Neediness isn’t a cardinal sin – it’s part of who we are
IRECENTLY witnessed two men beating up another man. It was a Friday evening, around 9pm and there were loads of people around. I had just been to a concert and was chatting happily with my friend about the performance when I saw the assault taking place. I was mid-sentence when suddenly, from the depths of my being, I let out the most primitive sounding roar: “Leave him alone!” I called the police and then, not thinking, rushed toward the group of men. Of course, my efforts to stop the attack failed, although I did succeed in distracting one of the attackers momentarily – just long enough for him to chase me down the street. Thanks to an adrenaline surge, I ran faster than he did. Having warned me off, he then turned back to the business at hand and threw a few more punches at the man lying on the ground. The whole incident (including my impersonation of the howling creature from the black lagoon) was deeply disturbing. By the time we got to the pub to meet another group of friends, not only was my throat hoarse, I was agitated and unable to focus on any of the conversation. I left soon after and headed home. The most upsetting thing about the incident was the vulnerability of the man being attacked. Not only was he physically unable to defend himself, but his fragility and helplessness was laid bare for all to see. It was excruciating to be around it. The fact is that as humans we are all vulnerable, all of the time. Our vulnerability is woven into every sinew of our being: body, mind and soul. Most of the time, we deny this fact, preferring to defend against it by getting angry, keeping our distance from others or avoiding any form of real intimacy. Our emotional vulnerability is a gateway to all kinds of difficult and shameful feelings that can leave us washed up on the shores of rejection, humiliation and abandonment. It is no wonder that folk will go to extraordinary lengths to avoid it by buoying themselves up with bravado and pretending they have no need for others. From an early age, we are encouraged to “be strong”. What we really mean by this is: don’t show your vulnerability. To be needy of love and reassurance from others is seen as a cardinal sin, a weakness that has to be quashed. But who is not needy? Our very humanness presupposes our need for others. As babies and young children we would perish if our carers did not look after us. If we are not shown how to love and be loved as infants, as adults we stumble into serial “car-crash” relationships that are often messy, destructive and unsatisfying.
One of the most common causes of misery and relationship breakdown is not emotional vulnerability, but its denial. People in close relationships will tie themselves in knots in order to camouflage what they are really feeling for fear their partner will reject them or be indifferent. This emotional camouflage is coloured and shaped by blaming and shaming. Instead of saying, “I feel hurt/unloved/belittled,” we are much more likely to say something like: “You don’t even care about me, you’re selfish, you only have time for yourself.”
This sets up a chain reaction whereby the thing you really feared (rejection) is borne out when your partner feels under attack and therefore is unlikely to respond to your needs. Some people are so afraid of their own vulnerability that they cannot even consider getting close to other people and resign themselves to an insular, reclusive existence where their only consolation is the sense of power they feel in not giving in to their need for others. There is no way round it: to be truly close with another person, you have to be open. When we are open, we are vulnerable.
Vulnerability is the Gordian knot of our emotional repertoire. The problem feels intractable. But there is a solution. If you are prepared to cross over its threshold and embrace it, share it, you will find yourself in a very different world: a world where it is OK to be unashamedly yourself. Showing your vulnerable side, owning it as a fundamentally defining feature of your humanity, takes a lot of courage. If you take a deep breath and surf the waves of fear that vulnerability stirs up, you will see, when the water settles, the power of it. The power to be yourself.
LAST night I took my first-born out for a wee celebratory tea. A new job beckons for him, the sort of job that could be life-changing. He’s worked hard, taken tough decisions, questioned his self-belief, so I feel this vindication is well deserved. Like many fathers I look at my son and see a little of myself in him, and so much that is me, improved.
He works in the music industry; he’s a creative. While we both struggled through the emotional estrangement, the unabating anger, the confounding confusion of that post-divorce space, it seems that my son possesses more maturity as a young man than I could ever have hoped to have. We have navigated the numbness and found a new normal. While I’ll never get those years back, I have myriad memories of my little man…
When he was born he was going to play football for Scotland and Arsenal, he was going to have a wide and varied experience of world food, he was going to share his father’s (andmother’s) encyclopaedic love of music.