Daily Cascade

About Asking for Help

Prompt:
"Healing takes time, and asking for help is a courageous step."
Mariska Hargitay
Do you ask for help when you need it? Or do you hesitate?
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Healing is uneven and time is a factor. Not only the physical part of healing but the psychological part, also.

In my case, during my earliest years, I never had to ask for help. I grew up in a big house as the only child with my mother, my grandmother, my grandmother's foster daughter, plus the men, grandfather, uncles and such who came and went and saw to my needs without me asking for help. Later on, during the first years of my marriage, I wouldn't even ask my husband for anything, which made him quite upset, and one day, he talked to me about it. So I started to ask him for help while feeling embarrassed about it.

I'm still not very good about asking for help, now that I have only my two sons. My sons, however, are onto me by now, and the younger one, whose place is closer to me, takes the initiative and asks me if I want this or that done or if he could bring me something from the store. I do appreciate that attention a lot, from both my sons, needless to say.

Even so, asking others for help, for anything, takes a lot of courage for me. It may just be that I might be equating asking for help, subconsciously, with weakness or dependence. Maybe, deep down inside, I am afraid of being a burden, being judged and dismissed.

Unlike me, for some others, the reluctance of asking for help may come from earlier bad experiences when they weren't trusted about their pain or need being real, and they weren't believed. So they don't want to live through those rejections, and therefore, they hesitate to ask for help.

Logically, I know that asking for help is not a weakness, and enduring everything alone does not point to courage. Plus, I see that human connections require togetherness, and asking for help is one of them. Who knows, as I am getting really older and older now, I may have to begin to ask for more help from others as I go along.


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