Clueless on Whether Your Problems Are Bad Enough to Ask For Help

The struggle is real but it doesn’t look serious enough to deserve attention. You are managing everything that needs managing. You are showing up. So asking for help feels wrong even though the need for help is also real. Both things are happening at the same time.

Other people have bigger problems. That’s just true. So your problems feel smaller and therefore less worthy of taking up space. Telling someone you are struggling feels like complaining about nothing compared to what they’re dealing with. The comparison makes asking for help feel dishonest.

The measuring stick for problems is broken. You don’t know if what you are experiencing is legitimate or if you are overreacting to normal life. Other people have names for what’s wrong with them. You just have a feeling that things are too hard but you can’t explain why they’re too hard when you are not dealing with anything objectively difficult.

Reaching out to anyone feels premature. They would probably give advice that doesn’t help or try to fix something that can’t be fixed, or they would minimize it and make you feel worse for mentioning it, so you don’t mention it. You handle it alone and tell people you are fine because you are fine in the ways that matter.

The guilt about needing help sits underneath the need. If you really needed help you would be more obviously in need. Real problems come with visible symptoms. Real crises look like crises. Whatever this is looks like functioning from the outside so maybe the inside is fine too. Maybe you are just being dramatic about a normal amount of struggle.

You could ask for help and risk being told you don’t need it or you could not ask and risk continuing like this indefinitely. Both options feel terrible. One involves vulnerability and possible rejection and the other involves isolation and possible deterioration. Neither one is good.

The people closest to you probably don’t know how bad things are because you don’t tell them. They think things are fine because you have made fine look convincing. So the help they could give is locked away behind the performance of being okay. The performance protects them from your problems and isolates you from their support.

You are not sure if you deserve help or if you are just being weak and asking for something that isn’t necessary, so you don’t ask. You keep managing somehow. The struggle continues and the guilt about the struggle continues and the both of them sit together without resolution.

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