Let you eat cake

On getting acquainted with your own wants and needs.

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I feel guilt over the most ridiculous things.

Eating the last of anything.

Not dividing things evenly.

Using the grocery budget to buy a $5 can of kombucha as a little treat.

Putting anything less than intense thought into buying Christmas gifts for my extended family.

Not letting the cat sit in my lap when I’m wearing nice pants (because she will inevitably pull out threads with the dagger claws she doesn’t know how to keep sheathed).

When I was little, I had a collection of stuffed animals. My bedroom had an old, non-functioning radiator that I’d topped with a folded blanket, upon which I lined up all of my beloved stuffies.

A Pound Puppy. A pink bear with a music box inside (that I think I still have in a bin in storage). An orange cat with a blue collar, from the movie Oliver and Company. A few more I can’t remember.

I placed them all in a neat row, and every night I’d select one to take to bed with me. Whichever one I wanted to snuggle that night…right? Oh, no. This was no random selection based on mere whims; this was a careful rotation to ensure each animal got even attention and no one felt left out. If I ever forgot whose turn it was, I’d make a panicked guess, avoiding the glassy-eyed stares of those left behind while muttering reassurances that they were all my favorites.

This is (maybe) an adorable quirk¹ when you’re six years old. But when you’re a grown-ass adult staring into the pantry and struggling to choose a snack because you really want a package of Nilla Wafers, but there’s only eight packs in the Costco-sized Nabisco assortment box and you’ve already had a couple and has everyone in the house had their fair share and what if someone else wants Nilla Wafers and they come to the pantry and they’re all gone and then they’re sad?…it’s not quite so cute.

A lot of women and AFAB folks have been conditioned to believe that being a good girl means being willing to sacrifice yourself — your wants and needs, hell, even your body — for the benefit of others. This fact certainly isn’t a revelation to me, and yet, it’s something I struggle with on daily basis. My default response to the question “What do you want to do?” is a shrug.

“Whatever...what do you want to do?”

My spouse, bless him, is eternally frustrated by this. He’ll lovingly glare at me and say “No, what do you want? If I wanted something in particular, I would have said so.”

In the somehow always applicable words of King George: I wasn’t aware that was something a person could do.

Half the time, I’m so disconnected from my own wants and needs that I genuinely don’t know how to answer that question. The other half of the time, I know what I want but feel paralyzingly selfish for stating it. Because my assumption is that everyone else thinks like I do, and that if I say what I want, they’ll go along with it so as to not disappoint me, even if they don’t want to do the thing, so then I feel guilty for — hypothetically — making them do something they don’t want to do.

From protecting the imagined feelings of inanimate objects to protecting the imagined feelings of other people. The scenarios might be all in my head, but the guilt sure is real.

Lately, I’ve been chatting with my therapist about the possibility that I may be autistic. We’ve talked about masking and how it makes answering assessment questions difficult, the complicated history and limitations of the criteria, the benefits of self diagnosis. And I’ve talked about my biggest hangup to confidently declaring “I’m autistic” despite scoring off-the-charts on masking tests and finding so many autistic experiences highly relatable²: I’m terrified of claiming a label that isn’t mine, taking up space where I don’t belong.

In the midst of these discussions my therapist asked me a question that wasn’t really a surprise: “Why do you feel like this particular label might be important to you?”

It was something I’d already thought about,³ so I ran through my responses. The comfort of knowing there’s a reason for some of my struggles (aka, I’m not “broken,” my brain just works differently). So that I can implement strategies that are actually helpful when I start to feel anxious, overwhelmed or burnt out. Still, it took me a moment to finally distill it into what I realized was the most fundamental answer:

It would give me permission to have needs.

My therapist hummed that there it is sound. “Like a doctor’s note,” they said.

“Yeah,” I replied. But having said it out loud, I was just enough of a self-aware over-analyzer to realize the problem with that. “I guess I probably need to realize that my needs are valid, no matter their exact cause,” I mused.

I grew up in a religion that taught me to disregard my needs for the greater good and surrender my wants to God in favor of doing his will. I was told that being a good wife meant meeting my husband’s needs, even if I wasn’t “in the mood.” That being a good church staff member meant leaving my needs at the door because I was there to serve, not be served. That I was inherently sinful and therefore my desires could not be trusted.⁴

It’s really no surprise then, that I worry my wants make me irresponsible, inconsiderate, or downright wicked. Or when I feel like even my needs are the result of some personal failing. If I could just improve, handle stress better, be more content, more confident…

It’s no wonder that when someone asks “What do you want?” I reply “I don’t know.” Automatically. Without pausing for even a second to check in with myself and assess whether I have an opinion, much less a need.

Throughout my life, when presented with any decision, my answer would be based on a myriad of considerations:

What does the Bible say?

What would Jesus do?

What will make my parents proud?

What will keep the peace?

What will make me look smart and competent?

What will make people like me?

What will make me seem less weird?

What do people expect from me?

What will make me a good person?

But never, “What do I need?” Never, “What do I want?”

Every time I remind myself that most of the religious rules I grew up with were harmful and unhealthy, and I’m allowed to do what I want or ask for what I need, my brain still chimes in with a set of disclaimers. Just because you want something, doesn’t mean you should have it…this isn’t permission to be a selfish jerk…make wise decisions, especially financial ones…blah, blah, blah.

But the thing is, us good girls don’t need those reminders. We know. We are responsible to a fault. We have rules on top of rules, just to be safe.

After years of recitation, I have those rules and disclaimers memorized. Every day, I’ve been placing them on one side of the scale and my needs and desires on the other, watching to see if it tips toward “acceptable.”

Or to put it another way: Please park your wants and needs and take your ticket to the front desk for validation.

“I guess I probably need to realize that my needs are valid, no matter their exact cause.”

I wish I could say that this therapy epiphany magically erased all my guilt and anxiety. That suddenly I’m flinging my arms open Julie Andrews style and shouting what I need from the mountaintops with confident abandon.

I’m not. But I am getting better at recognizing my needs and quietly addressing them.⁵ Just last week I gave real answers to the question “What do you want to do?” Twice! (Pro tip: When you catch yourself uttering the phrase “I don’t know…” you can follow that up with “Give me a minute to think about it.” WHO KNEW.)

The harder part though is remembering that I do not have to address only my needs — those things I’ve determined are valid and necessary and okay to act on (while somehow still feeling the impulse to apologize for them every five seconds). I’m allowed to address my wants, too.

I was going through some books recently, and found an old birthday card I’d tucked into one as a bookmark years ago. When I opened it and realized it was from my church staff days, signed by all my co-workers, I had a moment of just wanting to throw it away. But then the design on the front of the card caught my eye: an illustrated silhouette of Marie Antoinette with the words “Let you eat cake.”

It felt like such an apt message for this season in my life. Not only do you have permission to have and express your wants and needs, you have permission to indulge them.

What a delicious freedom.

I am learning, slowly, to identify and acknowledge my wants, even when I can’t indulge them.⁶

I am learning that just because I’m not in a place in life to fulfill some of those desires yet, does not mean I must squash them down and toss them in a dark corner where I can neither see nor feel their presence. That simply honoring the existence of those wants can be a powerful thing.

And at other times, I’m learning to just have the damn Nilla Wafers, for Pete’s sake.

That old birthday card isn’t the only thing I’ve encountered over the past few weeks that’s gently tending to this new growth. I just started reading a new horror release by one of my favorite authors (as one does during spooky season). A passage a few chapters in made me literally snort when I read it because I immediately felt so SEEN.

You know who you are. You claim the woman you are and celebrate her. I wish I had been able to do that during my life, too.

But the pretty idiot I once was had died alone and afraid and didn’t understand how she felt and could never say what she longed for. What she wanted.

Meanwhile, this new pretty idiot I had become, freshly risen from the grave with someone else’s blood coursing through her? She knew what she wanted.

— Lucy Undying by Kiersten White

I used to think occurrences like this, these “the algorithm is reading my mind” moments, were God trying to teach me a particular lesson. Sometimes it felt like an encouraging nod that I was headed in the right direction, but often it felt like the big stern professor in the sky pointing to the blackboard and admonishing me to prepare for some upcoming test. A test which I would need to pass if I wanted to be worthy of having those things I secretly longed for.

My current spiritual exploration has me much more enamored with the idea of a divine spirit, or just the universe in general, being feminine. Wise, but gentle. Perhaps She is not trying to teach me a lesson, but shine a light. Remind me — and all her daughters — of an innate truth that has all too often been swept under the rug and pushed into dark corners, suppressed and hidden away by toxic misogynistic cultures and belief systems.

Your needs are good.

Your wants are good.

You were never meant to feel guilty about them.

You do not need a good enough excuse to honor them.

You have permission to take up space in a myriad of ways.

Let you eat cake.

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The stuff bringing me healing and joy in the midst of this cultural dumpster fire.

😂 Getting to see Taylor Tomlinson live. Taylor is my favorite comedian, and if you’ve seen her Netflix specials you already know why: a lot of her comedy focuses on her religious upbringing. Her new material was incredible and it was healing in the best way to laugh over shared traumatic experiences.

❤️ Nobody Wants This. More romantic comedies like this, please. Kristen Bell and Adam Brody are phenomenal, and I love that while each episode (of course) has some form of conflict, it was never overdone for the sake of drama and the characters actually communicated with each other. I’m so glad we’re getting a season two.

🫠 This Instagram video of Billie Eilish having gay panic over Dakota Johnson’s voice. Dakota could read her grocery list to me and I would happily listen.

📚I’m calling it now: The Safekeep is my fave book of 2024. The less you know going in, the better. Just trust me, it’s beautiful and powerful and completely unexpected.

🥰 Speaking of acknowledging needs, my recent upgrade to a dedicated office has made me realize how much having my own, quiet space helps my nervous system. Bonus was getting to paint the room a color called “witchcraft” and outfitting it with the mini library of my dreams (with so much room for more books!).

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1. Or maybe it’s ✨trauma✨

2. I’m sorry, the neuro-normies know that they’re hungry *before* their stomachs start hurting, don’t feel like crawling out of their skin when there are ToO MAnY NoiSeS, and *don’t* constantly think about their body language and facial expressions while in social situations?

3. Because I rehearse every potential conversation I might have with anyone ever, including my therapist. Put one more check in the Ashley-might-be-autistic column.

4. Therefore, therefore…even if there were times you knew exactly what you wanted, you certainly couldn’t say it out loud. Nope. Instead, you suppressed the hell out of those wants. (Pun intended. 🔥)

5. My hatred of being perceived when I’m struggling with something — from a scenario as “silly” as making a choice between two different flavors of Kombucha to being in the midst of a full-blown anxiety attack — is a whole different conversation I’ve been having with my therapist. (Seriously, does anyone else panic when you’re standing in the grocery store aisle trying to decide between products and there is another human within 20 feet???)

6. Sadly, I am not yet flush with heaps of disposable cash that I might spend my days doing nothing but writing, reading, and eating pastries in various European countrysides.