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Writer's pictureCrystin Rice

When your bucket leaks

Updated: Jul 20

Ever had this experience?


You feel like you have been trying and trying to get a deep, emotional need met in your relationships, but it just seems to end in disappointment every time?




When it seems like you can never get what you need, you may even come to some conclusions that sound like this:


1. "I’m too much. My needs are too much. There is something wrong with me.”


I’m going to take a wild guess that what you are needing is a normal, human need. Love, acceptance, companionship, respect, trust, support, encouragement. So no, those needs aren’t too much. They are normal and something that all humans need as they go through life.


One possibility for this is that you are trying to fill a bucket that leaks out as fast as it is poured into. You may be convinced that you need water to fill that bucket – every fiber of your being is screaming for water and your entire focus on life is finding that water – but friend, what you need first is a cork. Some way to patch that hole. If you keep searching for water, it will keep leaving you feeling empty, and it will keep supporting your idea that you need “too much” water. It’s not that you truly need more than a normal share of water, it’s just that what you get isn’t sticking around. (Where’s it going? It’s trying to go back in time, but it evaporates along the way.)


2. "No one else can meet my needs. I am the only one I can rely on.”


That first part has a grain of truth, but it has led you to a false conclusion. No one in your life right now can meet your needs because you are trying to fill a hole that lives in the past. No one living in this time period can meet that old need, so yes, it is something you will have to work through in understanding these loud, hungry emotions inside of you and what they are signaling to you. (You might find it helpful to ask a therapist to help guide you through that journey.)


What usually happens here, though, is that when you come to the conclusion that others will only disappoint you, you stay on alert, constantly aware of when that may happen. Then we you think you see a hint of disappointment looming, you may tend to go with your first reaction.


 

Quick break here for an oversimplified neuroscience lesson: information about what’s happening around you enters the brain through the gatekeeper, which is a collection of the brain structures generally called the amygdala. The amygdala does a quick sweep with basically a yes/no option – is this a threat?


I think of it as the bouncer at the door of a club. Do I block this person from entering? If “yes,” the amygdala actives the fight/flight system and tends to light up the movement centers of the brain. Do something! Fast! If “no,” the amygdala lets the information enter the club and sends it to the prefrontal cortex (PFC) where the more complicated thinking processes occur.


The PFC adds context, such as asking how this situation might be different from other similar situations you’ve experienced and allows you to consider a variety of possible outcomes that might be different from the painful one you had. The PFC is good about playing scenarios out into the future and considering the consequences of your actions (something the fight/flight response is very much NOT good at). The PFC is socially-minded and allows you to think about things from someone else’s perspective as well as what might result in the best response from others (again, something the fight/flight doesn’t think about). The PFC helps you consider all of the details and see if there’s something you might have missed or a better, more creative way to solve a problem. All of that takes a bit longer, though, so those are the thoughts you have after you’ve had some time to reflect.


 

What does that mean in real life?


When you are faced with a situation where an oversensitive amygdala thinks you might be hurt (because the parts of the brain that receive pain signals process emotional hurt basically the same as physical hurt), the amygdala (aka the Bouncer) kicks that signal back to the movement centers of the brain and says to you “Do something!” That something usually ends up being fight (yell or complain that the other person isn’t doing enough to meet your needs) or run away (end the relationship or distance yourself believing your needs won’t be met and you will hurt again).


When you act from the amygdala, you only reinforce the idea that no one can meet your need and therefore you are the only one you can rely on.

You might need to read that again.


Your past pain has caused you to remain hypervigilant to any hint that you will be hurt. Then, instead of using the wiser but slower part of your brain to find a way to get a different kind of response, you go with the faster, automatic part that says to fight or run away, which reinforces the idea that this was an actual threat and makes you believe that you have protected yourself once again. The brain remembers that action as successful and motivates you to do it again in the future. Except you didn’t protect yourself because what you wanted was connection. To be seen and understood. To be loved. And your behaviors (fight or flight) got you the opposite, just like they have every time in the past.


“Wait, so you’re telling me this is all my fault? That I’m the problem?”


Short answer: no. Problems are patterns, not people.


Long answer: fault is irrelevant in this situation. People naturally want to look for who’s at fault in order to find out how something happened and therefore how they can prevent it from happening again. That’s fine, but since we can only control ourselves and not what others do, I think there’s a better approach than looking for fault, which is to develop a strategy for how you can be resilient when others don’t behave as we need them to.


“Ah, yes, only rely on yourself. I already said that.”


Nope. You need a strategy to help reconnect with others after there’s been a problem. Because that’s more likely to get you what you want – connection, acceptance, trusting bonds that aren’t easily broken, security in knowing that you can get through the hard times.


And even better, when you are confident that you can approach others regardless of how well or poorly they are acting, that confidence helps your threat detection system calm down and you don’t even feel the flight/flight urge as much. You know you can handle whatever comes your way, so your brain starts to create new programs for how to approach interpersonal problems.



If you would like to learn more about strategies for building long-term, resilient connections with others, consider working with a therapist to create a personalized strategy for your needs.

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