Denial of Need
Need:
the 4-letter word
of my youth.
To ask
for anything
from those who
were supposed
to care for me,
was to be seen,
to expose myself,
not only to rejection,
but to the
denial of need,
sometimes in the
harshest of ways.
Was there anything
more painful,
more shameful
than needing
love, care, food,
support from those
unwilling or unable
to give it?
Of having that
hope crushed
again and again?
So I shoved it down,
figured it out,
found my way.
And when
the starvation
of need
became so
apparent,
that even
they saw it,
deny it.
Deny it.
Because somehow
in that reality, in that
world of theirs,
the deprived
become the
comforters,
my child self
assuring them
that I had no
need.
So bereft
of attention
that those
few moments
of watching them cry,
murmuring that I
understood,
telling them that I didn't need,
that it was no big deal;
at least those few
moments
meant being
noticed
for a time.
And worse, to then
in my child mind,
take those
moments as evidence
that they did care, that
their tears were a reason to
push down my need even
further.
After all, I don’t want to make them feel bad.
Those moments,
elusive and short-lived,
leaving me even more alone
each time, sealing in the barren spaces.
Taking their denial
of my need
onto, into myself.
Now I look
back at the long
road of my life,
the twisting journey
of adulthood.
And I see it.
The denial of need,
still there,
now self-imposed.
The one-sided
relationships,
the self-loathing and
self-abuse,
the sacrifices made
on the altar of my
career.
The pushing, striving
going further
than anyone else.
Because I was
'committed',
'driven', a 'hard worker'.
But in new light,
it was the
denial of need
showing up
again and again.
I have continued to
wound myself,
not by having needs,
but by
denying them.
By sorting through
this mess, opening
my eyes to the past,
sitting with pain
day by day,
the dark root of
the shame that
has haunted me
all my life,
begins to reveal
itself in the
denial of need.