Do you know what you need? Not what your kids need, or what your partner needs, or what your team at work needs. What you need.

In my therapy practice, when I ask high-functioning women what they need for the coming week, many of them either freeze or hand me a list of responsibilities. Things they have to get done. These things are not the same thing.

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High-Functioning Does Not Mean Connected to Yourself

High-functioning codependency (HFC) is the result of being so good at managing, anticipating, and delivering for other people that it has become automatic. You walk into a room and can feel what everyone else needs, then adjust, accommodate, fix, and offer advice without thinking. Other people expect it from you, and you expect it from yourself

The problem is that all of that is turned outward. After years of doing this, your own needs become a question you cannot answer. I’ll ask you right now what you need this week. Can you tell me?

For many of us, this started early. It may not have been safe to have needs in your home, or the adults who raised you may have modeled not having any. I had a mother who never asked us for help. I remember being a teenager, sitting at the dinner table she had set, getting up to leave with my sisters, and her long-term partner stopping us. He said, “Are any of you going to do the dishes? Are any of you going to help your mother?” My mother had never asked us to help, so it had not occurred to us that she needed help. We took her for granted because she never centered her own needs. I felt terrible.

Some of us also got rewarded for not having needs. The more self-contained you were, the easier you were, the more praise you received. Most of us come by our high-functioning codependency honestly.

How HFCs Override Their Own Needs

We tend to override our needs in three ways. We minimize them by telling ourselves it’s no big deal. We delay them by telling ourselves we will handle it later, which I was the queen of when I was younger, and later rarely arrives. Or we outsource them, putting someone else’s needs ahead of our own. That is garden-variety codependency, too. We look to other people, and if they are okay, maybe we will be okay too.

The cost is real. Resentment builds, anxiety rises, and the nervous system stays in hypervigilance with no time to replenish. Sooner or later, we end up depleted, exhausted, and often angry.

A Few Categories of Needs

Emotional needs. The need to feel seen, heard, and understood. Most HFCs are the listeners in their relationships, the friend everyone calls with a problem. Ask yourself when you last felt heard by another person. When we are giving what we are not receiving, resentment builds. Letting yourself be known is a need, and it requires the kind of vulnerability that many HFCs find hard.

Autonomy. Independence, choice, alone time, privacy. As HFCs, we are often so available that we leave no space for ourselves. When I started honoring my own need for autonomy decades ago, my creativity came alive in a way I had not realized was possible. Honoring this need often means disappointing someone else, and you will both survive.

Connection. You can have many relationships and still feel lonely if you are not showing up in them. Real connection requires vulnerability. I am not saying be vulnerable with everyone, but I am saying be vulnerable in your most important relationships, because that is the only way you will be authentically known.

Self-consideration. I talk about self-consideration more than self-love because it is actionable. In every decision, consider yourself in it, rather than automatically organizing your life around what other people want from you. Every time you override yourself, you reinforce the idea that your needs matter less. They do not.

Safety and rest. Rest cannot be a reward you earn after everything is done. It has to be a proactive requirement. If you do not give it to yourself, your body may eventually make it happen. The universe pushed me down a flight of cancer stairs (as I call it) in my early thirties, and that is what finally changed my relationship to rest. The subtle cues will get louder until you cannot ignore them.

I have built a full needs list, with all of these categories and more, that you can work through. You can find it in the guide for this episode. Pick two or three categories at a time. Look at the list and ask: where am I satisfied, and where am I depleted? Your body will tell you. Tightness, heaviness, irritation, fatigue. Those are signals from your body, and we have to pay attention to them.

One Practice to Start

At the end of each day, ask yourself one question. What did I need today that I did not give myself?

Not to make you wrong, just to notice. Then ask: What is one small way I can honor that need tomorrow? Small steps create sustainable change.

Your needs are not the problem. Ignoring them is. You are allowed to have needs and to prioritize them. Doing this will not disconnect you from the people you love. It will create more honest, sustainable relationships, which is what you want anyway.

If this is the kind of work that gets you going, I would love to have you inside the Terri Cole Membership, my weekly community where we work through this kind of material together.

As always, take care of you.

Terri Cole Answers Your FAQs From The Week’s Blog

Why is it so hard to know what I need?

Many of us were never taught to identify our own needs. Maybe it was not safe to have needs in your home while you were growing up. Maybe the adults who raised you modeled not having any. Some of us got rewarded for being self-contained and easy, which reinforced the pattern. If you cannot answer the question of what you need, you come by that honestly, and you can learn to reconnect.

What does it mean to override your own needs?

We tend to override our needs in three ways. We minimize them by telling ourselves it’s no big deal. We delay them by telling ourselves we will deal with it later. Or we outsource them, putting someone else’s needs ahead of our own and assuming that if they are okay, we will be okay too. The cost over time is resentment, anxiety, hypervigilance, and eventually burnout.

What is the difference between self-love and self-consideration?

Self-love can feel abstract. What does it actually mean to love yourself? Self-consideration is actionable. It means considering yourself in every decision you make, rather than automatically organizing your life around what other people want from you. Every time you override yourself, you reinforce the idea that your needs matter less than other people’s. They do not.

Will prioritizing my needs disconnect me from the people I love?

This is the fear many HFCs have, and the answer is no. Honoring your own needs will not disconnect you from the people you love. It will create more honest, sustainable relationships, which is what you want anyway.