Why we struggle to ask for help and what might really be going on

I’ve never been very good at asking for help. For years, that included going to the doctor. I’d put things off, tell myself it wasn’t that bad, convince myself I was making a fuss and decide to wait and see. Basically, I’d soldier on.

And I mean, really, soldier on. A few years ago, I was in absolute agony with gallstones. What I didn’t realise at the time was that I also had pancreatitis, but even then my instinct wasn’t, I need help. It was, I can cope.

Looking back now, knowing what I know about our protective patterns, trauma and Internal Family Systems (IFS), that response makes so much sense to me. I’d spent a lifetime learning how to cope, and sometimes being the person who can cope with anything isn’t quite the superpower we think it is.

When independence becomes self-protection

We tend to think of independence as a good thing, and of course it can be. Being capable, resourceful and able to look after yourself are all great qualities. But there’s a difference between knowing I can do this myself and believing I have to do this myself.

Not allowing anyone to help us can actually be a form of self-protection, and sometimes the roots of that go much further back than we realise. If you grew up in an environment where your needs weren’t always met, asking for something led to disappointment, criticism or rejection, or you had to grow up quickly, you may have learnt that relying on yourself was simply safer.

Maybe the adults around you were dealing with their own stuff and weren’t emotionally available. Maybe asking didn’t change anything. Maybe having needs felt inconvenient, or perhaps you were praised for being “so grown-up” and independent. For some children, other people need so much from them that there simply isn’t much space left for them to need anything themselves.

So we adapt. We learn not to need too much, not to make a fuss and to just get on with things. Over time, I’ll sort it myself becomes almost automatic.

And it can work incredibly well. We grow into capable, dependable adults who get things done. We’re often the person other people turn to when something goes wrong, and we can be brilliant at helping everyone around us. But when the tables are turned, and we’re the one who needs something, it can feel very different.

Because underneath all that independence, there may be a fear of what could happen if we did rely on somebody. What if I ask and they say no? What if they think I’m needy? What if I inconvenience them? What if I trust them and they let me down?

Doing everything ourselves protects us from those possibilities. If I don’t ask, you can’t reject me. If I don’t rely on you, you can’t disappoint me. If I don’t need you, you can’t let me down.

When we look at it that way, “I’ll do it myself” starts to mean something quite different.

When we’re frightened of being a burden

For many of us, the fear of being a burden becomes so automatic that we barely notice it. Someone offers to carry something, and we immediately say, “No, no, I’m fine.” Our partner asks whether we need a hand, and before we’ve even thought about it, we’ve said, “It’s alright, I’ve got it.”

The same thing can happen emotionally. A friend asks how we are during a week when everything feels like it’s falling apart, and we say, “I’m good! How are you?” We can be drowning at work but reluctant to admit we need support because we don’t want anyone to think we can’t cope.

Sometimes this pattern can even affect whether we seek professional help. We put off going to the doctor, minimise our symptoms and tell ourselves other people probably need the appointment more than we do. We don’t want to waste anyone’s time, so we decide we’ll see how we feel tomorrow.

I know that one particularly well. Even when I was in absolute agony, my instinct was still to carry on. Looking back, I can see just how deeply ingrained that pattern was.

So, just to be clear, if you’re worried about a symptom, please don’t follow my example and attempt to win an award for soldiering on. Get it checked. Understanding why asking for help feels difficult is important, but there are times when getting help really matters.

What happens when we finally let people in

There’s a strange contradiction that can happen when you’re used to coping alone. You can desperately want somebody to look after you while simultaneously finding it almost impossible to let them.

You might wish somebody would notice you’re struggling, then automatically tell them you’re fine when they ask. You might feel frustrated that nobody helps, while turning down the offers of help that do come your way. You can spend your life looking after everybody else and then feel deeply uncomfortable when the attention turns towards you.

This is something I’ve noticed dramatically in my own life.

As I’ve started allowing people to help me, something else has happened that I wasn’t necessarily expecting. People have come closer.

Because when you spend years saying, “I’m fine, I’ve got it,” you don’t just become independent. You can inadvertently build a wall around yourself.

I certainly did.

It wasn’t a conscious wall. I wasn’t deliberately keeping the people I loved out. In my mind, I was coping. I was being strong. I was making sure I wasn’t a burden to anybody.

But a wall designed to stop you from being hurt can also stop people from getting close enough to really love and support you.

That has probably been one of the biggest realisations for me.

As I’ve healed and allowed myself to be more vulnerable, to say when I’m struggling, to ask for help and, importantly, to actually accept it when it’s offered, those walls have started to come down.

And people can get through at long last.

My relationships feel different because of it. There’s more closeness. More honesty. More give and take. I’m not always standing on one side, being the helper, while everyone else stands on the other.

I’m letting people show up for me too.

And perhaps that’s something we forget when we worry about being a burden: people often want to help us.

Think about someone you love. If they were frightened, overwhelmed or in pain, would you want them to hide it from you because they didn’t want to bother you? Probably not. You’d want them to tell you. You might even feel hurt if you discovered afterwards that they’d been struggling alone and hadn’t felt able to come to you.

Helping each other is part of how we connect. It’s one of the ways we show people we love them. When we allow somebody to help us, we’re giving them an opportunity to care for us too.

There’s vulnerability in that, of course. We have to admit we need something, give up a little bit of control and trust somebody else to show up. And if you learnt early in life that relying on people could lead to disappointment, that can feel enormous.

But I’m learning that vulnerability doesn’t just create the possibility of being hurt.

It creates the possibility of being reached.

Getting curious instead of judging ourselves

This is one of the reasons I love Internal Family Systems. IFS doesn’t look at behaviour like this and tell us we simply need to stop doing it. Instead, we get curious about why it might be there in the first place.

From an IFS perspective, the part of you that insists, “I’ve got it,” is probably trying to protect you from something. Maybe it learnt very young that people couldn’t always be relied upon. Perhaps asking for help and not receiving it hurt more than simply not asking. Maybe needing somebody once left you feeling rejected, disappointed or ashamed, or perhaps being capable gave you a sense of control when other things in your life felt completely out of control.

So that part stepped in and effectively decided, Fine, we’ll do it ourselves. And actually, it may have done a bloody good job. It might have helped you through some incredibly difficult experiences and made you resourceful, capable and resilient.

That’s why I don’t believe we need to fight these parts of ourselves. We need to understand them. The problem isn’t that the protection existed; it’s that sometimes we no longer need it in quite the same way, but it’s still making decisions for us.

Healing this pattern doesn’t mean becoming dependent on everyone around you, losing your independence or suddenly needing somebody else to sort your life out. It’s about having a choice. It’s being able to notice that automatic “No thanks, I’m fine” and pause for long enough to ask yourself whether you really are fine.

Do I genuinely want to do this myself, or is something in me uncomfortable with receiving help? What am I frightened might happen if I say yes? What would it be like to let somebody show up for me this time?

We don’t have to start with the enormous things. It might be accepting the lift instead of automatically saying no, letting somebody carry the bag, telling a friend you’ve had a crap week, asking your partner to sort dinner or making the doctor’s appointment you’ve been putting off. Sometimes the hardest part isn’t asking for help at all. It’s tolerating the vulnerability of receiving it.

For me, healing hasn’t meant becoming less capable. I’m still independent, and I still like sorting things out myself. I suspect there will always be a part of me whose immediate response is, It’s fine, I’ve got it. The difference is that now I can notice that part, understand where it came from and appreciate how hard it has worked for me.

I can also remind myself that things are different now. There are people I can trust. There are people who want to help me. Having needs doesn’t make me a burden, and asking for help doesn’t take away my independence.

Because there’s a world of difference between knowing I can do this myself and believing I have to do this myself.

Maybe healing isn’t learning that you’re incapable of doing everything alone. Maybe it’s finally realising that you don’t have to.