Being useful
I need to feel useful. I have been told off a number of times for this, because my saying that I need to feel useful can be taken as meaning that I feel everyone should only be valued in terms of their use. That conflation isn’t helpful, nor is it true. “I need to feel useful” is a personal statement. What anyone else needs to feel is their own business, but I think most people prefer to feel valued on some basis or another, and this is mine.
What happens when I’m told I shouldn’t feel this way? Does it magically enable me to develop a sense of self-esteem that has nothing to do with utility and external validation? No, it does not. I’ve tried. I’ve poked this issue repeatedly. Having taken on board that I *should* have a sense of self worth not dependent on utility, I have done all the things in the books that *should* lead to this, and they do not. It’s a bit like being told your body should be able to do the things an appendix does (storing useful bacteria, apparently) when you do not have an appendix.
So, not only do I get to feel useless when there’s a lack of external validation, I get to feel doubly useless for being the kind of person who needed to feel useful in the first place. I don’t find that terribly helpful, and I’m prepared to bet this isn’t just a ‘me’ thing and that others will have comparable experiences.
One of the most basic things that enables self esteem, and lets us feel like proper people, is being entitled to our own emotional responses. Some of us have emotional responses that do not make much sense to other people or are not, apparently, how we are “supposed” to feel. However, the moment you tell me that my feelings are wrong, or invalid, you take something away from me. You are not helping me build towards a better, healthier state of mind (although I bet you think you are). What you’re doing is crushing me further, undermining what sense of self I have, invalidating my responses and making me feel even more of a person-fail then I did at the start. Please stop doing this!
No emotional response is wrong. It may be problematic, it may be based on faulty thinking, it may be counterproductive, but it is still the emotional response that I’ve got right now, and I need to start from where I am. Being told I should not feel a thing in a certain way is destructive. If I am not entitled to feel how I feel, I am not entitled to be a person. It may be inconvenient for you. It may make you feel uncomfortable. You may not like it. This is fine, and you are entitled to all those responses, and to walk away from me if needs be, but you are not entitled to tell me that my emotions are wrong.
Telling someone they are not entitled to feel a certain way does not lead to healing. It does not open them up to better and happier ways of being. It does not cure, or restore or uplift or inspire. It crushes and demoralises and dehumanises and will make them shut up about how they were feeling. If it’s just that you didn’t like what you were hearing and want to make the problem go away, making the afflicted person shut up may strike you as being a win. From the perspective of the other person, it is a lose, and a big one.
I need to feel useful. I am not going to apologise for this anymore. I need to feel useful in order to function as a person. I have very little need for manifest utility in the people around me, but if you are interested in playing a useful role in my life, the best thing, the most generous thing you could do would be to accept me as I am, and help me find the things that let me function, rather than telling me I should not feel like this in the first place.
