Sociopath Community

it seems to be too wide a spectrum to pinpoint to just one source...

but just as people feel they need someone, so too are there those that feel they need to be needed...

It's hard to not see this as a selfish desire. Good deeds aren't done for validation and being needed is basically someone validating another. 

I feel a certain satisfaction when another person is dependent on me, but that's as far as that goes. It's not so much of being needed, but that you have power and the ability to exercise your will over that individual regardless of their opinion. 

Being needed can also be viewed as pressure applied to those who need you. Because they have to put up with your shit as long as they need you.

If I am needed, I will help and do my best. In part it makes me feel good because I envision how we all thrive for something better; getting stuff done if they were unable on their own. I assume they also feel good to have a weight lifted off their shoulders. It feels right, like everything is in place. Win-win.

Being needed makes it easier to request things out of them.

If it's not a reciprocal exchange in some form (like owing a favor), they probably don't expect me to help.

I think people equate being needed with self-worth. People needing you can be understood as you having value which they need.

Yes. I will expand on what I was asking/saying - by adding that these particular people have a need for dependence on them. And once no one is dependent on them for a great deal of things; think parent/child - they feel as though they no longer matter to those who once depended on them. I have no issues with people needing me. My children need me. But I won't feel panic and  as if I'll cease to matter to them once they are no longer my dependence.

The elderly in some cases experience loneliness and obsolescence. The people they see, like you Raven, and the others who are younger and care free with more opportunity than they in a different world, are beautiful in their perspective. Ironically as they worry about being useful do they make themselves useless.