Selfish

*under construction

Selfish

I am just starting this page. For years I have noticed how people use this word. Typically one person uses it to try to manipulate the other one. Frequently, emotionally abusive parents teach this to children and teens who then add it to their arsenal of hurtful, manipulative weapons which they then later use on their partners, children, students etc.

I don't have time to write much now but here is some writing I did today.

Sept 20, 2006

update Oct 14

See also selfish, suicide

Dec 8, 2007 thoughts. Why waste time...

It is more helpful to talk about a person being needy than to call them selfish. If we say "selfish" we tend to think of it as a "character flaw", as if the person was born bad. But if we say "needy" then we might start to ask ourselves why the person is needy, what they need exactly, and why their needs were not met. If a teenager is needy, why? Is a teenager supposed to fill their own needs? What about a 12 year old? Or a ten or a two year old? How is nature supposed to work, when it is working as close to perfectly as is naturally possible? Someone I knew once used to say that babies are born with perfect DNA. This is an interesting concept. I think most of the time it is true. So what happens then to make a person think so much about their own needs that they don't think about others and we are tempted to call them selfish, especially when they are not helping us fill some needs that we have, or perhaps blatantly refusing to allow themselves to be used by us in our attempt to fill our own needs?

...when I was thinking about x I realized that when she feels bad about something she did, when she feels guilty or responsible, she tends to think she is a bad person and sometimes this leads to her wanting to kill herself. So basically what seems to happen is this. Let's say she steals something from someone. She feels bad about it on some level. On another level she tries to rationalize it or justify it or intellectualize it, or she might sometimes apologize in a casual sort of way, something like "sorry I accidentally killed your wife, your kids, and your dreams." Then she distracts herself or starts thinking about something else either consciously and intentionally or unintentionally. She hasn't done anything to make restitution for the pain she caused, or contributed to. Yet on some level the guilty feelings continue. And these feelings are connected to thoughts which go something like this: "I am a bad person. I am evil. I should kill myself."

So basically what I am saying is that suicidal people don't believe they are capable of fixing things, of making restitution. They have been taught that they are powerless, and that they are hurtful people. Typically they are taught they are selfish, uncaring, not kind etc. The parents are the ones who are teaching this to them since the parents feel hurt when the child or teen doesn't do what the parent needs them to do for the fulfilment of the parents' needs.

When a parent calls a child or teen "selfish" two things are happening. One is that the parent wants to hurt the child or teen simply because the parents feel hurt by something. Dysfunctional, soul killing parents don't say "We are in pain because of our own unmet needs and our wishes that you would have filled our needs and our unrealistic expectations". (see also my section on disappointment).

So basically one of the two things that happens is that the parents feel pain, they feel hurt, so a natural instinct is to hurt the thing which hurts you to try to stop it from hurting or killing you. But the other thing parents are doing is more subtle. They do something animals in the jungle or forest don't do. If one animal attacks another and the second one escapes, the first might feel frustrated and hungry. But it is unlikely to call the prey "selfish." If it did, it would be like saying "Hey come back here and let me eat you. You should feel bad about running away from me." We wouldn't expect an animal to go back and be eaten, so why do we expect humans to?

So what parents do is psychologically try to get their prey to let them be eaten psychologically. This reminds me of the term "emotional vampire", a term Ocean used for her mother during a chat we had one day.

Here are some links on that term: I don't have time to review them now, so if you read them and agree or disagree strongly with something, please let me know.

http://www.angelfire.com/zine2/narcissism/narcissism_checklist.html

http://psy.rin.ru/eng/article/144-101.html

http://www.joy2meu.com/codependency_vampires.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_vampire

http://archive.salon.com/sex/feature/2000/07/18/succubus_2/

Here are a few things I found on my site when I did a site search for "selfish"

...it is normal to think of our own needs first. Babies are not selfish. When someone uses the word selfish it tells me they do not understand emotional needs, nature and survival. Without such understanding there can be little or no compassion. from http://eqi.org/pare.htm

Jen is one of the most intelligent, caring, sensitive teens I have ever met. She is also one of the most self-destructive. The first time I chatted with Jen she told me she had been searching "desperately" for someone on the net to talk to. She had been keeping so much inside for so long that our first chat lasted four hours. She only left because she was afraid her mother would "kill her" if she caught her on the computer so late at night.

I can't do much to help Jen. She is convinced she is worthless and everything bad that happens is somehow her fault. She can forgive others, but not herself. She prosecutes herself harshly, but defends others. She tries to help people as much as anyone I know, yet is called selfish by her mother and so now she believes this and calls herself selfish when she thinks about or talks about her own needs and feelings.

Some writing from my journal on Oct 14, 2006

Ok so…is it selfish for me to turn off my cell phone when I need sleep? Is it selfish for me to tell a suicidal teen I am talking to that I am sleepy and need to go to sleep? Is it selfish for me to actually fall asleep when I am chatting with them?

Is it selfish for me to have any of my own needs? What about going to the bathroom? Is that selfish of me? What about eating? Is that selfish of me?

If I killed myself would there be more food for starving people, so is not killing myself selfish?

Ocean used to feel bad because she was using up the world’s resources and not contributing anything. I think it was Cara who said something very similar recently. And I don’t think she got the idea from Ocean.

Teens – sensitive, intelligent, abused ones – think very similarly. And probably about ninety percent of them have called themselves selfish. And probably about 99 percent have been called selfish by their parents.

One teen who recently tried to kill herself told me "I am selfish and I can't be helped."

Where do teens get ideas and beliefs and self-concepts like this? If you read this site, I hope the answer is clear, painfully clear. I just wish more teens could see understand this and cut the psychological ties to the people who have been giving them such self-descructive self-concepts.

Cara's writing on suicide and the label of "selfish"

When someone tries or succeeds to kill themself they are NOT being selfish. They are cracking under the weight of all the emotional needs that were unmet. and they have always cried out for help in some way. and those around them csn't expect a suicidal teen to be thinking of their parents when those parents refused to help fulfill those needs.

Cara

Dec 8, 2007 thoughts

Why waste time arguing or debating whether somethiing like suicide is selfish? I thought of this just now when I got a letter from someone who seems interested in helping me. Right now I just want to say "I don't want to debate over definitions. I would like to know how you feel, though, and feelings aren't debatable, so I will just listen."

Listening vs. Debating

This is another thing we are not taught. To listen rather than debate.

We could debate forever whether something is a "sin" or not, but feelings aren't debatable.

What bothers me about the word "selfish" is how it is used to manipulate people, especially how parents use it. Anyhow, I don't want to argue or debate with someone who wants to help me. I need the help too much to create divisions.

Feb 21, 2008

Today I was writing about Tsveta. I remembered how she called me selfish. I started wondering "How is someone feeling when they call someone else selfish?" I have gotten to know Tsveta quite well so I will try to explain how I think she was feeling when she called me selfish. The first word that comes to mind is "defensive." I say defensive because Tsveta is very sensitive and also very insecure. She doesn't want to think that she is the cause of anyone else's pain. She feels overly responsible for someone else's feelings because this is the way she was raised. Her mother, in particular, used Tsveta, much in the same way that my mother used me, to try to fill her unmet emotional needs. Our mothers did this by trying to make us feel responsible for their feelings.

The second word is hurt. The third is unimportant. The fourth is uncared about. The fifth is not understood.

I'll just talk about the last one now. Not understood. Or un-understood. I have seen several times that she has a big need to feel understood. It is very difficult for her to listen to someone else talk because she has such a big need to talk. She wants people to understand how bad life is in Bulgaria, how much corrpution there is, how much her parents have suffered, how much she has suffered, how important her family is to her, why English is so important to her, etc. Tsveta doesn't feel understood by enough people. In particular she doesn't feel understood by her parents. She would probably deny this and say that they do understand her, but I know that if she felt undersood by them she would be a better listener and not feel such a need to tell people about her life, about her family, about how much money her parents borrowed to send her brother to study in the United States, etc.