Need for others?

Aren't we all needy in some way? We need others to help us with our struggles and to share in the joys of our lives. People with eating disorders are the first to help a friend and not think twice about it but the last one to ask for help. Why the contradiciton?

Comments

[Ann]

I'm not sure. I just know for me that I don't want to be a burden to anyone. I know that I don't believe others are a burden to me, I love helping them. Maybe I like it because it turns the focus off of myself and onto someone else. It feels good to help someone else and it can be so draining sometimes to deal with ourselves. Asking for help is something I'm terrible at, unless I don't know where else to turn or where to go. There's been times for me when I just don't feel that I deserve the help of someone. That its my fault that I feel like this and I deserve to stay there and it would be wrong for me to want someone to help me get out of the mess I caused. I have to clean it up by myself. Although, I know its really helpful when I finally break down and ask for help. Because then I'm actually letting someone into my life and that feels really good.

I hope that made some sense.

[Laura]

I guess I've just felt for so much of my life that I am the one who can fight her own battles, who can get through things without help or without complaining or who can 'deal.' I have always been the one who hasn't come to others for support. Rather, I have always been the listening ear or the shoulder to cry on or the person to assist others in some other way. Since that is how it has been my whole life, it seems strange to all of the sudden open up to people because it changes the way people might see me. I feel like people have always seen me as "the resilient one" or "the strong one." If I open up to people, people might assume I'm asking for their support or their care (which I guess I would be), and then how would people see me? How would I see myself? Being open in a way that might make me seem needy (of attention, of an ear, of guidance) would change the way I've always defined myself. I think that's why it's hard for me to appear needy.

[Tony Paulson]

Controlling how others see us is a full time job. What about letting others see us for who we are (positives and negatives) and realize those who stick around will be the people who we want in our lives. It's OK to have flaws and faults and those who are able to accept and tolerate them are the peole we want to surround ourselves with.

[Laura]

I never thought of it that way. That is, I never thought about it as me controlling how others see me. When put that way, that sounds just absolutely crazy and insane and not a job I am up for. I guess you're right. So who cares if I stop trying to compensate for the real me - the me that needs support and can disappoint and has faults and won't always wow you. There's no way I'm going to successfully lead my whole life trying to trick people into thinking I'm some sort of super human. If people discover that I'm human and not some perfect flawless achiever, what's the worst that could happen? The worst that could happen would be I'd lose a relationship or that I'd gain a reputation as a "Failure." But I suppose I know that that's black-and-white thinking. Just because I'm human doesn't mean that I'm a failure. So if I let people see me in a realisitic way, most likely I'll just experience life with a lot less pressure. And, while I might not be seen as the best, I probably also wouldn't be seen as a complete failure. And I guess life without the pressure to be seen as great would be such a better life. So maybe it's worth it. Worth it to let my guard down, to be a little more honest with people, to let people in.

[Hannah]

I am so needy. I feel pathetic. I am very dependant on others because I am lonely. I am lonely because I isloate myself. I isloate myself because I'm bulimic. It's a vicious cycle.
I wish my parents could magically understand my eating disorder, but obviously in the reality of this world, they can't. I don't know what to do. They tell me they want black and white answers on how to help me. I tell them simple things, yet they do not listen, do the completely wrong things which makes me go to my bulimia for comfort. I have family therapy, but it hasn't really been improving my Mother's relationship with me. I don't know what to do. I am officially stumped, and all recovered out.