Why I seem to have trouble asking for help
I have always been a very independent person. My parents raised me to solve my own problems, and I was given the gifts to do just that. I was a problem solver, I got so good I could solve other people’s problems and I did that too. I was a go-to guy. If I didn’t know the answer, I would seek it out for the other person. This was just the way I was, all my life. I was given the tools and gifts to help people and I used them.
In 1999 a very uncomfortable thing happened to me. I got a pilonidal cyst that caused me a lot of pain. I ended up in ER overnight which really sucked. I recovered. But it came back and I had to schedule another surgery. I had a really hard time with the whole thing, because for the first time in my adult life, I had to go to someone and ask them to help me, because I could not solve it on my own. Most people would say I was cracked to think such a way, because that’s what surgeons are for, to solve those kinds of problems, but I had never asked for any sort of help like this. The only other time I had major surgery was when I was 14 and had a tonsillectomy. You have to understand, I was not given anything in my life except a loving supporting family and a brain. I earned my Ph.D. I earned my jobs, I earned respect, none was given. I have never needed help to get anything that I have.
So I had that surgery and got over my fear of asking for help in the medical cases. In the end I had a total of seven (no joke) surgeries on my butt to fix the problem. The last one (2 years ago?) seems to have ‘stuck’.
Well, I guess I maybe did not really get over that fear of asking for help as well as I thought I did. Major medical surgery is one thing, because I know for sure I can’t do it to myself. What about when you’re depressed? You have friends and family who love you and you know are willing to help out whenever and wherever they can, many because I helped them at some point in their past, but I just can’t. It is unbelievably hard for me to say to someone that I need emotional help. The help is there, but I am such an arrogant prick, I cannot simply ask and receive the emotional support that I know I need.
I say I have changed and become less of a problem solver, trying to let the world take care of itself without me and I seem to be succeeding at that, but asking for help is still way the heck too hard. I wish I knew why and I wish I could get over it, but I don’t know.