#127: Wants vs Needs; Boundaries and Abuse

 CW: This post contains discussions of abuse and mental illness.

Lately I’ve been pondering abuse and boundaries, and how to identify less obvious forms of abusive behavior, and how to explain them without using generalities that gloss over far too much.  It's not the most cheerful topic, I know, but the reality is that humans are SHOCKINGLY bad at understanding our own emotional states, let alone the emotional states of others. And for all that we make fun of the ostrich, we have a talent for ignoring what's right in front of us, and we don't even have to stick our heads in the sand in order to do it.

I guess the reason I’m so obsessed with this is because I have children.  Not only do my kids constantly have me rethinking my concepts of boundaries, they also give me a profound urgency to do the best job I can in explaining certain things.  I want them to have guidelines for life.  I want them to know how to judge the behaviors of others, as well as their own behaviors.  I want them to be prepared to evaluate how they're treated, so that they can make good choices. Not the choices I would make--they're not me and they have a right to evaluate their own tolerance for things. But so that they have the skills to make their OWN choices, with an understanding of what they're deciding.

I’m currently in the process of establishing boundaries with my daughter, and it’s been hard for me.  I mean, it's a good example for her, and it's likely to lead to a better relationship between us over time, but good GRIEF is it awful.

I believe, she has the right to make certain choices for herself, as an autonomous individual.  But we’re warring over how late she stays up at night.  Does she, as an autonomous individual, have the right to stay up late if, when she stays up late, she invariably has a hard time dealing with her responsibilities the next day?  What if, when she stays up late, she makes a lot of noise and it wakes me up, and then I’m not getting enough sleep?  

I'm not saying it's like this.  But I'm not saying it's NOT like this.

Yes, yes, I know, you probably have the same gut reaction to those that I do, but the point is, why?  Why are we so certain that’s the right answer?  It cannot just be “because I’m the parent and I say so.”  That has never been a valid reason for anything, since Eve ate the apple.  If I cannot understand why I think my choices as a parent are valid, then maybe I need to make different choices. So it's important to me that I understand her boundaries, and my boundaries, and where those boundaries come from.

I think, when we’re talking about boundaries, it’s important to distinguish between the concept of wants and needs.  Stick with me for a minute, because I’m going to back out of the realm of parenting and use a very simple example to start.

Let’s say there is a single bite of chocolate left in the house.  I want it, and you want it.  Who gets the chocolate?  

Some people will inevitably go the math route, and say “split the bite” and I agree, sharing things equally is always a great choice when no one really has a better claim, but for the purposes of this thought exercise, this chocolate is magical and has the ineffable property of being a single unit that cannot be split.  So, again, who gets the chocolate?

In some houses, there are established rules about such things.  In fact, I’d go so far as to say there are established rules in most homes, even if they’re unspoken. Sometimes those rules are egalitarian.  “The first person who asked if there was chocolate gets the last bite.”  Sometimes they’re not.  “Mommy gets first dibs on the chocolate, no matter what.”  And those rules are a good starting place (or, at least, a recognized starting place), as long as everyone knows what they are.

But let’s say we have an egalitarian chocolate tradition in our home. And our hypothetical chocolate is sitting here in front of us, and I have had a truly terrible day, and your day has been no big deal.  Even if you are the first person to reach for the chocolate, should you still eat it?  Or should you offer it to me?  Because the chocolate is just a want, but the act of you being kind and giving towards me may actually be a need in that moment.

Or, instead, what if my day was fairly typical, but you had something big to celebrate?  Should I possibly offer you the chocolate as a way of acknowledging your big moment?  Because while the chocolate itself is, again, just a want, getting recognition from someone can be a need.

Here’s another one.  Let’s say we’ve got pizza coming in 45 minutes, and there’s this one bite of chocolate in the house.  What if I ate breakfast and lunch like normal, but you’ve had a crazy day and didn’t get to eat at all?  You’re not going to starve, but still, maybe letting you get something in your stomach is a need in that moment, and you’ve moved past the “just a want” threshold.

Needs and wants have a tricky, difficult to pinpoint barrier between them.  Like looking at a color spectrum and pinpointing when “reddish-purple” becomes “purplish-red”.  That’s because we’re not simple systems that only have one metric that we’re judging at any given time.  We have a whole host of wants and needs that intersect, and it can be very difficult to dive down into them and figure out if what we’re demanding in that moment is more of a want or a need.

For instance, the reason my daughter wants to stay up late is that currently she’s depressed, and we’re in quarantine, and late at night is when she can spend uninterrupted time with her friends online.  For me, that is a compelling argument that her late night time is wandering into need territory.  She needs it for her mental health. I need sleep for my physical health, and I need her to be able to handle her responsibilities for my mental health.  We're in territory where both of us need something, and that makes it harder to find a resolution.

My daughter and I will, hopefully, come to some sort of agreement about how to balance each of our needs, but whether we do or not, this is a very good example of why it’s not always easy to draw boundaries with those you love.  Love is a difficult thing to define, but I think part of it must be weighing other people’s needs alongside your own, when you make life decisions.  If you love someone, you might set your boundaries in a slightly different place, out of deference to their needs.  You might even, if it’s not too critical a boundary, set them in a different place out of deference to your loved ones wants.

I do not believe that’s wrong.  I believe it’s how people create bonds.  By adjusting their boundaries so that they can fit neatly together, because they believe the other person is worth it.

But sometimes people abuse the system of give and take.  And if we're not paying close attention to how all the wants and needs are being balanced, we can get suckered into just accepting that bullshit.

*****

In media, abuse almost always takes a form that’s easy to recognize.  The person who beats their partner, or their child.  The drunk who screams verbal abuse when they’re off the wagon.  These are forms of abuse most of us recognize, because we’ve seen them modeled for us.

In life, abuse can take so many other forms, and a lot of the time those forms are harder to recognize, because they aren’t actions that are intolerable if someone only does them once.  Unlike beating someone because they burn dinner, these actions are more understandable.  After all, no one is a perfect human.  We will all, at some point or another, hurt someone we love.  And if we understand that, it makes it harder to draw the defining line of “is this a mistake?  Or is this a pattern?”

In the longest romantic relationship of my life, my partner consistently valued their wants above my needs.  It’s fairly human to value one’s own needs above another’s (although possibly not the best foundation for a relationship, if you can’t weigh both partner’s needs).  It’s also fairly human to weigh your own wants over another’s (although, when you can only see the chocolate, and not the kindness someone else might need by you offering it, that can, again, make for a difficult basis for a relationship.)  But to value your own wants over the needs of the people you share your life with, is--in my opinion--abuse. Particularly when you berate or bully them when they fail to meet your wants, even as you ignore their needs. Or when you punish them for trying to discuss, let alone prioritize, their own needs, if it conflicts with something you want.

The funny thing is, I really didn’t see it until I was trying to extricate myself from the relationship.

Part of that is because abuse generally isn’t intentional.  Most abusers are caught in their own damaged psyche.  They don’t wake up and think to themselves “today I’m going to manipulate my partner into ignoring her own needs because that’s how I get my chuckles”.  They’ve got something inside them that has made them think that what they’re doing is okay.  Maybe they had a bad role model growing up.  Maybe they have a personality disorder that makes it hard for them to see what they’re doing.  It doesn’t matter.  The point is, most abusers don’t know they’re abusers.  

When you tell them what they’re doing is hurting you, they’ll say they’re sorry.  They’ll tell you they can’t help it, it’s just how their brain works.  They might agree to change their behavior.  They might swear to do better.

I want to take a moment and admit, some of them do actually do better.  Some of them start paying attention to their choices, or seek professional help and guidance, and they really do change their ways.  People are not always trapped in a cycle of bad behavior.  Every single one of us has hurt someone we loved.  Every single one of us--barring an imminent death--will do it again.  If someone works to improve and change and be a better and more loving person then I am not one to hold it against them.  A person who engages in abusive behaviors, but works to stop when they have those behaviors identified for them, isn’t any worse than the next human.  We all have places we fail.

Unfortunately, there are many, many abusers who do not seek professional help or guidance.  They do not put effort into changing.  They do not start paying attention to their choices.  They apologize for the specific instance you called them out on--or don't. Sometimes they explain why you pushed them into it and that if you don't want them to behave that way then you need to never do something like that again--and then they carry on in their patterns.

Those people are toxic.  And, whether they mean to or not, they will hurt you if you let them.

Sadly, if you have let one of these people into your life, they will probably hurt you even if you try to stop them. 

My daughter, when I tell her she cannot stay up any later because she’s woken me up three times and I need sleep so I can work, will scream at me that I’m mean and horrible and awful.  My daughter is also ten years old, and hasn’t quite grasped that people should be allowed to set boundaries that affect her in order to protect their own needs.

I understand that my daughter behaves this way because she’s a child, and is still learning.

Unfortunately, my ex also behaves this way.  Boundaries that I set, to protect my own needs, are ignored, and if I insist on them then my ex responds by hurting me.  Or, if I am protected from being hurt, by threatening me.  At this point, I have a fear response to setting boundaries, because I expect retaliation.

It’s honestly incredibly messed up.

*****

There are three theories you can find on the internet relating to mental health and cutlery.  Spoon theory, the lesser known fork theory, and the almost never mentioned knife theory.  Spoon theory is a model where spoons are used as currency for the things we manage each day, and it’s established that people with illnesses or chronic problems have a lower daily supply of spoons than your average healthy person.  The phrase “out of spoons” has generally come to mean “I don’t have the emotional energy for that.”  

Fork theory is a model where having a fork stuck in you is a burden you bear.  There are different sized forks, but each of us has a fork limit, and “too many forks” means that you cannot handle a single other thing, no matter how minor, going wrong.

Knife theory is just like fork theory, but knives are things that do damage and hurt when you take them out.  So, extricating yourself from an abusive relationship is a major knife you’re pulling out.  It’s got to come out, but it’s not going to be a painless process.

***********

Often times, when abuse is portrayed in media, there is a particular scenario that gets modeled.  We all know abuse is generally hidden to those outside the relationship, unless it’s so bad it can’t be kept a secret.  But most abuse--physical, emotional, mental, whatever--tends to be something that is private.  Even when aspects of it happen in public, the public doesn’t know that they’re looking at a pattern of behavior that amounts to abuse.  Representations of abuse generally get that right, but what they fail to get right is the way abuse presents in daily life.

I should pause here and explain that I am not a doctor or a researcher.  I am a person who has experienced abuse, but, in addition to that, when I was a child my family ran shelters for abused women.  What I am talking about I understand on a visceral level, due to my own personal experience and what I observed throughout my childhood.  However, your mileage may vary.  I am not trying to speak for everyone--I am trying to speak for the people who make up at least some percentage of the adult population, who aren’t being accurately shown.

At any rate, when I see abuse in media I often see it presented as a kind of persistent, malignant fear on the part of the abused.  I do not want to say that no one experiences it that way.  But having it only portrayed that way leads to misunderstanding, on a number of levels.  First of all, those who are experiencing abuse, but don’t live in terror, can have a hard time recognizing what’s happening to them, because they think the constant terror is a vital component.  It can also make it harder for people outside the relationship to see concerning signs.  But it also builds up a whole culture of expectation, guilt, and blame around the abuse victim, and that culture is harmful.

Most abuse victims, at least those I have known, do not live in fear all the time.  There is a trigger surrounding their abuse--generally a very specific trigger--and most abuse victims are completely able to identify that trigger subconsciously, even if they can’t pinpoint it consciously.  It might be that your partner becomes violent when drunk.  It might be that they become mean if they ever experience embarrassment.  It might be that they get vicious when they feel out of control.  It could be anything, but the point is, it is not generally something that is persistent.  It’s a specific trigger, and people who are abused have a very simple coping mechanism;

They avoid the trigger.

Again, I’m not claiming this is a conscious thing.  Humanity as a whole does this all the time.  Do you have a friend with a phobia?  You probably avoid that subject in their presence.  Not because you are abused, but because you’re trying to avoid causing them pain.  It’s natural to avoid triggers that bring negative responses, and it’s not necessarily a bad thing, unless the trigger itself is something you either can’t avoid, or something you have to have in order to lead a healthy life.  

Most abuse victims will actively avoid the trigger.  If their spouse goes out drinking, they’ll go visit their mother for the night.  They won’t tease their partner, if their partner’s trigger is embarrassment.  If their partner hates feeling out of control, they simply let them make all the decisions.  

The problem with this, of course, is two fold.  The first is that stuffing yourself into a box in order to avoid triggering abuse from someone else is super bad for you.  But the second is that you and your partner aren’t the only two people in the world.  Sometimes their trigger will get hit by someone else.  And when that happens, you can end up suffering the consequences.

But in the day to day life of an abuse victim, they often aren’t scared.  They aren’t worried.  They engage with their partner the same way anyone else would, both good and bad.  They’ll snap at them over a pet peeve, or cuddle together to enjoy a favorite TV show, or reminisce over a really great party they went to, or roll their eyes when they think their partner is being ridiculous.  That aura of persistent fear isn’t there, because they know that the trigger isn’t there.  

And when you’re not afraid, you’re just with the person you love.  Which is how we come to the subtle cultural guilt and blame that surrounds victimhood.

People always ask “why do they stay?”  And often someone who has never been abused says something back, trying to convince someone else who has never been abused, and they discuss it until they eventually fall back on “They’re afraid to leave.”

And that’s definitely true sometimes.  In the worst cases, people are afraid to leave.

But lots of times, they just stay out of love.  They love their abuser.  They want to make their abuser happy.  They take part of the blame for exposing their abuser to whatever the trigger was, and they accept that whatever happened to them as a result is at least partially their fault.  

It is far harder to leave someone you love, than to figure out a way to escape someone you fear.  

But we don’t talk about that, because we have this idea of abuse in our heads.  “How could you stay?” is hard to answer, but “How could you love someone who does this to you?” is even harder.  If the victim doesn’t realize it’s abuse, then their confusion about it can be even worse.  If the victim does realize it’s abuse... well.  Then the guilt creeps in.  How can we be so stupid, so foolish, so idiotic as to love our abuser? You argue with yourself.  It can’t really be abuse, because if it is then we love an abuser.  And that can’t be right.  We’re not an idiot.  We’re not self-loathing.  So maybe it’s not abuse, and maybe we’re the problem?

Yes, that must be it.  We’re doing something wrong.  We’ll just have to try harder to be a better partner, because we love this person, and we wouldn’t love an abuser, so that makes us the issue.

It is exhausting trying to justify abuse from someone you love.

And folks, it’s not like one person is all sweetness and light and the other is the one with the darkness in them.  We’re human.  We all have darkness in us.  Like I said, when the trigger isn’t present, abuse victims act like normal people.  Which means they have bad days, and days that they aren’t kind, and days that they don’t do the right thing.  

After my son was born I had a prolonged bout of Postpartum Depression.  Every hurt that I had ever suppressed or tried to accept from my partner became a trigger point for me.  I would flip shit at anything that reminded me of their abuse.  For nine months, which was how long that awful chemical maelstrom lasted, I turned right around and abused them.  And I want to be clear about something, I am not excusing that because of PPD, or because it was a reaction to rage I had built up over their behavior.  All abusers have a reason.  All abusers have something that makes them think what they’re doing is okay.

Reasons don’t make it right.

I crawled out of that hole after nine months and I don’t ever want to be that person again.  But if you’ve been that person, and have worked to heal, and do better, it makes it so much easier to stay with the person you love, and hope that they will also reform.  You know it’s possible.  You know you’re not a blameless soul.  Or maybe you, personally, were never an abuser, but you still know there are times you’re mean, or petty.  We all are.  So you forgive and you move on because you love your partner and you want to be with the person you love.

And after all, most days aren’t like that.

“He only hits me when he’s drunk” is the physical version.  “He’s only mean when I tell him no” is the emotional one.

And it seems easy enough to stop safeguarding what you need, when it lets you be with someone you love.

*****

Refusing to accept any more abuse is a knife.  You hurt yourself dreadfully, in order to start the healing.  It does damage to you, in ways that sometimes feel worse than just tolerating the abuse.  People stay because if you leave the knife in, it only hurts when you bump it.  But pulling it out is agony.

I don’t find it surprising that a tipping point for many people is their children.  We are willing to tolerate abuse for ourselves much more than for our children.  And when we know they will look to us as an example, it becomes harder to justify avoiding the pain of pulling out the knife.  Maybe we don’t care enough about ourselves to make the most healthy choices, but we care enough about our children to model what we hope they’ll do.  So we pull ourselves up by our kid’s bootstraps, and do the right thing, in the hopes that they’ll be better, stronger, braver, wiser humans than we are.

I want my children to become adults who set boundaries that protect their own needs, but also respect other peoples’ need-based boundaries.  I want them to know the difference between needs and wants, and to be able to weigh those things appropriately, with love and consideration.  And that’s not something you can teach by word.  You have to teach it by deed.

So I’ve been pulling out this damn knife, and, in order to distract me from the pain, I’ve been thinking about wants and needs, and boundaries and abuse.  Thanks for letting me share it with you.

NB: I wrote this in January of 2021, but was unable to share it at the time.  It is with great happiness that I announce that, while I'm still healing, the knife feels like it's finally out.  And my daughter and I did, in fact, manage to work out our respective needs.  I'm pretty proud of both of us.