how I know what I need

How I know what I need is confusing.  Do you have a problem with that, reader?  Do you know what you need?

I told my therapist the other day: I know what I need about four years after the fact.  Many things I think I need, when I really need the opposite.  Or I will be flailing in many ways, and grasp onto something or someone who I think will help me make sense of my life and bring many threads together.  I get charmed and jump in, ready to love.

Nope–wrong choice.  I did not need that.  But how do I know, until much later?

In the present moment, I look for signs and pay attention.

• gut instincts
• heart feelings
• logical ways of knowing
• sexual desire
• pros and cons lists
• I can recognize patterns in my own life

Hindsight is 20/20–I can make sense afterward.  The present moment is a chaotic mess of brightness, delight, fear, pleasure, and confusion.  Is your life like that, or just mine?

I do my best to sort out what’s best.  I ask Spirit when I pull tarot cards, and I occasionally journey.  My mom sends a message from the other side, from time to time.  I meditate, contemplate, and explore my feelings.  But often, what I actually need and choose is a crapshoot.

There’s needs vs wants also.  Needs are non-negotiable, and wants can be important but are optional.

Does everyone know the difference but me?  Maybe it’s an autism thing?  How do we divvy it?  Is a need just a powerful want, or are they fundmentally different?

impulses

“How do you know what you want or need?” my therapist asked.

“I would say there are impulses,” I replied.  “Impulses tell me what I want and need.  But not sure how trustworthy they are.   Of course I’ve been told my whole life that what I want and need is wrong.  So it’s hard to sort out.”

“What you want and need is wrong?” my therapist asked.  “Can you tell me more about that?”

conversation

I intuit that therapy is supposed to have an arc to it.  The 50 minutes is supposed to go a certain way.  Hopefully I would start crying somewhere between minute 5 and minute 20.  Then we can feel some feelings and move toward reframe and resolution.

When I lost my shit about minute 48, that was incorrect.  My poor therapist.  I’m crying like a banshee, and it’s time for me to pick up my water bottle and bag, put my shoes back on, and pat the manatee stuffie goodbye.  But instead here’s the crazy fat person Laura-Marie, about to step into the wide world and face the harsh reality that humans have chosen.  Only now she’s crying so bad she can’t see.  It’s raining.

My friends who call the world a dystopian hellscape–I salute you.  Yes, it felt that way, that day.

This beautiful-horrible dumpster scene was my sign.

how I know what I need

• I need a functional culture where most people have basic communication and relationships skills.
• If we have a government, I need a government that works for everyone, ensuring basic rights and lives for everyone, not just the very rich.
• Violence is harmful, and I need a culture that believes that and chooses love.
• I need a world where we all have the basics, which allows us to survive without resorting to risky behaviors.
• I need Parent Earth to be treated as sacred and holy.  Not as an endless fountain of cheap resources, and a chaotic graveyard for the cheap resources as they are disrespectfully discarded, easier to toss than to honor, mend, share, repurpose, or otherwise transform.

Since when does it matter, what I need?  Figuring it out feels pointless.  Is therapy trying to ignore that part?  If I’m fiddling while Rome burns, I’d like to at least enjoy the tune.