Asking for Help

From How to ask for stuff by Mike Monteiro:

I also grew up to become someone who didn’t think they needed help. (After all, I didn’t want to get hit anymore!) And while there are moments when this can be seen in a positive light and called things like self-reliance (Erika can attest to the fact that I can get a full-sized fridge up a flight of stairs by myself.) it also leads you to doing some very stupid things! (Like getting a full-sized fridge up the stairs by yourself.)

As someone who wrestles with mental health, as many of us do, I learned the hard way that there are only so many full-sized fridges you can move up a flight of stairs by yourself. (See, it was a handy metaphor.) I had to wrestle with everything I’d been taught as a child. All the taunts. All the abuse. All the untied shoes. I had to break every safety rule I’d made for myself as a child and admit that I needed help. It took longer than it should have because ultimately I needed to trust the people in my life, which meant trusting that they saw the world differently than the people who raised me. And while, logically, I knew that was true, trauma has a way of making previous trauma our default place.

There is no more courageous act than asking another human being for help.

There is no more courageous act than telling another human what you need.

To get better at asking for what you need you need to trust the people around you. And the first part of trusting the people around you is trusting yourself. Trust that you’re the kind of person that other good people gravitate towards. Become the kind of person that other good people gravitate towards. (Here’s a little cheat: shitty people wouldn’t ask me the question you asked.)

Be your own billboard for kindness. Especially with everything going on right now. Let people know that you are there for them, and I guarantee that they will be there for you. I’m guessing that you would tell me you are there for your friends should they need you. Trust that they would say the same thing.

I was raised praying in the church self-reliance: the loftiest goal was  achieving perfect “not needing anyone else.”

Helpful when it comes to rebuilding a lawnmower engine; less helpful in matters emotional and spiritual  

How to Die and Other Stories is a compilation of Mike Monteiro’s writing; highly recommended.