There is a particular flavour of self-suppression that is very common in women and rarely named: the belief that having needs is a problem.
Not just that specific needs are too demanding, or poorly timed, or difficult to articulate. But that having needs at all — for attention, for care, for rest, for recognition, for honest communication, for space — is itself an imposition. Something to apologise for. Something that makes her difficult.
This belief is worth examining carefully, because it has significant consequences for everything from self-care to self-respect to the quality of connection available to the woman who holds it.
Early experiences of needs as burdensome. The woman who learned early that her emotional needs were inconvenient — who was regularly told (or shown) that asking for what she needed was too much — may have internalised the belief that needs themselves are the problem.
The cultural training of female selflessness. Many women are raised with an implicit or explicit message that genuine care is expressed through the suppression of personal needs. The good woman, the loving woman, the selfless woman does not need much. This training is cultural, pervasive, and deeply unhelpful.
The equation of neediness with weakness. The specific version of this belief that is common in high-achieving women: that having needs is a form of weakness, and weakness is incompatible with the strong, capable self-image she has worked to cultivate.
Difficulty asking for what you need. If needing something feels shameful, asking for it becomes very difficult — even when the asking is entirely reasonable.
Resentment. The unsaid need, unmet and unexpressed, tends to accumulate as resentment. The woman who never states what she needs often comes to resent those who never provide it — even though they were never told.
The choosing of partners and contexts that confirm the belief. The woman who believes her needs are a problem tends to seek out contexts and relationships that confirm this — where she can be self-sufficient, where needs are not easily welcomed. This creates a self-fulfilling structure.
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Acknowledge that you have needs. Not as something to be fixed or minimised — as something that is simply true. You are a person. People have needs. This is not a character flaw.
Practise naming your needs to yourself first. Before you can communicate a need, you need to know what it is. The practice of honest inner inquiry — what do I actually need right now? — begins the process.
Allow others to meet your needs. One of the more counterintuitive aspects of this healing is learning to receive. To say what you need, and then to allow someone to respond — without immediately minimising, deflecting, or pre-empting the offer with reassurance that you are fine.
Notice when you are suppressing needs and ask why. The specific moment of suppression — the swallowed request, the unsaid preference, the need that goes unstated — is information. What are you afraid would happen if you stated it?
Related: Emotional Clarity · Self-Respect Is Not a Mood · Stop Shrinking for Connection
Your needs are not the problem. The Good Girl Delusion is the work of healing the belief that they are.
Nancy GLO
Reflective storyteller & style curator for women becoming
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