7 Basic Human Needs

Okay, so I've been surfing psychology websites a bit the last week or so, which may or may not be a good thing. But I just came across this, and well, it's sad. It's the 7 basic human needs, which are apparently what will help keep a person happy, and mentally healthy.

1. The need to give and receive attention.
Okay, well, I don't give and receive a lot of attention. There is a little bit in my house, and occationally at school or internship, but it's always for only the duration of the required class period in which other people are forced to participate with each other in class or internship activities. My mind tends to fuck with me, and as soon as the contact is broken by someone I flee. I run off home again, seeking some kind of communication with people online. Which aside from one person, is in limited suply.

2. Taking heed of the mind body connection.
This is basically caring for the body, giving it what it needs. Food, sleep, exersize. Yeah, I'm bad with that stuff. I mean I eat, but irratically. I'll not eat anything all day through school come home at 2pm and then eat. And then sometimes I don't eat what I should or eat too much. And, well, my mom bought one of those cycle thingies, and I'm trying to when I go sit in her room and talk to her for a little while, to also sit and pedal. And I'm well, a long time insomniac. I've had troubles getting to sleep, and feeling like I slept well since I was like 9 years old.

3. The need for purpose, goals and meaning.
Well, if one reads back in my old journal, one might find an entry dealing with the very notion of meaning and life. My basic conclusion about this was sumed up nicely for me in an episode of the show "Angel". "If nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do." Yeah, that's kind of my feeling. I won't get deep into this now, since I pretty well talked it to death a few years ago in the aformentioned journal entry. However, I don't think I've moved away from that notion. That wouldn't be a problem except that in disallowing some grand meaning of life, for the notion that all that matters is what we do. Doing those things, however big or small they are that give each of us as individuals our own personal meanings in life. My problem is that I often lose sight of any little meanings of what I do, or feel like I don't do anything at all, that I am so static that I'm not doing anything for anyone, including myself. And that kind of lends to a general feeling of worthlessness, and uselessness, which tends to then eat away at any temporary confidence I have in what I'm trying to do, or hoping to do, or that I have any meaning to my life at all. Which is usually when I start wondering what really would be the harm of taking a razor blade to my wrists.

4. Connection to something bigger than oneself.
This sort of ties right into number 3 for me. Being involved in things like my internship help to make me feel like I'm doing something that's not just for me, or about me, but about a lot of people, and for good causes, good issues, or at least might help make others I'm working with feel good for a job well done. And thus makes me feel good, feeling like I'm a part of this whole that can make things happen, like broadcasting a live weekly tv show, even if it's a very small show on local PBS with limited viewership. Someone out there is watching, and it's there because myself and a bunch of other people made it happen. However, I'm not very involved in anything other then that and thus when I walk away after a shoot, or meeting and am then just wandering about again, I don't feel so connected to something besides my screwy little mind.

5. The need for creativity and stimulation.
This may be the only one of these needs I really can and do regularly work at satisfying. Through trying to write, pictures, etc I try and find something to put a creative focus into. As for the stimulation, I guess aside from the creative outlets, it's pretty much surfing the net and watching TV and such that is my stimulation.

6. The need to feel understood and connected.
I don't even feel understood or connected to myself a lot of the time. There are very few people I really feel connected to. And even with them, I think just about everyone, I don't lie to them, but I keep things to myself. I feel like I'm just going to bother people with my issues or problems, because everyone else has their own problems, they don't need to try and help or work around mine. I've never been very good at coming right out and expressing my feelings to others. When people do catch me in moments of raw emotion, such as openly crying my eyes out or angry, it's generally cause I've been 'stashing' feelings for days, weeks, months even and I've finally just broken, snapped, lost it, whatever term you want to use for it. There are some people I come close to opening all the way up to, like my friend Andrea, but even with her, I usually try not to contact her when I'm really hurting, when the tears are imminate. I only try and approach with problems when I can be calm about them. Apryl was much the same way when she was more accessable. Online I've managed to open up a little bit more rawly to a couple people. Currently it's Sarai, but there have been a couple people in the past whom I have since lost touch with, usually because I or they wound up cut off from much online activity due to real life stress, or for some of them sometimes, good fortune. Maybe it's just somehow easier to reveal more emotionally when you don't then have to look the person in the face tomorrow, or a week from now, or some forseeably planned time in the near future. And with people I know face to face, I always worry that once I stop sheilding my emotions so much, that then as opposed to feeling more understood by them because they 'get it' and don't care about whatever baggage I carry with me, that they will be put off by it and thus I feel even less understood.

7. The need to feel a sense of control.
Maybe that is why I like and feel comfortable with things because items are just that items. Things you can control. As opposed to feelings, thoughts, situations. So often so much is out of my control, sometimes even my own thoughts and feelings, sometimes most often those things. I so often walk around just feeling like I can't control anything, like things will just happen and I can't do a thing to help them, alter them, or make them go my way.


Well, I guess this would certainly begin to hint at why my mental state is so bad. I'm just not sure what I can do to solve most of these things. (There's that control thing again.) Other than perhaps making more effort to eat better and use that cycle thingy more regularly. *shakes head* It's so overwhelming.