Getting support and help with a time lag of 30, 40, 50 years...

[Ecdysis]

So, after a childhood of trauma, neglect and self-reliance, I continued to cope with hyper-self-reliance as an adult.
I did trauma therapy but always accepted only tiny amounts of support or help... just enough to help keep my head above water.

At age 40, I got re-traumatised and the hyper-self-reliance I'd be using to keep surviving... well, the wheels fell of the bus and that really stopped working at all...
I've had to seek a ton of help and support, because I just stopped coping at all...

Now, nearing 50, I've got a huge amount of support and help... So much so, that I get embarrassed and feel shame about getting so much support. It's such a huge contrast to what I learned growing up.

I'm trying to view it as this: All the support, help, care, protection that I should've gotten 50, 40 and 30 years ago... That I'm getting it now, with this huge time lag.

Seeing it that way helps me be able to accept the help a little bit better... It makes it feel a little bit less shameful, too.

Some of it is such basic stuff... Help with housing, cooking, cleaning, finances, healthcare, paperwork...

I do struggle to accept the help tho... To let it in, to allow it to affect me emotionally and to be healing...

 

[Movingforward10]

That's an interesting perspective @Ecdysis . Thank you for sharing.
It's interesting too as the time lag is similar to me. Turning 40, things changed for me too. And I felt I needed to face the past.

And seeing the support needed now as making up for what wasn't back then is a kind way to look at it. The need being met in ways it can be now.

It's also interesting knowing the difference between self care and over self reliance. And how self care is accepting support too.

Glad you have support that you need now.

 

[arfie]

hmmmmm. . . i am 70 and started psychotherapy at 18. i quite earnestly believe i could not have escaped child sex trafficking without that help. i believed that at 18 and believe it even more solidly now. however, that was the ONLY place i would accept help and even there, my lone wolf habits were a constant obstacle to my healing. to this day, accepting help is harder than hauling my 70 year old bones up a 20 foot ladder to fix the damned roof myself.

in 2019 my ptsd stability took a major nosedive with a series of family trauma which ended in starting a second parenting career at age 65. i was on the hunt to re-establish my pro therapy network when along came covid. isolation mandated, against 20th century medical advice.

fast forward 5 years and the covidic mandates are gone, but i can't get myself to even start -AGAIN- the process of re-establishing that network. i'm not sure why, but by the mysteries of my broken brain, your post got me thunkering anew. thank you. chew, chew. . .

 

[hypervigilant]

Welcome to the forum.
Another self reliant soul here it's my 60th year and healthwise I can't do the things I used to do, working on adrenalin to keep the wage packets coming and generally doing what needed to be done. It's weird to rely on others and I often ha e had to fail myself before my pride would let me accept help. Now I see it much like you that it's the help I should have had when I was too little to cope with the burdens I had too. So now I can spend time on art or writing or just pottering. It's hard sometimes still but I see it as I earned the rest bringing up siblings and running the home from 6 this is my time to slow down. We earned this breather for the next phase.