Are you able to acknowledge and meet your wants and needs? Take the poll and add a comment on your predominant "wants and needs" style (see the list below):

• What style(s) do you usually display, too dependent, antidependent, needless/wantless, confused, aware/appropriate, or a mix?

• What are some examples of your style?

• What are you doing to improve your style, if it's not ideal?

1. Too Dependent. I know my needs or wants but expect other people to take care of them for me, and I wait, expecting them to know to do so as I do not take care of them myself.

2. Antidependent. I am able to acknowledge to myself that I have needs and wants, but I try to meet them myself and am unable to accept help or guidance from anyone else. I'd rather go without the thing needed or wanted than be vulnerable and ask for help.

3. Needless and Wantless. Although I have needs or wants, I am not aware of them.

4. Confused between Needs and Wants. I know what I want and I get it, but I don't know what I need. For example, I try to take care of my needs that I'm unaware of by buying everything I want. Though I may need physical nurturing, I buy some new clothes instead.

5. Aware of and Able to Act Appropriately on Needs and Wants. I am aware of my needs and wants and am able to act in an appropriate way to meet them, either independently or through healthy, mutual relationships.

6. Mixed. Any combination of the others.

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I am a mix. 

#1.  I NEVER expect people to do things for me.  Well ok, I expect the housekeeper to clean for me.  That's about it. 

#2 alot.  Its gotten me into trouble.  It is something I have REALLY been working on.  Asking for help and then taking it, HUGE deal for me.  I am pretty proud of how far I have come actually.  This came in a huge revelation with regards to a very bad weight problem I had.  I was the queen of "I can do it myself".  But once I started asking people for help and actually taking it, I changed my entire life!  And I lost over an entire person and I am fit and healthy now. 

#3 My mom is like this, but not really me

#4 Yes!  This is an issue.  It is hard for me to figure out what is a need and what is a want.  Sometimes VERY hard

#5 I am getting more and more like this every day.

Age has a lot to do with it for me. 20 years ago I would have said #2, I was too stressed out being a young wife, Mother and a selfish, ungrateful manipulative daughter to a witch UBPD Mother to have made any time for myself. Now that I am LC with Mother, kids are semi adults, DH and I have made peace with all the  cohabitational matters I make time for myself.

Im #1#2and#3 i guess that makes me #6.

I think it comes down to the abuse inflicted by exNPD. I was of no consequence, my needs or wants were never satisfied and if i even looked like i wanted something i was made out to be the most selfish person on the planet.

I still feel selfish or maybe the word is undeserving,  although i do take care of my kids needs and wants completely. When i am not coping i go into shut down. my family recognise the need for intervention and go into full swing. Im either too proud or too scared of looking needy to ask. I just cant bring myself to say"HELP" I think that i dont have the luxury of breaking down because i have 3 kids and a GD that i have to care for. My d18 has BPD too so that has distracted me from me.

I am working toward #5 and with the help here i will succeed!

 neverenz

I fluctuate between #2 and #5, so #6. Often when I ask for help, don't get it--Perhaps, I ask those who cannot help me?

A few years back I would have said I was a #2, but as I've matured, worked on myself, and through life experiences I have been able to work my way to a #5.

When it comes to family of origin there are times when I fall back at #2, but not by choice. Because I've been so Anti-dependent I still struggle with my family members wanting/expecting me to fix/help everyone and to basically not ask for any help, to take it all, and not complain. But through some tough love they've had to come to a realization that things have changed.

In intimate relationships I am at a #5 as well. I am pretty independent but I ask for help if it's needed and I also communicate my needs, wants, and limits to my SO. I also try to be as fair as possible, if my partner expresses his need/want or concern/issue, I listen to his side without judgment and I try my best to explain my side, as well as show my partner that I have listened/understood his side and that I empathize. I am a lot more aware of myself than ever before. To the point that I can explain to my partner what issue I have and what can be the cause of it.Sometimes I go as far as understanding where it is surfacing from, the root cause, and even if it's something physical.

I still struggle sometimes, I am not perfect, I am only human, and that's OK. All I can do is learn and work on myself.

I am mixed. I think I lean towards #2, anti-dependent. I am trying to work on it though, because I realize this is not a great way to live. I also think #2 requires a lot of "surrendering", meaning that if you ask for help, you have to accept the kind of help you are going to get, and not demand it being done all your way, which is admittedly tough for me. For example, if someone cleans the bathroom, I have a habit of going back over the work to "touch up" certain areas. I have to learn to leave that alone. It makes the other person who helped feel like cr*p, and it defeats the purpose of getting the help in the first place.

I understand why I want to do everything on my own and not want help (obligation issues from childhood), but I don't quite get the perfectionist thing where I would go over and re-do someone else's work.

?

Needless and wantless.  I have an uBPDh, a 3 year old boy, a 1 year old boy and a 100 pound, geriatric dog.  Oh, and a demanding career.  I'm flying through each day and can not remember the last time I wore my silky, long hair down and bothered to put on eye make up, or any kind of make up.   

I'm finding these categories quite helpful in thinking about this issue, one I've been aware of for a long time and am still working on.

I'm a combo of dependent, anti-dependent, and some healthy thrown in!


This goes back to the whole idea that the way I feel is the responsibility of those close to me, and the way they feel is my responsibility. Odd how hard it is for me to get that we're all responsible for our own emotions. Very classic BPD kinda thing, and it really fVcked with my DBPDSO at the start of our relationship.

I think I am a pretty mixed bag - even trying to put myself in a type has me confused. I think I know what i want and need, and I do my best to get whatever it is without taking anything away from those around me and feel really bad if I believe I have taken care of myself at someone else's expense. This is really most apparent in the splitting up of my time. And I have a lot of power in my family, and am not really sure why I get that dependence on me and am very resentful of having to be so aware of what everyone else needs at any moment and feeling like I have to figure out the balance for everyone in my little family. I used to do this for my large extended family ( 6 siblings), but have become quite isolated from them as dealing with dBPDD24 has isolated us from most of my family that that either can't watch the painful show, or believes they are helping me be less enabling by no longer being available to help.

Not sure where I am at in dealing with this mess right now - but sure am hoping to find a path to a healthier place for myself in life. Seems all the startegies, reading, therapy, etc. is just leaving me with an overwhelming amount of data to process with not much results.

Think I have a lot of work to do.

qcr

I'm a #5.  I know my needs and wants and usually find a way to fulfill them.  Some wants can't be taken care of at this point of my life, but I can wait.  Most people are aware of what I need or want from them because I am a talker.

I am antidependent but working hard on asking for any help I need and want.

I have run into a surprising challenge with this; it's been strangely tricky for me to ask in an appropriate way. Take today, for example. I have a broken foot at the moment and at one point when I was out shopping this afternoon I very much needed to sit down. My foot was hurting badly but it was tough for me to stress the magnitude of my need to the people I was with. One to practice, I guess.

I feel that I am too antidependent to answer otherwise.  Although my husband and I are working towards a more healthy moderation.

What style(s) do you usually display, too dependent, antidependent, needless/wantless, confused, aware/appropriate, or a mix?

My style is very mixed. Sometimes I am antidependent and was this more so when my parents separated when I was about 17. I had this very clear thought that my parents are no together, they were hurting and I no longer had a family unit to rely on - not that I could rely on them to begin with. So I took on a "strong" facade - I can look after myself and all I have to rely on is me - that way I can avoid being hurt.

Now after realising my pattern of r/s - all NPD, BPD or OCD (or mixed - oo that all sounds so scary) - I clearly have no clue about my own personal needs or wants, otherwise I would have bolted for the barn well before I was emotionally invested. This is a hard pattern to break. I am used to emotionally turbulent r/s - this is testament to my childhood and alcoholic parent. I was NOT permitted to have needs or wants - instead I was expected to placate my father so my mother did not cop more abuse. Silent child syndrome. I am still silent at the age of 38.

I know what my needs/wants are somewhat - in the sense I dont realise them at the time - I realise them when I get that gut churning unsettling feeling - again too late. I head into r/s with a free for all spirit. Surrender to the cosmos instead of choosing my partners they choose me. The BPD overstepped many boundaries and I would buck up but it was all too late. One boundary I know I have is cheating - I told him that - funnily enough that is what he used to sabotage the r/s.

What are some examples of your style?

I find this one hard to answer - maybe I am not at the recognition stage yet. I can be somewhat passive agressive when I know my boundaries are crossed - I am what they call counterphobic. I dont voice my boundaries, sit on them which causes increasing pain, discomfort and resentment. Then I explode and kick them to the curb. While being counterphobic helped me kick the BPD out - I can do it prematurely with others.

I procrasinate in setting a boundary - time goes on - then it gets even more difficult.

What are you doing to improve your style, if it's not ideal?

I am listening to my body and what it is telling me. My T is always asking me to slow down and think and feel. This is all new to me. Feelings was something I had avoided, ignored. Once I slow down and feel - my intuition kicks in. I know there is something i need to act on. Interestingly I also ignore that gut churning feeling the whole time I was the BPDex.

I try to set my boundaries firmly and calmly - however at this stage of my healing process I still find I am a little counterphobic and procrasinate but I am getting better at it. Its a tiring process because listening to my intution is so foreign I am learning to trust it - but its a full time job right now.

I am 26, only daughter of a single pbdmom with a Queen/Waif duplicitous personality.

Through work with my current t, as well as general interaction in the family of my husband (which has only normal dysfunction- no pd), I am learning normal ways that people express needs and wants.  The hardest part has been identifying my wants.  I never had an option growing up; what I wanted was totally irrelevant.  I also tend to overestimate the wants vs. the needs.  By that I mean, I tend to think that getting more than one pair of shoes at a time is a *want*, because I only ever had one pair of shoes.  I thought that getting more than one toothbrush a year was a *want*, until I learned that people are supposed to change them more often.  I also grew up thinking that buying too many types of household cleaners was a *want*.  Anything can look nice with a bit of Windex.  Now I understand that for hygiene reasons, you need things with bleach in them.  I just didn't know that before, because it was not an option.

Also, simple questions such as ":)o you like purple more than blue?" take a lot of concentration on my part.  I really have to first think about the fact that this question is actually being asked of me (otherwise I might say, "Well blue is nice on some people, but others look better in purple" or some other evasive answer), and also about what my opinion is on this subject, since I seem to lack the ability to automatically judge things, like other people do.  It seems to me that when my husband sees two things (say, a purple shirt, and a blue shirt), he instantly decides which one he likes more.  I just don't do that.  I had a difficult time in my first few years of university, because I kept having to express an opinion, and I normally don't actually form an opinion on anything at all.  I think my upbringing was such that in order to avoid getting raged at, or made fun of, I never expressed (and therefore never formed) opinions as a child.  My default is to figure out what the other person wants, and just agree to that.  I'm learning now that figuring out my own wants helps other people be a LOT less confused, and my relationship with my husband is much better for it.  Plus, I found out, I really like purple!

Of course, the more I declare my own wants and needs, the more strained my relationship with bpmom is :/  It feels like a loose-loose situation sometimes, but at least now I can make decisions.  I also feel like it is another step in freeing myself from my bpmom's control.  I don't have to like what she likes.  I can buy all the damn toothbrushes I want.  I can even have two at once if I want to.  It feels pretty awesome