Isn't It Nice to be Needed?

Imagine being told this after getting home at 9:30 PM after operating your business late on a Sunday night, dropping off a helper friend, stopping to get gas to prepare for the week because you have to take your daughter to school in the morning and it’s better to do it now than wait till after because you remember being told how bad it is for the car you’re driving that you don’t own because you can’t afford it and you’re trying to be better prepared in general, being hungry because you can’t eat much on your extremely limited diet due to chronic stomach issues that you still went off of tonight by eating a small snack because you were so hungry and all you’d eaten prior was 1/4th a cup of Cream of Rice because that’s one of your safe foods that won’t cause you intense, agonizing stomach pain and you can still function off of it, it was also all you had time to make even though you really wanted to cook a whole meal for you and your daughter but stopped mid-potato peeling when you realized you wouldn’t have time and told her you’re sorry while you made yourself your small quick bowl instead, then walking in your home and knowing you have to feed your 3 indoor cats and one outside stray you feed because he deserves at least that even though you wish you could do more, and you tell the person who came to watch your child, in exasperation and slight desperation for compassion and sympathy that you often have to feed everyone else before eating yourself every time you get home and they tell you in response — “Isn’t it nice to be needed?” Become a Medium member This might be an otherwise ambiguous statement from anyone else, if it weren’t one of many similar types of comments I’ve received in this same manner, in the same context. Statements I usually simply respond to in annoyance or do my best to ignore. But it’s always when I attempt to communicate or express my own difficulties or struggles with a situation or my feelings, it is often met with a similar dinstinctive cutting comment. Cutting how? Well, it’s not an outright insult, is it? You’re not explicitely telling the person, “Oh, stop complaining, you have so much to be grateful for.” But it certianly implies it. Now, I am an extremely grateful person. I am not religious, but I do frequently give thanks in prayer at the end of the night, to whoever or whatever may be listening BECAUSE I’m grateful. I am acutely aware of everything in my life I’m grateful for due to having been very close to losing it all during periods of illness in my life. In fact, I’ve experienced such extreme pain in my body due to illnesses and reactions to medications that every moment I’m not in pain is a gift to me. However, does this mean that I don’t experience other emotions? That I don’t experience exhaustion? Stress? Conflicts? Confusion? Complete and utter fatigue or even anger and resentment at times? I experience all of the above even while remaining ever-grateful for the ability to continue experiencing even the negative emotions life often brings us all. But this comment wasn’t made with the genuine notion that I don’t. It was made with the intention of implying that perhaps I don’t deserve to feel those ways at all. That underneath my efforts in life, is a lack of determination, consistency, and hard work, in the opinion of the person telling me this comment. That I don’t deserve to feel any of those negative feelings I described above because I haven’t earned the right to. So, when expressing them, they feel the need to cut and shut it down immediately by subtly implying I’m somehow wrong for feeling these negative feelings and need to be reminded of the positive aspects of my life. I don’t deserve to feel tired. I don’t deserve to feel overwhelmed. I don’t deserve to wish that I could come home and rest. Only the hardest workers deserve that. In fact, this person was a very hard worker in their past. They sacrificed much of their personal time in exchange for working many jobs that they forced themselves to go to daily. That’s not something I’ve been able to do myself. Try as I might, and as many times as I’ve might, nothing ever stuck. Nothing except creating my own path and carving my own place in the tree of life that is only my own. This makes me appear weak and incapable to this person and because I failed, in their opinion, to show my work ethic the way they have — I am not good enough to complain. I don’t deserve compassion. I don’t deserve sympathy. I deserve to have my negative emotions, my fatigue, my exhaustion, my desire for a soft place to hand where I’m NOT needed when I’m already overwhelmed shut down and instead have a mirror shoved up to my face to show me just how lucky I am to be needed instead. The problem is I AM the mirror. You aren’t showing me anything I didn’t already know. I already know how lucky I am. I’ve always known. That’s exactly why I’m exhausted the way that I am. That’s exactly why I wish I could just get home and eat because I do it all for those who need me. I don’t push myself to feed them all because I feel I have to. But because it’s what drives me towards it. My love for those who depend on me allows me to be there for them when they need me, and allows for me to complain about it sometimes when it gets so hard that I can barely keep up with it all! It is my gratitude that allows me to complain because without knowing exactly how good it is to be needed — I wouldn’t be needed at all. I’d have given up and I wouldn’t be so tired, so overwhelmed, so in need of basic compassion and understanding from those around me. If I weren’t grateful, I wouldn’t be feeding everyone else first. I’d be feeding myself first and balking at anyone who walks in thier house tired and hungry, expressing the need for connection — instead telling them, “Isn’t it nice to be needed?”