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Is it too difficult to muster up the courage to ask for help?

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Changing4Best

MyPTSD Pro
I have been having trouble lately mustering up the courage to ask for help. I don't own a vehicle. My house is a mess and I am hard pressed to be able to do much housekeeping. I am so depressed and bordering on suicidal a lot of the time, or I feel like crying, but can't. I have not called into my Psychiatrist's office for an appointment. I just cannot bring myself to ask for any kind of help.

I had to go to Urgent Care a few weeks ago, and I could not even bring myself to call anyone for a ride. There I was, SICK, and I walked there. I didn't even call anyone. I also walked to the drug store, to get my antibiotics prescription filled after seeing the Dr.

One time I did actually get up the courage, maybe 3 weeks ago, to call someone and ask for a ride to the grocery store. She knew I had been sick too. I waited and waited for her to call me back. She never did so. That made it so much harder to call anyone else and ask for a ride. Finally, I took the bus. Carrying a bunch of groceries on the bus is awkward and difficult, to say the least, and you get stares....

I have looked back over my life and seen many times in which I found it difficult to ask for help. One period in my life in particular stands out. My husband had a massive stroke and was crippled and confined to a wheelchair. We had to take transit buses with chair lifts on them, in order to get to Dr.'s appointments and so on. Or I had to fold his chair up, after transferring him from it to the passenger side of the car. I had to then lift it into the back of the car. It was heavy.

Never once did I ask for help. There were times that we had to go out when the buses were not running. I did not ask a soul to help us. I just "handled it myself." I hated the thought of even asking for help back then, because the few times I did ask for it, the help was either unacceptable or it was late or it was non-existent.

I was, however, grateful if folks opened doors for us, so I could push him in his wheelchair through the doors. That was about the only help I accepted and looked forward to. It made me feel good that folks would see us coming and run ahead of us to get the door. I never asked them, though, they did that out of the kindness of their hearts. Other than that, though, I was on my own.

I seem to recall times, when I was maybe younger than 5 years old, when I might have asked for help and gotten some kind of sarcasm or rebuff from my abusers, my father and his father. My father was, for the most part, emotionally abusive. His father was a child beater and molester....

All I know is that these days, something is preventing me from wanting to reach out and ask for help. I just get this feeling like there is something wrong with asking for it, or no good will come from asking for it, so I don't.

Do you have trouble asking for help? Tell me about it, please. Is there a solution to this feeling of being reluctant to ask for help??
 
I've become so damn independent that I don't ask for help from anyone.... I find a way to either do it myself, or I pay someone to do it.
 
I am poor, so paying someone, although I would like to, is mostly out of the question. I live on Social Security Disability and a small "stipend" from a volunteer position I work at for 15 hours a week. The pay, if you want to call it that, is so low that it does not even qualify as wages and cannot be counted as income when my public assistance is being figured out.

I tried to figure out if I could afford to pay someone to clean my house for me, for instance, and it quickly became apparent to me that to do so would most likely eat away at monies that really need to be used for rent, medical bills, food, utilities, pet expenses, other necessities or my cremation fund. There really isn't much left over, and I just ended up paying Norton almost $50.00 for another year of anti-virus protection. There is always something that comes up!
 
I think there is not only a fear of rejection but also a lack of independence.

No one really wants to have to depend on others or have to keep adjusting their schedule to suit others. Yet we have to. Consistency is important as well as control with ptsd.

I have epilepsy as well as ptsd. Each time I've had a baby, I end up with grand mal seizures. That causes me to lose my drivers license. Forces me to be dependant on others or stay home all the time.

I've called the pharmacy for medication renewals and asked them to deliver. (there's no extra charge)

I know it's difficult and humbling to ask but important. You need to force yourself to keep going. Even if you pick one outing that is flexible as far as scheduling goes. You may feel less of a burden and not so dependant if that particular outing can be moved around in the week.
Just an idea.
 
In one sense I'm glad I'm not the only one. In another sense, I feel sad that others are as tortured as I am in the inability to ask for help. I, like ShielaKathy, have instances in my formative years that were deeply injurious. I daresay that even Christian scriptures can be used as weapons against one asking for help, e.g, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." (Acts 20:35). Yet Jesus asked for a drink at least a couple of times (John 4:7 and 19:28). Oh, well, I digress. I've heard it said that in asking for help, one is giving others the opportunity to be of service. Ach, easier said than done. Let's all keep learning to ask for little things so as to find people won't beat us up for asking or holding it over our heads if they do help.
 
Ya, I don't ask for help unless I have to. Most of my trauma is connected to begging people to help and no one listening or helping. It just gets harder and harder to ask for help and you learn no one is going to help and eventually I quit asking.
 
I'm so sorry your experience has been that way @Muted . I get it and am afraid of even taking a taxi, but it pulls my heart strings. Shouldn't be that way!
 
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