I feel you. I struggle with this too. I’ve got better at it in recent years, but it’s still tough, and I’ve found that when circumstances get rough in a manner that makes me need more help, it becomes harder to ask for help.
It’s weird to think of “asking for help” as a skill that can be trained, but that’s certainly my experience. Thinking about it that way helped me though, because it pushed me to try asking for help on smaller, low stakes things first, which made things easier in the future.
I often saw that when I did ask for help in these smaller things, that the person helping me would often be super happy to be able to help, especially if they have a lot of stuff going on in their life that they’re struggling with. Being able to help me seemed to give them a slice of agency that they desperately needed. Sometimes having helped me with a thing made them feel more comfortable asking for help for themselves, which is a dynamic I’m much more comfortable with. I like to feel useful.
Showing my own vulnerability as a stepping stone towards being able to be of service to other people is some pretty intense mental gymnastics (compared to, you know, just valuing myself and treating myself as inherently deserving of help), but whatever works, works ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I feel you. I struggle with this too. I’ve got better at it in recent years, but it’s still tough, and I’ve found that when circumstances get rough in a manner that makes me need more help, it becomes harder to ask for help.
It’s weird to think of “asking for help” as a skill that can be trained, but that’s certainly my experience. Thinking about it that way helped me though, because it pushed me to try asking for help on smaller, low stakes things first, which made things easier in the future.
I often saw that when I did ask for help in these smaller things, that the person helping me would often be super happy to be able to help, especially if they have a lot of stuff going on in their life that they’re struggling with. Being able to help me seemed to give them a slice of agency that they desperately needed. Sometimes having helped me with a thing made them feel more comfortable asking for help for themselves, which is a dynamic I’m much more comfortable with. I like to feel useful.
Showing my own vulnerability as a stepping stone towards being able to be of service to other people is some pretty intense mental gymnastics (compared to, you know, just valuing myself and treating myself as inherently deserving of help), but whatever works, works ¯\_(ツ)_/¯