[InnovateYoung21]

I'm taking a bit of a step here, I've come to the realization I am usually the individual that my friends have family come to for support and help but I very rarely if ever seek help from them or open up to them completely. This isn't a fully conscious decision, I just minimize my issues or assume that I can deal with them internally...I'd like to be able to open up to others about things that go wrong and things that have gone wrong but I'm not sure I know how to totally do that. I know I have the gift of helping others but I need to balance that with helping myself, does anyone else struggle with this unbalance and if so what ways do you feel this can be counteracted, I'm not exactly sure how to begin being transparent and seeking help

[lizardlady]

InnovateYoung, I suspect you will find a lot of people here have similar experiences. I struggle with that balance you mention. What helps me is to expose a little of myself to someone and see what happens. If the result is positive I share a little more of myself. If the result is negative I don't share anything more.

[sunblossom]

Being vulnerable is scary. If for most of your life you have protected that vulnerability, opening it up is like walking into uncharted territory.

I have stepped into the unknown a couple of times only to go running back to the safety of my private cocoon. It was like letting loose a damn that has built up over time. Opening the damn causes a tidal wave. Too much pours out and pretty soon the people around me are drowning in my stuff and running for the hills.

I have spent most of my life safely behind a wall of self sufficiency. No one gets in. I don't know another way as well as I know this way of co-existing in a world that I feel has let me down and forced me to stand alone or drawn in my own sorrow.

It is important to let people into our lives and to expose the 'not so pretty' and ask for help. People are interdependent by nature. Finding a way back to that balance is hard once the structures have been secured and the keys have been lost.

A place like PC is good training ground I think. At least for me I am finding it more and more liberating and empowering to talk to people here about my stuff and to actually ASK for help. I am hoping it will begin to translate into my real life and I will find a way to ask for help in moderation; in ways that will not overwhelm anyone.

I also think, in my case I have knowingly or unknowingly attracted people who want or need something that I can provide. I have always seemed to invite people to turn to me, rely upon me and ask me for help. I must do it because it makes me feel powerful, useful, valuable and worthy as a member of the human race. Its like I am earning my way. Earning my dad's love by my good works.

If I turn around to ask for support I hear my dad's repremanding voice say, 'Why are you bothering people?' Beyond that I think the people I have attracted into my life are not equipped to support me. It is outside the framework of the relationship as I designed it. As I control it. My request for support can quickly overwhelm them. It is unfamiliar territory and no one quite knows what to do or say or how to support me. They don't know that side of me. It can leave people feeling lost in foreign land because they have never been invited there with me before. It can leave people almost desperate for me to get well so life can get back to normal for them. So they can come to me again for this that or the other. So we can be ourselves with each other again. Its like that I think.

I haven't really been able to let people in. I think I am doing them a favour and perhaps in reality I am doing them a favour by not asking of them what they can not do. Honestly I think I am still doing it just simple to save face. To preserve something of the strong woman I was and am fighting to restore. If people who I have supported in life see me as weak then the whole earth will crumble under my feet. Nothing will make sense to me anymore. I won't know them. They won't know me. Poof!

I have gone outside my comfort zone to attract people who are equipped to support me and hear my stories. I was intimidated by their power. It made me feel vulnerable. In no time I was masking my truth again and trying to flip the tables back to me being the provider and them being the receiver. I returned to my comfort zone with a new set of people.

I have many strong and wise people in my life but I don't fully appreciate what they can bring to our relationship if I were to allow it. I seem to always default back to being the mother, the teacher, the leader, the go to person. That is my comfort zone. That is where I am safe from harm. From heartbreak and disappointment and hopelessness.

Its a risk to let people in. It means we have to hear things we don't like. It means we have to admit we need something, someone besides ourselves. We become vulnerable. When being vulnerable has been costly in the past opening yourself up to vulnerability again is something that has to be pushed into existence.

Here's to pushing vulnerability into existence. EEK!

[missbelle]

I have always been a caregiver myself, and was a caseworker and an activity therapist in nsg. facilities. I am now retired. I have a lot of arthritis and use a walker and its very difficult for me to ask for help. I am so independent sometimes to a fault but am getting a little better. Its hard though with that type of personality. We always have been helping people and its so difficult to relinquish that role we have played so very long. I definately have trouble, and still want to do things even when its very difficult for me!!

Yes, I definately struggle...However if we always are so caring and ourselves so self sufficient, people will not know we need help sometimes either emotionally, spiritually or physically........sometimes we have to just let go!!!

[sunblossom]

Originally Posted by InnovateYoung21

I'm not exactly sure how to begin being transparent and seeking help

You just did it! You have begun!

[irishpackerfan]

when you open up you make it easier for the person your trying to help to open up. Open up your heart without fear of anything. faith alone is all you need. Its never easy to open up and when I wasnt able to open up to anyone it slowly killed me on the inside. Theres always someone willing to listen. and probably just opening up on this site will make it easier in the real world. it takes pratice but you can do it!

[Perna]

It is not a sudden, all at once, "totally" thing. I would look at how you help others, what they say and how you respond, etc. and try to reverse it? Deconstruct how other people do what you want to be able to do and try a few things you see.

I use to listen to my coworker talking on the phone to her mother and admire how she was kind and kept her cool, etc. I had met her mother and knew she was just as "difficult" as mine could be. So, I observed how my friend did it, what words she said, and then practiced it in different ways with my own mother.

It's all a learning experience. So, pretend you have your own little one-on-one classroom with yourself and think of something small that bothers you or something you are trying to make up your mind about and go to a friend and say, "Do you have a minute?" Starting small is the key. You don't graduate high school after the first grade?

[Open Eyes]

You have some posts here to consider. I think it all depends on an individual's life experiences that add up to how well they can share their personal struggles.

I find that one of the messages I got to learn really well was to "keep your own council". And ofcourse there is that one that says "be careful not to give others a stick to beat you with". And I have to say that I have learned some of this the hard way in life.

Finding a balance in sharing ourselves with others is a challenge for everyone. And for myself and the environment I grew up in? I was the youngest of three and controled by both my siblings and my efforts to complain were met with "don't you dare complain" sentiments.

And ofcourse I experienced the worst outcome the one time I did share something that I was very frightened and concerned about. I had finally realized that my husband was a binge alcoholic. And I learned that by a friend taking me to an alanon meeting and that meeting really frightened me to be honest.

I had been a leader of a brownie troop and I took that very serious as I wanted to be an active involved mother to my daughter. I made a fatal mistake sharing my fear about addressing what I had learned about my husband with my coleader who was a bit of a social climber. And to my horror all the mothers pulled their daughters from my troup and I was deemed damaged goods. Not only was I frightened about what I was facing with my husband, but I was disowned by everyone and my daughter was ostracized and she had no idea why and was way too young to understand it. I will never forget that last brownie meeting where all the mothers would not look at me, looked down and were suddenly cold to me. I honestly felt like I had some awful contageous disease. And my daughter was suddenly shunned by all her friends. It was such an awful experience for me. And this attitude about me and my daughter went on for many years.

I found it very hard to share my own personal struggles, and when things got hard for me and I did share, I was always beaten up emotionally and invalidated for a genuine struggle. So many of the things that challenged me were things I had to work through on my own somehow. And in my experience with this PTSD I have I am seeing the reality of how very far back that goes in my life. And it has lead to my being a very misunderstood person. Where in some ways I am very strong and will be there for others in very wise ways, but whenever I share my own struggles people somehow don't believe me.

It is a big deal for me to open up and share my own issues. It took me a while to push myself to do that here at PC. I have to admitt that I get very frustrated with this PTSD because I thought I managed to get through some very diffiucult things in my life path. But I guess not because I now relive them through this PTSD and I am seeing the way things "really affected me" in ways I could not have ever imagined. I DO have a genuine heartfelt concern for others that struggle and because I know the lonliness and despair I am very motivated to reach out and help and listen. I guess I try to give others what I so very much needed myself, and that includes lots of (((hugs))).

I agree with Perna here, it is something you have to learn how to do a little at a time.
And yes Perna, that is exactly what I do, "pretend I have my own little "one on one classroom".

Open Eyes

[InnovateYoung21]

I know it's extremely late but I read all of your posts and they were helpful and comforting. Thank you.

[0w6c379]

Originally Posted by Open Eyes

....I find that one of the messages I got to learn really well was to "keep your own council". And of course there is that one that says "be careful not to give others a stick to beat you with". And I have to say that I have learned some of this the hard way in life....Open Eyes

I gave away the short end of the stick (like you) and the beating that ensued was, and still is, excruciating. Being careful isn't always the answer either. Your friends and family were lucky to have YOU! Unfortunately, it doesn't work out for some people to ask.