Why Is It So Hard to Ask for Help?

How many of those memes have you scrolled past this week? The strong woman who needs nobody. She handles every bit of it herself, and she looks great doing it! We double-tap and keep scrolling. Then we go straight back to proving we can carry the whole load without a hand from anybody. That’s the badge. We wear it like it means something.

Total and utter nonsense. So why do we keep going along with it? One of the smartest, strongest things a woman ever does is ask for help. We usually don’t notice we need it until we’re standing at the bottom of a hole we dug one yes at a time. Even then, the hard part is not seeing it. It’s knowing we can ask.

I understand how hard that belief is to put down, the one that says needing help makes you weak, a woman who can’t run her own life. I hear it all the time from women who figured everything out for everyone else, who are tired in a way a nap won’t fix, and who say “fine” before the question is even finished. Is that you? Then you’ve had years of practice at needing nobody. No wonder needing somebody now feels like a personal failure. Of course it does!

Needing Help Got a Bad Name

We were taught it young. Figure it out yourself. If you can’t, that says something about you. And everything has to be handled this minute, all at once. We got praised for handling it, so we handled more, and somewhere in there getting by turned into who we are. Asking now feels like admitting we’re not the woman on the badge.

Maybe you think needing help means you’re failing, or that you’ll be a burden. Maybe you figure nobody would get it, since to everyone else your life looks like it’s working. Maybe you built a whole career on handling it, so asking might change how people see you there. Or maybe it feels like help gets earned by suffering out loud first, so you wait until it shows.

There’s always somebody who seems to have it worse, so we tell ourselves our stuff doesn’t count yet. We picked up every one of those somewhere.

This is not on you, and it is not on the people who lean on you. It’s an idea somebody sold us. Ideas can be put down.

Carrying It All Costs More Than It Looks

We say yes to every job and every task that comes our way, then try to juggle the whole pile with a smile on. We push help away in small, quiet ways too. We crack a joke when somebody gets too close to the real answer, we steer the conversation back to their problems, we cancel plans so nobody sees us tired.

Carrying it all for years gets really lonely, because from the outside you look like you’ve got it handled. Say “I’ve got this” long enough and what happens? People stop asking how you really are. Nobody meant for that to happen. And if you work from home, whole days can go by with nobody around to ask at all.

Holding all of that while looking fine wears you down, until you’ve got a short fuse and you’re going through the motions with a full load.

Asking Is a Sign of Trust

What if we took another look at that meme? The strong one in it never asks anyone for anything. Then what, exactly, is she strong at? Not needing people? That’s isolation with good lighting.

Weakness? Nope! When you ask, you tell somebody you trust them. Knowing what you’re not good at and saying so out loud shows confidence. That’s resourceful. Every one of us is great at a few things and lousy at a few others, at work and at home alike. No more second-guessing it. Who needs that aggravation?

We forget that the people who do offer usually mean it. Letting them makes it go both ways.

Asking doesn’t have to be the whole load all at once, or a crisis so it counts, or the perfect words, or proof that it’s bad enough. There’s no bar to clear.

If asking out loud still feels like too much, start on the receiving end. The next time somebody offers the coffee, the ride, a hand with the groceries, say “actually, yes.” It’s smaller than it feels. The first few times it feels wrong, like the whole thing might come apart the second you stop holding it up.

If nobody’s offering this week, the smallest ask there is happens the next time somebody says “how are you?” and you answer honestly. And if one day it lands badly? That’s one person on one day, not a verdict on asking.

What happens once you do ask? Nothing dramatic. You’ve broken the habit of handling everything alone, that’s all, and you are not alone with it anymore. Two steps forward and one back still counts!

If Asking Still Feels Impossible

Still can’t shake the need to handle every bit of it yourself? That’s what therapy is for. Most women who start therapy are already handling plenty. In session, you and I look at what “I’ve got this” has been protecting. I don’t need you to be the put-together one. The strong parts stay. We just make room next to them. Your childhood doesn’t have to come into it. A lot of this work is about what’s going on now.

If you’ve been let down before, that’s real. I won’t argue you out of it. Do those old lessons still fit your life now? Some might. Some might be keeping even the safe people at a distance.

Bring the guilt about needing to be here, if it won’t stay home. We’ll look at that right alongside everything else. You don’t have to show up with it figured out.

My practice is Solid Ground Counseling & Wellness. The women who work with me come to my Cedar Park office or meet me online from wherever they are in Texas. Plenty of them are the capable one in every room. The first conversation is on me, a free fifteen or twenty minutes on the phone to hear where things stand with you. Then we decide together whether I’m the right person for it. Writing to me counts as asking, so that part’s already handled.

The load you’ve been carrying would flatten anybody. The only question is whether you carry it alone.

When you’re ready, request a time or write to me.

On solid ground,

Acelli