Asking For Help

Asking For Help

Since my last blog and the events that followed there are a few blogs I want to write…but this is the one that needs to come first.

I have been reminded over the last couple of weeks of the importance of asking for help when you need it.  I am talking about drawing on the resources around you – the people who love you.

John Donne said “No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent: a part of the main”.

This is true at any stage of your life, with anything you are trying to achieve, or trying to deal with.  You won’t get very far, very fast without others.

I think it’s quite lovely that we are designed in such a way that even the most stubbornly independent of us (not pointing any fingers) is forced to rely on others.  We are not islands.  We are so incredibly interconnected and interwoven with the people and community that surround us.  And this doesn’t change when you lose a parent, or someone else that you love.

This blog is particularly for you if you aren’t a fan of letting others see your pain, if you don’t like being seen as vulnerable, and if crying in front of others is pretty much the last thing you want to be doing.

I am not very good at showing when I am struggling.  In general I don’t like to share that or have others see it.  Actually I can write about it and talk about it but as for putting it on display?  Having someone see it in my face?  Yeeeeeah, not so much.  And dealing with the death of my father was no exception.  Indeed it was a perfect example.

I’m not going to write about why it is important to rely on the people who love you.  You already know that they can distract you if you need it.  You already know that they have tools and ideas and resources that you don’t, that might help you.  You already know that sometimes just having someone sit with you can make you feel a little better.  You already know that the people who love you want to help if they can, and that letting them do that can make your bond with them so much stronger.  You already know that you can’t do this all alone and that you don’t need to.  Don’t you? 🙂

Any time you are struggling in life you need the help of people around you, but there are a couple of things to keep in mind when your mum or dad has died as this makes the situation a bit different from normal.

Don’t just expect that people know you need help!

Only the people who know you incredibly well (and even those ones will be fooled sometimes too) will spot pain that you don’t show.  People around you will look to you and your behaviour for signs of how you are doing after a death.  Don’t just assume that because your mum or dad died they know how you are feeling, that you are grieving, and that you might not be doing so well as you appear.

I went back to work three weeks after my dad died.  I worked in mental health and we routinely, because of the work we did and the types of things we were exposed to, had what was called monthly ‘supervision’.  Basically that was a session with a psychologist, based around our work, to make sure we were handling everything ok and weren’t ready to start making suicide calls of our own after receiving so many from our clients.

My boss tried to get approval to get extra supervision sessions for me on a personal basis because of what I was going through.  His boss turned him down.  The reasoning?  That I ‘seemed fine’.  I couldn’t believe it when he told me.  I was so angry.  Dad had died so suddenly, and other family members were dropping like flies.  What kind of an idiot would think I was fine?!  And I remember so clearly my boss’s response.  He said “it might help if you didn’t walk around with the biggest smile in the office”.

If you act fine, most of the people around you will believe you are fine.  A lot of them would prefer to believe that anyway given that what you are going through can be anywhere from a little uncomfortable to absolutely terrifying for them, and often they aren’t quite sure what to do with you.

I assumed that the mere knowledge of what was happening in my life made my vulnerability clear to others – probably part of the reason I fought so hard to hide it – but I was wrong.

If you are struggling then it’s time to utter those three little words that are more difficult than any other – ‘I need help’.

I’m not talking about them needing to call you an ambulance and rushing you to hospital to get you immediately medicated.  But if you want to sit and watch mindless TV for three hours and you’d rather have someone sitting beside you, then say so.  If you need a break, then say so.  If you need a hug, then say so.  Your friends, family, and colleagues aren’t mind-readers and if you act like you are ok or you just want to be alone then they may well believe it.

This next part might seem odd for me to say after just telling you to reach out for help and comfort to the people around you, but this bit is so crucial when you have lost your mum or your dad.

Don’t expect everyone to be there for you

I’m going to explain this in a lot more detail in my next blog, as so often I see people alienate or even completely write off friends or family who don’t respond the way they want them to when they have lost someone so close to them.

We often have this idea that everyone we love should be there and want to be there for us.  But you didn’t just stub your toe.  You aren’t going through a slightly tricky patch with your short-term boyfriend or girlfriend.  You have had someone close to you die.  You have had a parent die.  In general, people don’t like to think about death.  They don’t like to think about their own death, their parents’ deaths, their children’s deaths.  They don’t want to be reminded that these things could happen.

Working in a smallish office and having so many family members die over a few months time I was able to see, up close and personal, how people feel about death.  I became a walking reminder of mortality – theirs and the people they love.  And that pushes buttons.  Some people struggle really hard with that and they might not even know that they do.

I’ll go into this more next time as it’s a big topic and I think it is so important to understand this and be ok with it.  But the thing to remember now is simply that the people who love you do want to be there for you.  It’s just that not all of them can.  Just be aware of that and it will make dealing with those around you that little bit easier.

Tagged as: asking for help after a death