Having a Problem with Needing Help

[freya]

Thanks to all for the responses. I'm going to get back to this later on, I need some time to read and think about the replies, and to calm down, as the 'asking for help-issue' was triggered again last night.

Goingonhope, I thank you for posting and you wrote things I can relate to.

Freya

 

[freya]

One thing I can share now is a thought I had yesterday... that I often ask for help and feel it says something about ME when I don't get it. While more 'realisitically' I really need to realize that often it's the limitations of the other person to help or understand me.

I feel *I* am the one at fault (this is the habit), but I might as well realize THEY can't cope with what is going on and therefore are not able to offer what I thought would be easy to give.

Freya

 

[dust]

Totally! What a great way of thinking about it.... yes, not only about our responses, but about theirs.

An additional thought about other peoples responses...

I always watch people like a hawk and am very in-tune with peoples needs and can't understand when others don't have that insight. What I guess I am saying is that perhaps I also expect people to be able to empathise as much as I do... but my empathy was conditioned as a survival strategy (eg. on the look out for the next attack/trying to placate people to keep them happy.)

I often won't be explicit about my needs as I assume other people can read 'need' in the way I can. If they could read my needs, they would realise that I wasn't describing my life, but I was asking for help!

 

[Tinyflame]

Yes freya, what a healthy and accurate conclusion to draw, remember and apply! Dust, I think you are very right also. I know that I am hypervigilant about how others are feeling (not just as they relate to me, but in general). It's like an "Emotion Radar". But quite frankly, I hide my own (or try to) so it's not very likely anyone would interpret in me what I see in them. And Hope, -yes I understand the terrible feeling of worrying about the risk or fearing/ feeling like you will be a burden. Thanks everyone- well said.

 

[Tinyflame]

Sorry! Forgot one small thing, meant to say, I don't even blame anyone else by any means for not be able to understand, help or cope for their own reasons; I think before reading this post I realize that I just rarely get past the part of thinking that I must be the one at fault somehow.

 

[freya]

What I guess I am saying is that perhaps I also expect people to be able to empathise as much as I do... but my empathy was conditioned as a survival strategy (eg. on the look out for the next attack/trying to placate people to keep them happy.)

I often won't be explicit about my needs as I assume other people can read 'need' in the way I can.

Exactly. Very good point!
But indeed I've struggled for years failing to understand why nobody could 'read my needs/feelings' like I often am aware of those of other people.

I now have a profession where I can use this capacity to sense other people's needs and emotions... so it does come in 'handy'.:smile:

Will be posting more later on, I think.

Freya

 

[freya]

So... an additional thought I had on this topic is that it's often so hard for me to discern if I REALLY need help.

Sometimes I just get overwhelmed by something simple, a thought that is followed by another, and before I know it I've thought myself into some pit, and emotions and fears just come up.
And then I reach out for help, so as to prevent things from getting worse, but often the ones I reach out to don't really 'get' what's the matter with me. Because in a practical sense nothing is the matter, really. They don't understand that I'm in some sort of 'thought storm' that I can't really get out of.

What complicates matters further is that by now, after almost ten years of yoga and mediation, I AM able to often 'get out' of this type of crisis-like thing by myself. I've also learned self-care methods and to just keep on taking care of my physical wellbeing in ways I didn't have before.
So I feel like the boy crying 'wolf'. (You know the story? The boy that was supposed to look after the sheep and who came running out of the forest again and again, crying 'wolf' and everyone in the village would run to the rescue, only to find out he'd been joking and there was no wolf. Then one day when the wolf really came, the boy cried 'wolf' and no one came to help him as they didn't believe him anymore...).
I'm afraid to be seen as that boy. I often REALLY feel like I cannot cope, but of course, objectively speaking 'nothing is wrong', it is 'all in my head'.

I fear that if I call out for help too often, I will be ignored at the moment I need it most. AND I realize that this too, is the scenario I went through while growing up...

I cannot really say when I really need help and when I will be able to just take care of myself and will return to a state of calm without outside help.
I have a hard time with it when I mail or call my therapist for the umpteenth time, knowing he's indicated that I'm asking too much of him, and feeling like it's so urgent at that moment, only to find out that after a day or so, I can be all right again.
I think at times that maybe he will think I'm overly dependent or something like that.

My question... (???). Is if anyone can relate to the 'I don't really know when I need help' - bit.

 

[fin]

There were times when I needed help, and gradually over the years I stopped asking because the help I got often made things worse.


I am sorry I should not have written this here I will cut and paste out...this is too much for chat I am soo sorry.

 

[Tinyflame]

Yes, I guess I don't really know when I need help, either. There are times when a specific outside situation is in dire need of resolve to me, but then if there is nothing much concrete that I can do about it, I figure who else could think of something, so why ask for help? And I think that when it comes to myself, when I really need the most help, if I honestly admit it, I seem most unable to ask for it. I'm not sure if it's because of the negative frame of mind, or knowing in my heart that getting any help would necessarily involve what I consider dire consequences I couldn't live with, or sometimes I wonder if I even want help, or if anyone would/could help, or some combination of all of it. I think the most dangerous part of negative thinking/ depression is that it convinces a person that it's not a problem (so you shouldn't ask for help)- just snap out of it, and it leaves you feeling humiliated, uncertain and feeling undeserving of any help, anyway, or hopeless. But I think being brutally honest with myself there have been certain key moments when I definitely have needed and knew I needed help, and yet quite ironically emotionally I felt probably the most ambivalent about getting it. I could recognize the seriousness of the situation more by observing my own actions or responses than going by my emotions or even my intellect.

 

[freya]

Good News

Thank you very much to all that responded.

I had a session with my therapist/coach yesterday, it's with him that I have ongoing problems regarding asking for help, mailing him, not getting a reply, and such.

We managed to talk things over rather well. I found out that to him, it's often not clear when I REALLY need help and when I mail him with other stuff. So we made some new agreements on how to make the distinction be clearer. One of them being that I will CALL and indicate I need help rather than say so in a mail.

I don't think the issue is finished but it feels good to have some more clarity on this.

Freya

 

[Still Trying]

I, too, have a terrible time with asking for help. I go through all the negative thoughts about myself - I'm weak, worthless, etc. I haven't had great luck getting help when I do ask, but I always figure it's because I don't know how to ask. I know that's also negative thinking, but here's how the conversations always go. "I'm having a rough day, and I'd like to talk." Answer "What's wrong?" Then I'm stuck. I don't know what to say. If I say I'm having an anxiety attack, they ask what's causing it so maybe we can eliminate it. PTSD is the root cause, and some other trigger is the immediate cause. The trigger's already done it's work and left, and the PTSD can't be fixed with one conversation. Entering that conversation only makes the anxiety worse. Even my psychologist asks "what's wrong" when I call her although those conversations are almost always helpful.

Those of you who have learned to ask for help or have had success asking, how do you do it? How do you answer those questions?

 

[upstream]

Freya, I made a video about this 2 years ago. It's about overcoming the stigma of your condition in order to get help:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRCjbErea0w

I'm going to draw a relationship between your feeling of being abnormal to the stigma of your condition. To me their the same thing, and it's probably playing a role in this.

I don't believe there is a "normal" way to be in this world. I like the way this guy explains it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cb5F58OFTis