[ThisWayOut]

My therapist wants me to come up with a collage or art piece depicting what it is I'm needing when I ask for help (since I really don't know outside of physical safety and accountability). What does a "normal" person need when they ask for help? I seriously have no clue... What do you ask for before it gets to the extreme of needing physical safety?

[Leah123]

A hug, reassurance that she'll be there for me, a song that's meaningful, empathy, a witness to my pain, problem-solving, brainstorming, a safe place to vent, just the knowledge that I'm understood and not alone. Those are some of the things I typically want from my therapist.

[stopdog]

What are you asking for help on? I would think that would be part of deciding what the need is. What is the end result you want out of asking for the help?

[Lamplighter]

I like your T's suggestion of using art or a collage to depict what you need, as I for one often just have a vague background sense of what I'm wanting/needing and find it difficult to put it into words (or feel ashamed and threatened by trying to articulate). Drawing or depicting in some other way sounds like a good way of getting you in touch with what you're wanting.

It also sounds as if you're not dealing with trying to articulate what you need and want per se - but that you're being encouraged to ask for what you want specifically in terms of getting help? As in help with certain behaviours or overwhelming feelings? If that's the case then what you ask for would be different from what you might be wanting on a more moment by moment basis from therapy. Is there a distinction here, or am I reading too much into your words?

If it's any consolation, while I can be pretty clear about some of the things I'm needing and wanting from T (and others in real world) it's not so easy actually asking for them, so I hope you don't beat yourself up if you're unable to come up with very much at this point.

LL

I do not know how to ask for help so I am no help. Sorry

[CantExplain]

I think what I most need is encouragement.

[Perna]

I need help with my words and someone there to listen and help me articulate my needs.

[WikidPissah]

I need someone to listen, understand, and hopefully give positive feedback/suggestions.

[ThisWayOut]

Thanks all. Yeah, I'm looking for what someone would ask for if they needed help outside of the day to day stuff they go to therapy for. I'm working on being able to ask for help before i hit a crisis point. But as someone above mentioned, there's shame and "I should be able to handle this myself" thinking. I've beentold I need to articulate my struggles before they become all huge I need drastic intervention. The only problem is, I don't know how anyone could help with that. It's a matter of drinking in thoughts and behaviors that can get dangerous. So maybe a reminder of my skills (but that can get annoying and off-putting since I know what I should be doing, I just can't get myself to that point). I don't know. Someone to talk to about all of it? Maybe being heard helps? I know taking helps, but I'm pretty sure everyone has their limits on what they want to hear and how many times. Um, maybe validation? Or someone to genuinely counter all the negative stuff? Physical touch creeps me out from most people, but maybe on a very rare occasion a hug? I really just have no idea.
The goal is to be able to ask for help before I'm so far down that I need to go to the er. But the messages growing up were always "you can do that yourself. You don't need help". That's all fine and dandy until that moment when I just can't Do that anymore... so what does one needed before they get to that point?

[Perna]

Regular conversation can go a huge way to helping. Think about a child and how they learn? Parents and children don't have therapy, the child copies the parent's example. So, think about why you probably do not ask for help? You did not witness a parent asking for help, just "exploding" or you did ask but there was no reply, etc.

My therapist got the message home to me through a simple interaction between my stepmother and myself when I was about 20 years old. It was summer, I was home from college and working at the big company my father worked at as a clerk/secretary.

One afternoon I came into the kitchen where my stepmother was and asked, "What's for dinner?" and my stepmother immediately answered, "If you were in here helping, you'd know!" My T finally got me to understand that I had opened with a conversational gambit, a kind of "Hi, what's up?" and my stepmother had not heard/understood that and had returned with her own issues, "here I am doing all this for everyone by myself, no one to help me". We had "missed" connecting with each other. I (of course :-) got defensive and she stayed angry and now had me there to unload on (I had father and brothers, males not known for being helpful with household tasks back in the 1950's and 60's).

When I finally saw my therapist's point, that my stepmother and I kept missing each other conversationally, a lot of things made sense. When I was 5 and my father had just married my stepmother, one of the first things I remember was her teaching me to make my bed. She showed me how and then told me to do that every day. My therapist asked me what I would have liked and I realized that there was no "sharing" going on, no times when I was struggling and she helped, no times when she was smiling and asking me to help with chores and making them fun or an opportunity to talk, no indication she wanted to "be" with me so could we do these things together. No, I was, as a young child, shown what chores to do and then it was just expected I would do them. When I was 6 or 7 and she was angry I did not hang up my clothes right away; she pulled all my clothes out of my closet and chest of drawers and piled them in the middle of the floor, yelling the entire time. When my oldest brother got my room a year or two later and did not keep it neat enough for her, she took all his clothes and threw them out the window (split level, bedroom on second floor).

So, what would you like to happen before situations where you get in trouble? Is your head clamoring? I'd use a picture of a library in a collage to ask for "quiet"? Maybe that sort of thing?

[coleychi]

That's a really cool assignment from your therapist! I don't know about a "normal person" but I know for me, when I ask for help, I need to feel safe around the person I'm asking (ie: that I won't be judged) and I need to feel validated.

I think also-- something that's been important for me-- is to check in with myself as much as possible. If I take a minute to try to label what I'm feeling, it helps to see when an episode is coming on before I'm way deep into it (not sure if that makes sense). I'm still working on this... but in the past, I'd wake up one morning and just feel so depressed when the day before, I was functioning and feeling normal. So checking-in is something that can supposedly help you notice when you're going downhill and ask for help at a time where it would be easier... to nip the problem in the bud.