Social Vampirism: The Needy Personality

Needy types are people who drain your energy because they constantly require your attention, affection, or affirmation. In fact, they are desperate for any type of support you can give them.

They are generally demanding of your time and effort, and thus it is tiring to be around them. If you ignore or avoid them, they will be hurt by your rejection, and may get frantic, desperate or spiteful.

Few needy types are aware of just how much of a drain they are on others. Most would not care. Needy types are ultimately selfish. Their needs come first. No matter how caring or loving they seem, your desires and concerns are secondary issues for them. In fact, their neediness blinds them to the needs of others. If they do give of themselves, there is generally a price to pay, namely they will obligate you into returning their favors, by making sure you never forget their generosity. 
The needy type has an overwhelming anxiety regarding rejection. They are sensitive to any indication that someone is withdrawing their attention from them. The needy type will view people who ignore them with intense dismay. They will try to change such a person's opinion by falling over themselves to please them. But if such attempts fail they get bitter, and even nasty. For the needy person those who ignore them are enemies. They will be obsessed about such individuals, often bad-mouthing them to others.

There are a number of reasons why people become so needy for love and attention. Most needy types either did not have sufficient emotional nurturing in childhood, or had too much! It is easy to see that if a person is reared by cold, unresponsive parents they will be denied a basic need in childhood, and never grow past the stage of needing to have their worth confirmed. A needy person is in an arrested stage of development, still looking desperately for the emotional support they lacked in their younger years. People who grow up without the presence of their parents, in institutions for example, often have issues related to worth confirmation as adults.

It is interesting that those who get too much nurturing, who are reared by a compulsively doting parent, can also turn out to be needy. Despite the indulgence, the parent is too busy fulfilling their own needs agenda to pay attention to what the child actually wants. The child is taught to repress what they really feel, and to satisfy the expectations of their caregiver. The latter uses emotional blackmail: "I'll give you all the loving you want, but I must always remain the center of your universe. You must nurture me constantly in return." The child's actual needs and desires get lost in this equation.

The doting parent teaches the child to become dependant on the care and attention of others. The child isn't given an opportunity to assert their needs, and make their own way in the world. They are not taught to be strong, to trust their own feelings, and to have confidence in themselves. The child is not given the opportunity to make mistakes or take responsibility for their actions. In short, the child does not come to know their own value, and to develop an inner evaluation of themselves. They continue to look for confirmation of their worth through others.

Needy parents make their kids needy. They make their children dependant on them to satisfy their own need for love and nurturing. They cling to the child, and are actually supremely selfish through this attitude. When it comes time for the child to emotionally detach from the parent, they sabotage this initiative by promoting fear (you are not strong enough; it's a harsh world) or guilt (I have no one to look after me; after all I've done for you...). The child never becomes self-sufficient as an adult, particularly on an emotional level.

We all get needy at certain points in our life. There are days when we feel especially vulnerable. There are times when we crave encouragement, when we need to vent our feelings, or when we just require someone to tell us how special or wonderful we are. Nothing is wrong with that. But if we require such a confirmation continuously, and from every person we meet, then we have a neurotic need. If we become outraged or hurt every time someone fails to pay attention to us, then we are caught in a neurotic struggle that can bring us only suffering.

There are a number of features that define neurotic neediness. It is firstly insatiable. No matter how much confirmation or praise you give the needy person, the next day they will demand the same all over again. They seem to have an infinite need for approval. This has aptly been described as a black hole or bottomless pit of need. The reason is that they won't stop needing affirmation until a fundamental inner transformation takes place. That is, until they love themselves!

Such an insatiable request for support makes needy types very frustrating to deal with. Their need is absolute. You just spent an afternoon reassuring them, and perhaps helping them with a problem. But a few days later you don't pay careful attention to their complaints because you are just too busy or tired. They will be disappointed, surprised or even dismayed that you deny them such attention. They see your behavior as a slight. You can support them till the cows come out, but the next day is like starting over.

Another feature of neurotic neediness is that it is driven by anxiety. The major fear is of rejection. Such a fear makes the neurotic behave irrationally. They will interpret events and actions in the context of this fear. They will frame your behaviors through the filter of their anxiety. Thus, whereas you pay less attention to them because you are busy, they believe (unconsciously) that you are bringing their worth into question. Perhaps you don't care about them any more. They quickly start to panic as a result.

A final feature of extreme neediness is lack of insight. Needy people are usually not aware of their neurotic tendencies, and would not even describe themselves as needy. Particularly if they are a martyr type, they will never admit to themselves that their behavior is inherently selfish. They expect something in return for their caring or helping behavior. They are manipulative, and will use guilt or emotional blackmail to get attention or praise. Yet they have no clue that their behavior is destructive, and that they are sneaky and deceitful in their dealings with people. 

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Humor As Weapon, Shield and Psychological Salve

Humor has long been recognized as more than mere fun and games. It presents an alternative means of expressing criticism about injustices, arrogance, pretentions or hypocrisies that can’t socially (or legally) be expressed otherwise.

Court jesters could say things to the royals “in jest” that others would have been beheaded for uttering. When King James I of England had trouble fattening up his horses, court jester Archibald Armstrong reportedly suggested that His Majesty make the horses bishops and they would fatten in no time.

Most people know that schadenfreude, defined as satisfaction or pleasure experienced as a result of the misfortunes of others, is of German origin. But most aren’t aware that “gallows humor” was also coined by the Germans. The original term,galgenhumor, has been traced to the 1848 revolutions and refers to cynical humor that derives from stressful or traumatic situations. Antonin Obrdlik said that “gallows humor is an index of strength or morale on the part of oppressed peoples,” and it has historically been associated with the persecuted and condemned.

An example of gallows humor can be seen in the Soviet-era joke in which two Russians debate who is greater, Joseph Stalin or Herbert Hoover. “Hoover taught the Americans not to drink,” says one. “Yes, but Stalin taught the Russians not to eat,” replies the other. Placing a comical spin on dire circumstances that are outside one’s control was an effective coping mechanism long before the Germans named the phenomenon, and continues to serve the oppressed, victimized and suffering today.

Gallows humor often is viewed as an expression of resilience and hope that has the power to soothe suffering. When the minority has few tools to combat an oppressive majority, gallows humor can be used as a sort of secret, subversive weapon. The danger that ridicule poses to those in power is captured by the Italian phrase Una risata vi seppellirà, which translates to “It will be a laugh that buries you.”

The fear of the weapon of humor was alive and well in Nazi Germany, and it was dangerous business. The legal code of the time reflected Joseph Goebbels’ interpretation of the political joke as “a remnant of liberalism” that threatened the Nazi state. Not only was joke-telling made illegal, but those who told jokes were labeled “asocial” – a segment of society frequently sent to concentration camps. Hitler’s second-in-command, Hermann Goering, referred to anti-Nazi humor as “an act against the will of the Fuehrer… and against the State and the Nazi Government,” and the crime was punishable by death. Article III, section 2 of the 1941 code (the Reichsgesetzblatt I) stated: “In cases where it is not specifically provided for, the death penalty will be imposed whenever the crime reveals an unusually low mentality or is especially serious for other reasons; in such cases the death penalty may also be imposed against juvenile criminals.” Since Nazi informants could be within earshot at any given moment, it was important to hold one’s tongue and suppress any witty desires. A Nazi prosecutor revealed that he determined the severity of punishment for a joke based on the following theory: “The better the joke, the more dangerous its effect, therefore, the greater punishment.”

In 1943, SS Commander Heinrich Himmler went even further in the fight against comical assaults on the Nazi authority when he issued an order making it a criminal act to name domesticated animals “Adolf.” Whereas all citizens living under Nazi rule were subject to these anti-humor laws, Jews were more likely to be sentenced to death while non-Jews typically received only brief prison terms or fines.
In Night, a memoir written by Elie Wiesel about his time in Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps, the author discussed humor in the concentration camps and the macabre forms it took:

In Treblinka, where a day’s food was some stale bread and a cup of rotting soup, one prisoner cautions a fellow inmate against gluttony. “Hey Moshe, don’t overeat. Think of us who will have to carry you.”

The fact that humor persisted in and out of concentration camps during the Nazi era despite potentially harsh repercussions demonstrates the vital role it plays in human resilience and survival. The inherently soothing and reassuring qualities that gallows humor confers seem to create a buffer of sorts between the sufferer and the source of the suffering. Without this buffer, the pain would be unremitting – the sadistic intention of the Nazi regime. That is what made it worth risking everything for.

Concentration camp jokes reflected an acute awareness of the dire conditions and tragic fate that awaited its denizens. Since such an awareness would naturally produce a state of profound depression, the fact that it produced an opportunity for brief pleasure indicates that the jokes served to counteract the effects of depression. In much the same way that the release of white blood cells is the body’s natural means of combating an intruding infection, gallows humor and humor in general could be the natural psychological means of combating an intruding depression.

A study published in the December 4, 2003 issue of Neuron reported that humor has similar effects on the brain as drug-induced euphoria. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans, the researchers measured brain activity in 16 adults viewing funny versus non-funny cartoons. The brain scans indicated that humor not only stimulated the language processing centers of the brain, but also stimulated the reward centers, leading to the release of dopamine, a powerful neurotransmitter involved in the regulation of the pleasure-reward system.

Although laughter may seem impossible when immersed in the depths of depression, humor-based therapies may present a viable option for enhancing brain chemistry and regulating the pleasure-reward system. Some form of humor therapy could, therefore, potentially help recalibrate the pleasure-reward centers of the depressed and anxious.

Theorist Martin Armstrong, who wrote about the function of laughter in society, may have said it best when he wrote, “For a few moments, under the spell of laughter, the whole man is completely and gloriously alive: body, mind and soul vibrate in unison… the mind flings open its doors and windows… its foul and secret places are ventilated and sweetened.”

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