April Reflection: when your needs become the problem

How control reframes basic needs as selfish

Across April’s memoir essays, a pattern that became clear is when survivor’s needs are framed as the problem. This can take on many different forms and often evolves as the relationship does. In the early stages, those needs might be to pace or integrate slower. As the relationship develops, our need to maintain other connections comes under scrutiny. This scrutiny gradually turns towards the survivor and often presents as a micro-management of our identity and sense of self. What once was noted affectionately as a quirk, over time becomes a part of your character that is so problematic it has to be erased. As highlighted in my last memoir piece, even basic needs such as needing support when you are unwell, can be used as an opportunity to humiliate, shame, and exert control.

Abuse isn’t just the experience of your needs not being met.

The control lies in our needs being met with harm and conditioning us to believe that our needs are the problem. When we believe our needs are reasonable, if they aren’t met, we will continue to voice them or eventually leave the relationship. If the abuser can convince us that our needs are unreasonable - and the cause of their abuse - then we begin trying to suppress them.