Personal writing about admiration and other emotional needs

The other day one of my sisters read my online journal where I was talking about killing myself. She wrote me and said something or other. I don't really remember what, but it didn't touch me very deeply. She said something about offering to come to Ecuador to save me or something. But it is really too late for that. Much too late. When I needed positive female attention (PFA) when I was young I did not get it from the four females in the house I grew up in. I had three sisters and one mother, thus four females around me.

I know what I need now and I know what I didn't get back then.

For example, yesterday I was chatting with a 17 year old. I said, "I admire you." She wrote back, "I admire you, too."

Here in Quito I have met two 17 year old females now who have told me they admire me. Two who want to spend time with me. Two who I want to spend time with. Two who I want to understand me and two who I want to understand. Two who also want to be understood. Two who I want to accept me and two who I want to accept. And two who want to be accepted. Two who I want to help and two who I want to help me. And two who want to be helpful.

They are helping fill my unmet emotional needs. It is too late for my sisters to do it now. We have grown too far apart. I feel a little resentful that they were not there for me emotionally when I needed them, but I can't really blame them. Nor can I blame my mother because I think now that she was abused in ways that I will never know about.

But one thing I wanted to say was that I don't remember ever hearing these three words from anyone in my family, male or female: I admire you.

When I started talking to teenage females online a few years ago I learned what it felt like to be admired by someone who you wanted to be admired by. I got so many of my emotional needs met, or at least partially met, just by talking to them online or on the phone.

I felt admired, appreciated, accepted, valued, understood, supported, cared about, loved. I didn't get these from my family. I am still suffering as a result.

But now I have met two female teenagers in real life who I am starting to feel the same things with. It is probably not too much of an exaggeration to say that they are saving my life. They are giving me life and a reason to live.

I have been writing about unmet emotional needs for a while now. I just wanted to say again that these are real needs. For me they literally mean the difference between life and death. Maybe they are not as important for everyone, maybe everyone doesn't have such a strong need to feel admired, accepted, supported, trusted, believed in, understood etc. But I know that I need it.

Sometimes when I get extremely depressed and start to feel hopeless and wonder why I should keep living, I think that maybe if nothing else my life can be some kind of an example of a person who was always sensitive but never had his emotional needs met.

I believe most of the people in the world share a little of this in common with me. I don't believe there are many people who really have had all their emotional needs met. I believe it is our unmet emotional needs which are killing us as a species right now. I believe it is unmet emotional needs which cause teenagers to cut and kill themselves. I believe it is unmet emotional needs which cause presidents, police and school principals to try to order others around so they can feel more powerful.

I never realized how different I was. Now I see it more clearly. The teenagers are helping me see it. They say things like, "I have never met an adult like you." Until the past few years I never realized how important it was for me to feel admired. But now I realize it.

The other day I wrote something like, "I want to be admired by people like Daniela and Nicole. Everyone else can go to hell." I have had to struggle to reach the point I am in life. I have had to keep believing in myself when no one else did. At one point within about 6 months time, three of my closest friends betrayed me. Yet I kept on believing in myself. I have had to be strong and walk away from one person after another who did not believe in me or who wanted to judge me and criticize me.

Now I am finally meeting people in real life who admire me, accept me and believe in me. This makes all the difference in the world. I wish that every parent could understand how important it is for their children to feel these things.

We are still trying to raise children according to a set of behavioral expectations. This is not working very well, I'd say. What we need is to put more emphasis on feelings. Give feelings and emotional needs a higher priority. I have said this before and I will say it again, we need to teach children and teenagers the names of their feelings, ask them how they feel, then really listen. But more than that, adjust our "adult" society to help fill their emotional needs. They will tell you how they feel if you ask them and don't judge or invalidate their feelings. Improving society is much simpler than most people realize. Things are not really that complicated. We have made them complicated with over-intellectualizing and over-education.

My family for example is very highly educated. There are people with Ph.D's, masters degrees, degrees in psychology, counseling, economics, social work. There are teachers and professors in the family. My father was an electrical engineer. But what good did all that education do me, the youngest of six children, when it came to helping fill my emotional needs to feel admired, accepted, etc?

I was fed everyday. I always had a bed to sleep in. I never went hungry. There was always food in the house. There was always a telephone and a television set. But I was emotionally starved.

I hope that my life experiences help people around the world see how important our emotional needs are. I may still die alone and I may still commit suicide one day, but till them I will keep preaching this, at least until I see something which seems more important to humanity.

A few days ago I was feeling suicidal. Then Daniela brought me the milk I had wanted one night. But it wasn't the milk. It was the understanding and the caring. And she invited me to spend time with her and her friends. Then she introduced me to Paola. She is the one who told me she admired me last night. We will spend more time together this weekend. So today I feel more at peace.

For a few years now I have known what I needed. Others have tried to tell me what I need, but they have been wrong. I resent people telling me what I need. I know what I need and I believe children and teenagers know what they need. They know what they need much more than the adults who are controlling their lives.

Almost everyday I go to a school here. I get a chance to talk, to be listened to, to be helpful, to be appreciated. This is helping fill my unmet emotional needs. But I was so emotionally needy last week I almost pushed away one of the people who could help keep me stay alive. Well, I did push her away. But she came back and brought me milk. And she introduced me to someone who she knew I would like. She understands me better than the people who I lived with day in and day out for many years. Yet she has just known me for a short time. And Paola, the one she introduced me to, said this about me after just talking to me for one hour:

"i think u did a lot to help me with your life, with ur freedom. i'm grateful for that."

Then she added:

"u have to understand how important it is to see that it is possible to be free"

This really brings tears to my eyes. I want my teenage friends around the world to be free. I want them to know the freedom I have. The freedom not to believe what the adults around them tell them. The freedom not to obey everyone who tells them what they should do, need to do, have to do etc. The freedom to think for themselves and follow their own hearts. The freedom to walk away when their emotional needs are not being met. The freedom to be emotionally honest. The freedom to love themselves when those around them only see a person who does not conform to someone else's expectations.

I don't remember anyone in my family every saying "I'm grateful..." for anything I ever did. I am sure they said "Thank you" for things but both Paola and Daniela have used the word "grateful" after just knowing me a short time.

Some people see you for who you are. Others only see the ways you don't fit their expectations. Some people accept you and admire you as you are. Others want to change you.

It has taken me years to get free of my family. It has taken me years to figure out for myself what I need and what is important to human survival.

All this traveling has been necessary to meet two people in real life who admire me, accept me and appreciate me. Now that I have found them, I don't want to leave them. I won't kill myself now because now I have found them. They need me and I need them. Paola was hit when she was 14. Daniela was hit last night.

Yes, they need me and I need to be needed. My mother needs me too, maybe my family needs me in some ways, but they don't need me as the teenagers need me.

It is another emotional need to feel needed, to feel helpful. My need to feel needed, helpful and appreciated has brought me to this place in my life. Now suddenly I feel almost satisfied with the most basic emotional needs. Now I feel more free to concentrate on higher level needs. These two people, at least for now, have given me a foundation which I can build upon. One person has never been enough for me. I am too needy emotionally.

I don't want others to have to suffer as much as I have, to come as close to suicide, to waste as much time in depression. There is much that needs to be done in the world. Humans have needs and we are not doing a very good job of meeting each other's needs. In particular our emotional needs, but not even our physical need for safety from violence.

I'd like to finish this with something very profound, but I have to go to the bathroom. So I hope this was profound enough for you! It was profound enough for me! And I think it was profound enough for my be... oops I almost said best friends, but Paola said something about that expression which made sense. So I will say for the people I want to be admired by. I love them and they have given me a gift that my family unfortunately was never able to give me.

S. Hein
Quito, Ecuador
March 20, 2004