Do you have to feel needed? Note the choice of words, do you HAVE to feel needed? Not, do you WANT to be needed, because there is an immense difference that separates healthy from unhealthy behavior.
People who HAVE to feel needed often sacrifice big pieces of themselves to earn the approval of the people who need them. They often have low self-esteem and self-worth. It puts them in a position where they become involved in toxic relationships and stay there because they feel needed.
Fun, right? Well, let’s avoid that by looking at some warning signs.
1. They struggle to set and enforce boundaries.
It should come as no surprise that a person who has to feel needed will struggle with their boundaries. In fact, for the most part, people who need to feel needed often come from backgrounds where there were no examples of healthy boundaries. It may be that they are the survivor of child abuse or other trauma, which can make it hard to know where the appropriate lines are.
Psychotherapist Jess VanderWier shares that we start learning how to set and enforce boundaries as children interacting with the world, figuring out what works and what doesn’t. So those born into bad environments may never have the chance to see what healthy boundaries look like.
2. They overextend themselves.
A person who needs to feel needed will often overextend themselves because it is not in their nature to say no. As Dr. Nick Wignall informs us, they typically have poor boundaries, which toxic people will exploit once they figure that out. Thus, they will find themselves committed to things they don’t really want to do, and end up spread too thin.
The ability to say no is probably the most important skill you can develop in life. You often hear people talk about how life is so short. In truth, the average person wastes a lot of time, or they get their time eaten up by other people if they can’t say no.
3. They offer help before it’s asked for.
Everyone’s got problems, and that works well for the person who must be needed. When a problem crops up for their person, they may swoop in to try to take on the emotional load or fix it without asking. What they are doing – consciously or subconsciously – is creating an emotional debt that they can cash in on later. Allow me to elaborate through an example.
Sarah really wanted to be close to Keisha. So, when Keisha would have a problem, Sarah would step in and try to fix it for her. By doing that, Sarah convinces herself that Keisha now “owes her” in the form of friendship, time, attention, and care. After all, Sarah stepped up and took care of Keisha, it’s only fair that Keisha does the same, right?
Well, no. Not if Sarah wasn’t asked. Sarah didn’t do it for Keisha out of the goodness of her heart. Sarah did it for herself because she wants Keisha to like her. She is not giving Keisha a fair choice, and she will think that Keisha is the bad guy for being angry about this. After all, Sarah just wanted to help!
4. They may feel rejected when not relied on.
It may be that people whose worth is based on others needing them interpret your not asking them for help as rejection. It may cause them to feel they aren’t important enough, not worthy enough of you. That hurts them emotionally and may cause them to feel angry or sad because it’s a reminder that you don’t hold them in the same kind of esteem that they hold you.
The problem is that someone not asking you to do something isn’t necessarily a rejection. They could have any number of reasons for not asking you for help. You may be doing way too much, and they didn’t ask you on purpose. It may also be that they just didn’t think of it because they don’t value the friendship in the same way you do. That’s not necessarily rejection, just a difference in how they see your relationship.
5. They measure self-worth by their usefulness.
A person’s worth is not based on their usefulness or ability to provide, regardless of how much the current social zeitgeist wants you to believe that. Still, people who have to feel needed often do feel like they need to earn the right to feel good about themselves. They do that by doing things for others to seek out that external validation.
But what if you get sick? Or disabled? Or you just don’t know how to do something? Or you just don’t want to? Whatever the reason, what happens when you’re not able to perform? That will just make you feel worse about yourself.
There are a lot of reasons why you can’t tie your self-worth to usefulness, the primary one being that you don’t need to earn the right to exist or be valued.
6. They become resentful over time.
Though they may crave being needed, these people may start to resent always being the “strong one,” without making the connection that it’s their own fault. That resentment often builds because the people they are putting all their energy into often don’t crave the same level of external validation, so their boundaries are firmer. As such, it’s unlikely that the people around you will pour into you in the same way.
There’s a disproportionate amount of effort between the two sides. Again, we come back to expectations in relationships. You can’t expect someone to pour into you the same way you pour into them, especially if they didn’t ask for it. Everyone’s different. People who feel worthy and have that internal validation will stop at their boundaries.
7. They avoid their own needs.
It could be that the person who needs to feel needed is consciously choosing to focus on other people to avoid looking too closely at themselves. However, they may also find themselves wondering why they don’t have enough time to take care of their own needs and responsibilities. For many, it becomes a convenient excuse.
“Well, I can’t do this for myself because I have to babysit for my sister, because she needed a sitter at the last minute.” Let me introduce you to a pithy saying that will help you with that: “Your lack of planning is not my emergency.”
That’s not to say that you shouldn’t be flexible or helpful. Just don’t let yourself be a doormat by agreeing to help every time they’re late, or didn’t plan well, or whatever other mistake they keep making.
8. They feel responsible for other people’s problems.
The only problems that are your responsibility are your problems. It’s not healthy to feel like you have to shoulder the burdens of the rest of the world, your friends, and your family. You shouldn’t feel like you need to rescue other people and fix all their problems. Still, you may feel that way.
You may feel that your self-worth is tied to what you can do for other people. You should help them if you know you have ability to, right? Well, not necessarily. You’re not Atlas. You can’t carry the world on your shoulders.
You have to be careful about how much you put into the world. As I’ve said, your worth is not based on what you can do for other people. If it were, then that would imply that the elderly, infirm, and disabled who couldn’t do things for others did not have worth, which we know to be wrong.
9. They cling to relationships where they’re “indispensable”.
They often find themselves in codependent relationships because a codependent person will “need” them in the unhealthy way that they’re looking for. You might be inclined to think this is a good thing. After all, if you have two codependent people who both need to feel needed to feel worthy, it seems like they would go well together, right?
Yes and no. Yes, that is about the only way one could get that same level of unhealthy connection back. No, in that it’s going to be a miserable and volatile relationship when the trauma that fuels those feelings starts popping up. Codependency often points to previous traumas, and it doesn’t just go away.
Final thoughts…
What’s wrong with wanting to feel needed? Nothing. The issue is when you tie your self-worth to that need and feel as though you need to earn love, affection, and attention. All you end up doing is burning your candle at both ends, emotionally trying to chase that feeling of comfort.
It’s not emotionally or mentally healthy. It’s why people get sucked into toxic relationships or codependence, where they aren’t valued for just being who they are. You shouldn’t have to earn the right to feel good about yourself.
