.

And so enters learned helplessness in order to get our needs met.  

So, if things get SO BAD through self-sabotage or psychosomatic illness that you’re genuinely powerless to help yourself anymore, what HAS to happen? Someone else HAS to step up to the plate to take care of your needs, don’t they? 

And in this way, not only does your system finally get some satiation of decades-deprived needs… but hey… Bonus fucking points: YOU don’t even have to feel stressed, shameful, guilty, or fearful of being the person who addresses your own “unallowed” needs. 

If someone else does it FOR YOU, you get to eat your cake and please the learned helplessness gods, too. It’s not YOUR FAULT that someone made sure you were cared for, it’s just happened. 

So, again, your brain can rest on its laurels. Self-assured that you are still “good” for being needless, self-careless, and soldiering through an existence of continual misery. 

Just… now… with a lot of codependency problems that probably eventually turn into abusive situations – for you and/or them. AND ALSO without that sack of electrical conduits ever learning it’s real fucking lesson: You have needs and it’s your 1) right and 2) responsibility to care for them. 

SO, with a life that’s fully fallen apart, you still haven’t learned to lead a balanced existence in which all your needs are being satiated. When you return back to “normal business” you’ll go back to self-neglect patterns, by default. 

AND without that person or persons who’ve stepped up the plate to help if things got bad enough? You’re still just as deprived and clueless about that deprivation as ever. Having no clue what “self-care” actually looks like for you. Still not giving yourself permission to satiate yourself. Therefore, still miserable, with no idea why. 

And, uh, to bring this back to the beginning? 

That’s probably how your family feels, too. 

Because in those early childhood experiences where they’re unable to care for themselves, so they’re unable to care for you? When they teach you not to worry about YOUR needs, because they can’t be fulfilled? 

They’re also reverse parentifying us, a good portion of the time, to use US (their children) to meet their otherwise deprived needs. 

We learn they won’t care for us, because they have no bandwidth. But apparently we are here to care for them. We learn to address their needs, in a fawning, highly enmeshed fashion, in order to keep the peace at home as much as possible.

Which means… our families depend on us to be deprived, because they depend on us for their need fulfillment. If we pay attention to ourselves, we aren’t paying attention to the ways they need us. 

So, they control us, manipulate us, and punish us until they are satiated in the ways that they recognize they need. 

And down the line we go on to accidentally do the same thing to others, if we don’t learn what our real needs are. What we’re allowed to have. What we’re REQUIRED to have, in order to be healthy. 

We offload our care to outsiders in the same fashion. Recreating codependent, enmeshment dynamics that make us slaves to each other. With everyone being truly unfulfilled, disempowered, and stuck in inescapable suffering. 

SO. 

How bout this episode, huh? Like I said, been having some big conversations over in the full podcast stream. If this is shedding light on any part of your life, I have some recommendations for you pro bono.

Study that list of human needs. And really believe that these ARE evolutionarily designed requirements for being a healthy and contented human animal. 

Examine what needs you are and are not permitted to honor for yourself, based on what you learned through your family and broader social systems. Both, via direct instruction passed onto you and indirect demonstration – what you saw others allowing themselves to have. 

Then, with that information and a hard look at your own life so far, decide what your “preferred” and “denied” needs are. And try to follow the trail from the ways you neglect yourself to the ways you habitually over-serve yourself in other areas, with limited positive return. 

Then, consider the self-limitation created by those habitual attempts at comforting yourself. Are there any life obsessions, crutches, or rigidities that now make a lot more sense?

And also consider if there could be any experiences with self-sabotage or psychosomatic illness in your past, which were influenced by all the needs you weren’t noticing, naming, or working towards fulfilling. When your circumstances drastically change, do you have access to other needs being met?

While you’re at it? Also consider how codependence has mayyyybe played a role. 

Have YOU had codependents, who were necessary parts of your life in order to have them meet needs that you otherwise deprived yourself of? And have you ever BEEN a codependent, tasked with caring for people who couldn’t be bothered or permitted to care for themselves?

Ohhhh Fuckers, it’s a big conversation. And… while we’re about to take a break from talking about constant deprivation states to, instead, get into more specifics of NVC before the holidays steamroll all of us… we’ll be coming back to this topic. My brain has been blown wide open. It’s just getting started. 

If you’re interested in exploring these ideas more, NOW, no worries. Hit up these past few episodes, videos, workbooks, and exercise bonuses in the Blanket Fort – the private podcast stream – over at patreon.com/traumatizedmotherfuckers. 

And sincerely… get to work. 

NOT serving the needs of others or our corporate overlords. But caring for yourself. Noticing what it feels like when you’re deprived, in what ways. And convincing your brain that you, too, ARE allowed to have satiated needs in this lifetime. 

I promise, slowly torturing yourself with perpetual neglect (and quite possibly, also spreading that to the people around you) is not, in fact, “good” like you were taught. 

And with that I say… holy balls, this discovery has changed my life. But sorry to the rest of the world for the ways it’s breaking the spell of being a constantly deprived, hypervigilant, workaholic at the expense of myself. Hence, being a week late on this platform. 

Good news being, I think it’s ultimately creating a more fulfilling outcome for everyone. 

Til we speak again next time…

Hail yourSelf.

Hail your very much allowed and “necessary to be a functional person” needs. It’s your RIGHT and RESPONSIBILITY to fulfill them. 

Hail Archie. And Marcus Barkus. The good boys who’ve satiated my love, affection, and joy needs when I otherwise couldn’t do it myself. 

And Cheers, y’all.

The road to recovery is paved in actual, comprehensive, self-informed and conducted need fulfillment. 

---

Want this full story? Oh, Fucker, it’s about 5 hours long.
Check them eps out at patreon.com/traumatizedmotherfuckers
Just subscribe, go to “Collections,” and choose “Nonviolent Communication”
These Needs Deets are episodes 4-7 and allll the bonus eps, vids, workbooks
See you there!