Entry #2: What I Thought I Needed vs. What I Actually Needed

Prompt #2: Reflect on a time in your twenties when you were chasing something—maybe a relationship, a career goal, a version of success, or even a lifestyle—because you thought it would fulfill you. Now with some hindsight, what did you actually need in that season? What did you learn about your desires, your values, and the difference between internal validation and external rewards?

Okay, so I’ll raise my hand and admit I’ve done therapy wanting to know why I think the way I do or do the things I do — beyond what my own understandings are or were. And honestly, no regrets. I hate the stigma around therapy and just the narrative that something must be— had to be — wrong with you to seek mental health help. Maybe there is, but isn’t there something wrong with all of us? 

Anyway, a pivotal moment or session, I should say, was learning my physical and emotional response to not ensuring my needs were met, and it resonated that sometimes our needs can go beyond the survival needs to eat and drink and all that jazz. 

One of my needs that I recognized then was preserving my space and carving out the essential me-time that, as an introvert, I crave and need to recharge! Don’t underestimate how draining socializing or just being in the presence of other people can be — not in a bad way but in a reflective way. Each conversation is a drop in something within me that my me-time helps boost up. When I don’t get it, it leads to unplanned frustrations with no other reason besides the imbalance that exists within me. 

Second, writing and reading. To me, that was not surprising, but giving voice to what you always felt to be true is relieving. You know? It’s not just in my head. For someone introverted, shy, timid, and I could be like me — I spend a lot of time listening and ultimately absorbing information, emotions, facts, data, names and etc like a sponge without limits. On the flip side, I unequally give back as much as I absorb. But writing is my way of expressing and reflecting all that I’ve absorbed in new ways, in my own lens and perspectives.

And reading, don’t get me started on it. I don't read as much as I used to — sadly, and there’s guilt along with that too — but I know it’s a need I’ve neglected. I can’t explain the joys — or, as I learned recently, the glimmers — that come from reading a good book. It’s the immersing yourself in another’s shoes and world, diving into new perspectives, and embarking on this exhilarating rollercoaster ride of a story evoking a rainbow colored series of emotions from black darkness, to vibrant red anger, to a blue sadness, or a green of jealousy from wanting what a character has (yes, I know they’re fictional but still!).  

Something me and my therapist discussed often was this drive — I won’t say ambition since I hate that word and don’t see myself that way maybe because of the negative connotation associated with it — to achieve excellence what borderlines unattainable perfection. What was behind the drive? That need to do well? To perform? To succeed? To essentially be flawless at all times?

Honestly, both are driving my very being, yet both are tugging at the wheel at different times. I think our current education system shapes you to seek external validation — I mean, grades? Report cards? Evaluations? Scholarship essays? We’re raised being asked to perform — to be evaluated and our worth, our intelligence, or merit validated. You don’t just shrug something like that off. But I’m working to know when enough is enough and stop attaching my worth to my work — Just because my work doesn’t get the external attention or validation it deserves, that’s not a reflection of who I am.

And I think that’s what ultimately led to a decline in my writing once I left Wattpad. I loved the idea and ability to build an audience, but the urge to write for others rather than for myself is at times irresistible. I’ve always wanted to write the stories I wanted to see and that shaped my characters, the worlds I created, the issues I addressed, and the lens through which I wrote each story. But that validation you can get from the comments and interaction with a “live audience” that follows the story as you built it is addicting. 

And once I left Wattpad, or rather, now that I’ve left it for years, I’m struggling to reconnect with why I fell in love with writing in the first place. The love, the passion, and the desire is all there, it’s just a matter of building up that inner confidence that used to guide my writing rather than external validation I had come to really on. 

 So, what did I learn about myself from therapy as it relates to my needs?

To preserve my safe spaces and leverage them to rejuvenate myself in ways others may not understand. And that’s okay. They don’t need to at the end of the day cause they aren’t me. 

To adjust my sails to allow my own waves of confidence and validation to push me through the sea of creativity rather than be pushed by the harsh winds of external validation.

To prioritize what I need to be the best that I can be to pour into the cups of others. I can’t give what I don’t have, and well, I’ve seen what happens when I do. 

It’s not pretty.

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Lessons from My 20s is a reflective journal-style series by Black Bonnet Girls, capturing unfiltered truths, tender moments, and awakenings about growth, healing, and self-discovery. These entries are for overthinkers, late bloomers, quiet dreamers, and loud feelers—anyone navigating the space between who they’ve been and who they’re becoming. Through storytelling, reflection, and honesty, this series offers a soft landing—for me and for you.

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