OBSESSION: The Tragedy of a Terrible Need to Be Loved
Everyone needs to feel loved. The tragedy is when you don’t, when your childhood is filled with rejection, absence, abandonment, or other forms of abuse. You end up with a lot of insecurity. You can even end up with an obsession – an idea you can’t get out of your mind - that “that person” is the only one who can give you the love you need. And “that person” is all too often as unreachable as the one you needed to love you as a child. That’s Bear, in Curry Barker’s Obsession. And (you guessed it), Nikki, too, even though it doesn’t look like it until Bear makes his wish and casts a spell over her. Then all the trauma hiding behind her sarcasm and one-night stands comes out full-blown. So, Nikki becomes a mirror of all that torments Bear - and fuels his obsession …
A Terrible Need to Be Loved
Bear (Michael Johnston) has such a terrible need to be loved that he’ll go to any length to capture it. Well, at least that’s what ends up happening when his desperation gets the best of him, and he uses the One Wish Willow for himself. Now Nikki (Inde Navarrette) is his. For better. Or for worse. That’s what his insecurity does to him. He tried to figure out how to be with Nikki (his friend, his co-worker at Cassell’s Music) for years. But he doesn’t dare ask her on a date or tell her how he feels. He’s too insecure. Too scared. He can’t risk something real that he might lose.
Yes. Bear can’t tolerate loss. He’s had too much already (even though Obsession doesn’t tell us exactly what kind). We know his grandma is dead. We know there’s a lot of Oxycodone left. Was she a drug addict? Was she completely unavailable before she died? Where are his parents? He lives alone in the house Grandma willed him, with all the remnants she left behind. Bear doesn’t seem to have anyone else in the world. Bear is really, really alone. That’s excruciating. He’s probably been alone all his life. There isn’t a single clue that Bear has ever experienced love.
Of course, he’s hungry. Hungrier than he might need to be if he wasn’t so terrified to say how he feels. Bear is the only one Nikki can open up to in a real way. And, maybe, he’s the one Nikki has a crush on. She asks if he likes her. Here’s his chance. But he denies it. And she can’t say it either. Both have been hurt by love. Nikki hates her dad, who is a drug addict, clearly the root of her inability to trust men. Really, they’re two peas in a pod, with their own ways of staying closed up inside. Nikki has her sarcasm. Her one-night stands. Bear has his hiding. His denial. His longing.
And their traumas lead to obsessing. First, Bear. Then he projects Obsession into Nikki.
Bear Projects His Obsession = Disaster
Beware of what you wish for; that old saying goes. But if you’re obsessed, you can’t think things through. You buy a One Wish Willow, snap the branch, and make a wish without thinking of the consequences, not knowing what lurks beneath the dark surface of your wish. That’s Bear in his desperation to have Nikki without having to “be real,” without having to tell her what he feels.
Bear had his chance before he broke the One Wish Willow. Nikki asked him, “Do you like me? Now’s the time to tell me.” But. He couldn’t. That’s what vulnerability does. That’s what fear of getting hurt does. You end up with disappointment. But saying, “No, we’re just good friends,” projects Bear’s own fear of disappointment into Nikki. Her face falls. She’s the emblem of the hurt, sadness, and rejection Bear lives with. His desperate hunger. Terror of Loss. Jealousy.
Yes. Bear is desperate for Nikki to love him more than anyone else in the world. But it’s not quite that simple: he wants her to love him just like he loves her. He wants to be the only one she loves. The problem is: Bear confuses his obsession with Nikki for love. “Love” is all mixed up with his deprivation. Loneliness. A need for Nikki to fill an empty hole inside him. So ... on a frantic impulse to have her, he breaks the willow branch, and something disastrous happens.
Bear projects his obsession with Nikki right into her. That’s right. It’s not just that he makes Nikki love him more than anyone else; he makes her just as obsessed with him as he is with her. Now, she loves him more than anyone else in the world. And she has to be with him every waking moment. Just like every waking moment before the spell, Bear couldn’t get Nikki out of his mind.
And getting his wish unleashes all the fears lurking inside him (and it turns out, Nikki too.) Nikki becomes a mirror for what Bear can’t face.
That adds up to: Danger. Possessiveness. And Rage.
Possessiveness. Unmet Need. And Rage
Yes, there’s danger. Because what do you do with too much unmet need when you’ve been lonely and sad and empty? And so, so hungry for love that you don’t know what to do with it? And you lost your beloved cat, the only living, breathing presence in your life. You obsess. You wish. You project your need into someone else. You wish that very same need and hunger into them.
That’s exactly what happens in Obsession. Deep inside, Nikki has the loss. (Her dad was never there for her either). She has desire. She has the hate that’s left over from childhood trauma, and springs into action when her needs aren’t met precisely enough to assure her that she is loved.
And when there’s any threat of separation, she demands an “always-there-ness” that she believes is the only cure.
We see it all in Nikki. She’s lost. Possessive. Panicked when she’s afraid Bear doesn’t care. Her anxieties get worse and worse. She watches for every failure. She’s desperate. She rages. When she feels she’s being neglected, she threatens. Accuses. She makes Bear feel that everything he does is wrong. She makes him doubt himself and his perceptions. (Yes, it’s typical of gaslighting). Nikki’s increasingly erratic off-the-rails behavior magnifies all the fears that are lurking inside of Bear.
Hunger Goes Off-The-Rails
Ravenous hunger comes out of starvation. You’re starving for love. Starving for assurance it’s there. So hungry when you’re scared that it isn’t (even when it might be or is). That’s what happened to Bear. That’s why he couldn’t tell Nikki he liked her. That’s why he broke the willow branch and made his wish for Nikki to love him more than anyone else in the world. That’s why Bear had his Obsession about Nikki in the first place. An obsession that’s now become hers.
Starving. It's all about the hunger hidden inside. Hunger as big as Nikki’s is now. She’s the hugeness of Bear’s hunger. Of the insecurity he’s lived with since childhood. The desires and needs he kept hidden are now exploding out of Nikki full-bore. Nikki’s demanding. Hostile when she doesn’t get everything she wants. Crazy and violent when she doesn’t feel loved by Bear. Who is now all the people (her dad, especially) who didn’t give Nikki the secure love she needed.
Frantic. Desperate. Nikki rapidly swings back and forth between needy, loving, demanding of Bear’s constant attention – and rage and violence with any hint that he isn’t all hers all of the time. She wears his sweater. It smells like him. She feels lost. Freaks out. Sobs. “I feel like you don’t love me as much as I love you. Why don’t you love me?” If Bear moves, she screams, “Stay!”
Any move away threatens her. If he says she can’t cook the cat, she flies off the handle. AND. When you’re hungry and afraid of starving, you have to get rid of anyone you think is in your way. All your competitors …
Greed & “Killing Off” Competitors
“Does he love me? Does he not?” That’s the state of mind Nikki’s in. That’s how Bear felt before he cast his spell and made Nikki the subject of his projection of exactly how he felt about her. Hunger. Desperation. Fear of not being loved. AND. A need for love gone “crazy” can morph into greed …
Bear’s greed was quiet. He couldn’t ask. He couldn’t speak. But the reality is, he wanted all of Nikki’s love. For her to love him more than anyone else in the world. And Nikki feels the same. But there are so many obstacles to all of Bear’s love. So many things, situations, and people that provoke her insecurity. Make her feel unloved. Make her believe she is not his priority. That other people are. And that just doesn’t fly. That she can’t allow. That makes Nikki unbearably jealous.
It doesn’t help that Bear lies. It’s not Boy’s night. No. It’s that Nikki’s excluded because she’s acting “crazy.” Sarah, the caring one, invites her anyway. But. Nikki isn’t ok. Watch when they play a party game: “Kiss the person on your left.” On Bear’s left is Sarah. Sarah’s a threat. Nikki knows she likes Bear. And any threat must be removed fast. Frantic, Nikki grabs Sarah’s chair away so that Bear must kiss her: “Everyone in this room will die without feeling the strength of connection I feel for Bear!” And they do all die. At Nikki’s hand. Because they are all in her way.
Obsession makes the violence and murder real. But at a much deeper level, Obsession tells the story of what exists inside. That’s the real culprit: the violence that comes out of self-hatred. The attacks you can inflict on yourself when you feel so unlovable.
Watch how Nikki stabs herself in the face. Self-harm. Cutting. Those are ways to “stop” emotional pain. To try not to feel it. Plus, you can hate the people you think have more. And are trying to take what and who you need.
That’s what makes Nikki brutally kill Sarah. AND. Sadly: Sarah is our one example of real love. She’s kind. Cares about others. No one else in Obsession is capable of that. Not Ian, who uses Nikki for his own pleasure even though he knows Bear, his best friend, loves her. Greed gets in the way. Ian won’t help Bear or Nikki when he has a chance. He uses the One Wish Willow to get himself $1 billion.
And Bear? Well, he’s greedy too. He didn’t think of how Nikki feels or what she needs. And the consequences to himself, not only Nikki and Sarah, are devastating. The awful thing is: love can’t exist or even be seen if it’s there – if insecurity, possessiveness, and unbearable hunger take over …
Obsession Isn’t About Love
Finding love can be healing, but relationships don’t solve your trauma. Love isn’t a magical elixir for the insecurities, fears of being unwanted, or the jealousies that arise from early trauma. In fact, love most often brings those fears to the surface, especially if you’ve been avoiding them.
Nikki told Bear that love and romance aren’t the same. That he’s the only one she can be honest with, tell the truth about herself. That is the basis of love, isn’t it? But Bear got too scared to admit how he feels. That’s when he said, “I think we’re good friends,” and Nikki had that disappointed and upset look on her face. That’s before he made his One Wish Willow wish and ruined it all. That fateful wish that came out of his obsession with Nikki, but not real love.
No. Obsession isn’t about love. It’s not love at all. Obsession is an idea that you can’t get out of your head. Sometimes it’s an idea about someone. That’s Bear. He has this idea about Nikki that if she only loved him more than anyone else in the world, her love would cure everything. His childhood trauma. His loneliness. The hunger for love that’s been lurking around inside him, ready to explode. His hungry, hungry need. If she loved him, her love would fill his empty hole.
No. Obsession isn’t about love. It’s about Bear’s need. His starvation. Desperation. It was never really about Nikki. He doesn’t see her at all. He doesn’t see Sarah either. He doesn’t know when love is there and when it’s not. And now he’s as trapped as he was as a child. Nikki seemed as unreachable as his parents and grandma. That made him desperate. And now, Nikki is a mirror of the desperation he’s still trapped in. He feels it. He, like so many traumatized-children-now- adults, doesn’t see a way out of his neediness. Or a way out of the pain that Nikki now reflects.
But is being dead, committing suicide, the only way out of the pain of early trauma?
It’s not.
The Answer to A Terrible Need to be Loved?
The answer isn’t: Killing yourself, like the One Wish Willow says. It isn’t getting someone to be so obsessed with you that they have to love you more than anyone else in the world. Obsession shows us the tragedy of those “solutions.” Yet, they aren’t uncommon after childhood trauma.
Feeling unlovable is a terrible thing to live with. It leaves you with despair. And sometimes a frantic need to find love, which too often doesn’t work. That’s what happens to Bear and Nikki. And to get out of the pain of such unbearable feelings, you might think death is your only option. That’s what the One Wish Willow tells Bear.
His guilt. His fear. The overwhelming need that comes at him from Nikki (which is also his own) makes him believe there is no other way out. But when Nikki, at the end of Obsession,snaps another One Wish Willow and makes the same wish as Bear – that he would love her more than anyone else in the world - that isn’t the answer either.
It doesn’t save Bear from his guilt about what happened to Sarah. Or Ian. It doesn’t wipe out the reality of the past. Of the terrible need to be loved the way you weren’t.
What’s the answer then?
It’s facing the past. Getting the courage to say how you really feel. It’s seeing when love is there (maybe Nikki’s actual love or Sarah’s). It’s even accepting that sometimes you can’t have the one you want, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t lovable or that love isn’t in the cards for you. And if you need extra help healing, therapy is a great solution too.