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The Greatest Harm That I've Ever Done | Elizabeth Gilbert

18 Oct 2024 · 1 min

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Elizabeth Gilbert traces the harm she's caused others back to one source: her own failure to care for herself. When she neglects her needs, she becomes needy and manipulative, treating people as stand-ins for what she's missing. Every apology she's made, she says, traces back to that same root.

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The greatest harm that I've ever done to other people was through me not knowing how to take care of myself. Because if I don't take care of myself, a few things are gonna happen. I'm gonna lose my mind. I'm gonna become super needy, super clingy, and super manipulative because I'm gonna try to get my needs met through you. And that means I'm gonna be objectifying you and using you as a parental replacement, a sex toy, a sleeping pill, an unpaid therapist, you know, whatever the need, this huge dawning need in me. Parts of me will go out there and try to get that need met. And all the amends that I've ever had to make to anybody in my life for the grave harm that I brought to them were because I didn't know how to take care of myself.