I can never ask for help irl.

I want to a lot. I think I drop hints sometimes that I need help. If a friend actually picks up and offers their help, I feel like I have to reject it.
I hate it. I want to ask for help sometimes, but I don't want to need to ask for help. I feel like I shouldn't need to.

I used to never need help. I could go through hell and survive. I still survive. I hate surviving. I hate that word. I hate the notion of survival and survival of the fittest that I've drilled into my head. The notion of weakness and strength- asking for help is weak. Needing help is weak. Wanting help is weak.

Then there's pride. I don't consider myself a prideful person. My therapist suggests pride keeps me from asking for help.

But help is weak. I'm the beast of labour that keeps marching on with stuff piled onto his back. I get help sometimes- I get help because everything falls off my back and hurts me, and then help is forced onto me.

I don't want it to fall off my back and hurt me. But I hear them in my head and think it again, help is weak, friendship is weak, friendship is fake, you are a burden, no one wants to help you, you don't want anyone to help you.

I want to be strong. But my notion of strong is skewed.

I still see them as strong. I mistake strength for twisted power and physical superiority. They never asked for help, they never needed help.

It's all so mixed up in my head. And now I just sit here. I don't want to call someone, that's invading on their life. I don't want to email someone, that's imposing a reply.

Or I want to but I can't.
IDK.

[emilyjeanne]

Just a thought....I guess this pertains to my life too. Maybe it will be easier to ask for help if your trust in T grows more. I know for me I would never ask for help in the beginning. I still struggle with it. Actually writing this has helped me think about a few things. I hope it helps you too.

May I suggest illogic is not strength?

The healthy, the strong individual, is the one who asks for help when he needs it. Whether he has an abscess on his kness or in his soul. ~Rona Barrett

It is important to ask for help when you need it. Never think that you have to carry your burdens by yourself. The strongest people are the ones who are humble enough to realize that they cannot do it all on their own, and they need support and advice from others. ~ Raymond Teodo

[Catherine2]

(((my friend)))
it's ok...to need, to ask, to receive
trust yourself, your heart is speaking to you...listen
you must have heard at least a whisper of it
you are here
thank you for taking that first step

[jahrderglad]

Sometimes, asking for help when we need it is the greatest sign of our strength.

[Ascension]

True strength lies in the ability to be vulnerable. We close ourselves off from the world when we don't allow others to get close, to help. And on a more primal level... we would not be here if mankind didn't band together to fend off the sabertooth tiger and the other 800 pound predators we survived.

[b0rderlander]

i think i might have feelings similar to yours, Fenrir.

i don't ask for help in rl. something in me wants to tell my story, to tell people how affected i am. but i just can't bring myself to do it.

[AShadow721]

I have come to realize my problem with asking for help months ago. When I was abused and neglected as an infant and child, my cries and calls for help were being denied. From 0-3, I did not really speak, therefore I cried. My cries angered my father. I was imposing on him. I was bothering him while he was doing the only things he wanted to do, that did not involve me. I was a burden to him. I was nothing. My needs were nothing to him. He would not help me. My needs were denied. They did not matter. It was only my cries that got my father's attention. But it was also my cries that angered him and brought out his violence. Therefore, I was punished for calling out, for asking for help for my needs to be met.

Now I am reluctant to ask for help. But if I do I only tend to ask for help for one person over and over. Since my mother did usually get my needs met, I clung to her, and now that is what I do with whoever will offer me help. There are some people more recently who have offered help, but then acted as if it was so hard for them to do. I don't ask those people for help. Because of this I have even fewer people I can turn to for support. I really don't feel like I have a support system at all. And those that I ask for help from, I feel like I ask them for too much. I don't want to ask for help. I want to be able to completely take care of myself by myself, independently. But I know there are many times that I can't. There's so many people in this world, so that we can help each other. Not so that we can all live by ourselves.

[Sannah]

Originally Posted by Fenrir

The notion of weakness and strength- asking for help is weak. Needing help is weak. Wanting help is weak.

I want to be strong. But my notion of strong is skewed.

I still see them as strong. I mistake strength for twisted power and physical superiority. They never asked for help, they never needed help.

This dynamic of power and weakness seems to have left such an imprint on you. You see only one side or the other? You can't escape this dyad? With this dyad there is only victims and perpetrators. There isn't any other way to live.

This dyad was a choice of your dysfunctional family.

You know what, you can choose to throw this dyad completely away. You can choose to live a different way that doesn't even consider this old, worn out dynamic. A person can live a life without power or weakness. There is another way...............

[sharon123]

Life is all about choices. You CAN ask for help, you are CHOOSING not to. We all need a sympathetic voice/friend. Life is very lonely without someone to care. you can CHOOSE life, you can reach out; you would be surprised at how many people are lonely and hurting and long to have a friend. When we take ourselves OUT of ourselves, it is amazing what can happen....in other words, volunteer in a nursing home, etc., etc....... Friendship is not weak, nor is asking for help.....it is what life is made of. Being lonely is terrible.

"I want to but I can't"----Yes, that is twisted thinking. You CAN...it is a choice. Why not try reaching out and ignore those thoughts (which are not true) and see what happens; it couldn't be WORSE than what you are going through now.

Power & weakness did leave a huge imprint on me. It always has and I don't think I'll ever erase the mark it has burned into me, at least never fully.

I just see things as inherently weak. Like asking for help. Regardless of if I want to or not, regardless of how much I try to think it through... I just do. I tell myself survived for a long time not needing anyone to help me. I feel weak because I need that help now. I feel like I have weakened. I hate it. I hate feeling this sense of weakness. I hate feeling like I can't lean on anyone. Part of me likes not leaning on anyone- part of me is satisfied trying to last through everything alone.

But I don't really like it. I hate it. I hate feeling like I can't or shouldn't get help. If this is power I don't enjoy it.

Choose implies choice and I don't always feel like I have a choice. You're brought up a certain way and taught to believe and act in a certain way, and even when the door is open to change... it's not easy and sometimes not possible to just walk through it. Slow steps at first, I guess.

I don't know how to take those steps. I just have trouble shaking the powerful/weak ideal. Why can't I not need help? But it's human to seek help. I seek something that's not human sometimes.

I have the same problem though for different reasons.

[Sannah]

Originally Posted by Fenrir

Choose implies choice and I don't always feel like I have a choice. You're brought up a certain way and taught to believe and act in a certain way, and even when the door is open to change... it's not easy and sometimes not possible to just walk through it. Slow steps at first, I guess.

I don't know how to take those steps. I just have trouble shaking the powerful/weak ideal. Why can't I not need help? But it's human to seek help. I seek something that's not human sometimes.

Yes, you are right it does feel like there isn't a choice, it's just the way you are programmed and there is nothing that you can do about it. That's what it feels like but if you can be programmed one way, you can be programmed another way too. Maybe this is the key? You can't change in a vacuum, you can only replace something not helpful with something helpful? You have been trying to change by only trying to get rid of this instead of replacing it with something else?