Is Sad the Same as Needy?

I was in the hospital Saturday and Sunday with another attack of sudden-onset vertigo. While there, I spoke with my friend Susie, the amazing gal who has just donated one of her kidneys to her friend's husband. Susie is a dynamic, playful, intelligent, big-busted, big-hearted woman. Truly remarkable. So when Susie says something, I take heed.

Susie says my posts express a neediness for a man, and that my neediness is keeping men away, that the sadness expressed in my posts are really the writings of a needy woman. As "needy" is not a word I would ever use to describe myself, I thought I had best take a good look at what Susie said.

True, I have been down at times. This last week or so has been very difficult, with bouts of weepiness for seemingly no reason, but I finally associated this with the antibiotic I was taking for the infection of my dialysis tube. I finished the regimen yesterday, and my mood has definitely improved. Other than such pharmaceutically induced blues, I really have been feeling remarkably well since March. (The first month of dialysis and the build-up to dialysis were very difficult, but then I would think they would be difficult for anyone. Surely, no one wants to be doing dialysis.)

I went back and reread the posts in which I share the strategies I have used over the years to boost or maintain my mood--saying aloud "I am loved, I am deeply loved," hugging myself, and going on "fun walks" in which I am very attentive to the beauty around me. In each of these posts I admitted that initially these practices did not bring me joy, that at first they highlighted my aloneness. But in every case, I ended with the deep and profound recognition that something much greater than the little self--call it God if you will--is sending me love. If someone only reads the first half of these posts, yes, I'd agree that they might be downers. But if you read to the end, you see that these are joyful experiences, certainly not desperate or needy.

When I was a child and a young adult and even a not-so-young adult, I was needy. I was in an uninterrupted state of depression and frequent withdrawal from the world. But that Heidi just doesn't exist any more. I had a shift several years ago, a shift that released food as a coping strategy, a particularly life-threatening coping strategy for a diabetic. This shift also included major changes in the way I perceived myself, my mission, and my relationship to other people. Basically, I decided to be happy, no matter what.

Now, of course, things happen in life that challenge that state of being, but these dark times are far less dark than they have been in the past, and they are much more short-lived. Darkness sometimes passes over me like a cold breeze, and I am sad or weepy for a minute or two, and then it is gone.

Susie not only prompted thinking about my own character, but about the wider question: Is sad the same as needy? I sure don't think so. To me, sad is to needy as poor is to moochy (or whatever the adjective is for being a moocher). Sad is personal, something you can keep to yourself, something you can indulge in when you're alone but go out into the world with a smile and a glow about you. One goes home to weep alone, just like one goes home to shit alone, to get out the impurities, so that one can go back into the world refreshed. Needy is 24/7. Sad is personal and can be contained so that it only effects the person who is sad. Others may know the sad person and even be good friends with her and yet always think of her as the happiest, sunniest person going. Needy is a drain on others; needy zaps the people it's around. Similarly, poor is a statement of fact: Someone is poor, he lives in a substandard dwelling, his clothes are worn, and he has few possessions. This is very different from a moocher, who is also poor but who begs, borrows, and cheats his way into getting others to give him a place to live or his next meal or a new set of clothes. He zaps others, whereas the poor man does not. The poor man accepts his state of being and lives as best he can within what has been given to him. So, definitely, all needy people are sad people, but the reverse is not true.