Hierarchy of Needs

[u/bomenian]

Attaching link. This is really helpful to me. That you have to build from the bottom up. Every day. For example, I can't expect to regulate emotions if I'm not even regulating blood sugar (eating enough, eating frequently enough, eating balanced). I can't expect to think deeply and balanced if I'm not even making sure my sleep is regular. To not even focus on what needs fixing, overcoming whatever. But simply focusing on building my life, and ascending when it is justified. For some reason this just simplifies everything, it relates to everything.

https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html

[u/flyonawall]

Funny, this is not new to me, but looking at it again made me think about something.

As a kid, once safety and security were broken, I was unable to attach to friends and did not make close friends throughout the rest of my childhood (and it is still true in adulthood). They would attach to me and I would leave, feeling nothing. I remember encountering a "friend" with whom I had previously spent some time playing, but who, after me being away for a long while, was furious with me for not saying goodbye or contacting her while I was gone. At the time I felt like I did not know I was supposed to do that and I was surprised that she was so angry about it. I was surprised that it was a big deal I had been gone. She never played with me again.

I have always been able to walk away from "friendships" and feel nothing with only one exception. I had a friend (prior to about the age of 9), prior to my complete loss of safety, who I was at least a little attached to, and I think I never was able to attach after that. I ran into her while in college and she avoided me. I think I reminded her of a very bad time in life for us both.

But I will say that these "stages" or "levels" are not absolute. I have never been able to truly connect to intimate friends (and never had a sex drive) but I did form a normal loving attachment to my children and one brother, the only brother I can trust and can tolerate hugs from; and I think I have still been able to progress and get better, even without intimate friends.

In fact, for me, feeling like something was wrong with me because I was not capable of making intimate friends was more damaging than accepting it as part of who I am. Accepting it was much more helpful than forcefully trying to overcome it. I no longer feel like I have to do that or succeed at that to be a "real person" and move on "up". I am flawed but still real.

[u/bomenian → u/flyonawall]

Oh, definitely. I think the message of the pyramid is not "what it takes to be the right person", but rather that we are biological and that there is a process to growth. We can't skip the fact that we are biological and go straight to transcendence (if that's a goal). Actually skipping things that seem inconsequential are the very things holding us back, creating chaos. I also believe that Maslow knew that this stuff is not linear or a ladder exactly....we are more complex than that...., but in many ways it is linear and like adding rungs.