Why I need to learn to ask for help

WHY IT'S HARD TO ASK FOR HELP

I've got a confession to make and I hope you want to listen to me. Because you might recognize this.

I can't ask for help. I never learned how to do that.

The past 2 weeks have been somewhat of an emotional roller coaster. While writing this I feel sad, raw and very much not in control.

So bare with me, okay?

It all started with a deeply awkward conversation with someone I love dearly. We all have these discussions where someone is able to push a button that trickers layer after layer of the ugly stuff.

It exposed a deep pain I thought I had buried, but apparently it has arisen from the grave to wake me up.

In full zombie style, smelly, wide eyed and pretty ugly.

But there it is: I am not able to ask for help. I'm convinced I've got to do it all myself.

When someone offers to help I want to run because I think I need to reciprocate that help. And accepting help is weak.

It's not pretty right? It's pretty ugly. It's also pretty imperfectly human.

My childhood was not happy. Apparently there's no expiration date to these kind of childhood experiences. They keep popping up when you don't address them properly.

Even today I find this hard to share this but my mother was not able to give us the emotional attention and unconditional love all children need. I had to do that myself. I had no support system I could rely on. Instead my mother praised me when I was able to take care of myself - and the rest of the family.

So I was my mothers personal support system. And learned that asking for help was weak.

Here's an example.

When I was 14 years old I had to go to the hospital because my kidney had to be removed. The night before my big operation I was scared to death.

Literally. Because I was afraid that I might actually die.

I'd read a leaflet the anaesthetist had given me that said that sometimes things go wrong and patients sometimes die because of the anaesthesia.

I know!

So I lay in bed, unable to sleep, reading the leaflet over and over again and desperately wanted to go to my parents and tell them how afraid I felt and show them the leaflet.

But my mother already had taken care of me during all my months of sickness - Ah! the guilt of being sick and having her to take care of me and hearing her complain to other people about the physical and emotional toll on her- and I felt I couldn't ask for more.

My parents where already talking to my brother and figured it was just not the time for me.

After the surgery I told her how scared I'd been and that I wanted to be with them, but that I could hear they were having an meaningful conversation with my brother.

She praised me for being such a trooper. "Yes, you were right, for not disturbing us. We were doing something that was more important. And you didn't need extra attention."

I was 14 years old! So you might understand where I'm coming from.

So I've got to learn how to deal with it. I've got to learn to ask for help and emotional support. I've got to learn that asking does not make me incompetent or weak.

I wish I could write you an email with the perfect solution in it.

But this all fresh and painful and very vulnerable. And that's okay. Sometimes we just don't know.It just proofs our entire life is a journey and that sometimes we need to dive into the unknown.

Though I really, really, really had preferred to stay on shore and out of the unknown water.

Sometimes it just feels good to share your burden with other people. It brings us all more together.

And I know - years of Soul Whispering experience - that I'm not the only one who's having a hard time to ask for help.

We're all human

Thank you for listening,

It means the world to me.

Be well, be happy,


Esther