I have a really hard time with needs, and wants. Especially emotional or intimacy-related.

I can ask someone for help with something if I simply can't do it on my own - like lifting up a bookcase I'd assembled. It said it was a 2-person job, I assembled it on my own... but couldn't lift the dang thing up. Ended up getting up the guts to call a friend to help me.. but not until I struggled with it for ages and bruised my toe.

I have trouble asking for help in stores, or calling to make appointments, because I feel like I'm imposing and wasting their time - when it's their job!!

But over the years in regards to those things I've made a lot of progress... I can actually call to make appointments now without hanging up a bunch of times (for most things). I can ask someone for help in a store (only if I'm in a rush or with someone that I'm worried about annoying...). And I can ask friends to help me out with things, like getting a lift to the grocery store.

That was really hard for me to learn to do, because growing up when I asked for things I was treated like it was a huge inconvenience and that I was always told no anyway.

Emotionally? Emotionally it is incredibly tough for me. Sometimes you just want a hug, and I can't ask for one, let alone just give someone a hug. I can't tell someone that I love them without having heard it from them... and somehow believing it, which I often don't. I just... have a really, really, hard time with things like that. Even writing about it right now.. the thoughts are all jumbled and I feel pretty embarrassed!

Basically, if there's any way at all that I can do it on my own, or do without... then I do. But I'm trying really hard to improve that... as horrible and embarrassed as I will feel, at least I'm trying and it gets a bit easier to accept.