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FLASHSALE
The irony of this post is that it’s not even that ironic. I am not trying to be confusing, so let me explain…
I am a therapist who helps others identify and ask for their needs to be met all the time. I am also a mother, friend, partner, and business owner who low key prides herself of being so attuned to others and their needs that I can sometimes even sense them before they can. You know, the neurodivergent magic! I have built a life and business around helping others.
Before we dive in, I want to develop the narrative a bit here.
Not of the human I am now, but the humans I was before. The little girl who didn’t want to bother others or be an inconvenience, the one who realized it was easier to do things herself than ask for help, the one who shrank her needs to make herself more palatable for others. So when we have that context and back story to ourselves… of course asking for help is hard! And it’s not even just hard, it often can feel unsafe.
In this iteration of life, I have a complicated relationship with asking for help.
I can usually recognize when someone else needs support. I can sit with someone in their overwhelm, help them sort through the tangled mess of thoughts, and remind them that they don’t have to do everything alone.
As a therapist, this is something I do all the time.
But when it comes to asking for help myself?
Well. That’s a different story.
Sometimes I can be completely overwhelmed, staring at a list of things that need to happen, feeling like my brain has officially clocked out… and still think:
“I’ll figure it out.”
“It’s not that big of a deal.”
“I should be able to handle this.”
“I don’t want to bother anyone.”
And sometimes, if I’m being really honest, I don’t even know what to ask for. I just know that everything feels like too much and it would be nice to not hold it all. In the spirit of transparency, I don’t have this figured out, but I do want to just sit with it where I am in hopes it feels supportive.
The strange shame of needing support
One of the things I’ve been thinking about lately is how much shame can get wrapped up in needing help, especially when you’re neurodivergent. I will give you bonus points if you’re the oldest daughter… IYKYK.
For so many of us, there is a long history of being told, directly or indirectly, that we should be able to do things that we consistently struggle with. Or we try to overextend to prove that we can do it all and then crash out. Spoiler alert: Nobody does it all. They are lying if they say they do or else they wake up at 3 AM and are in overdrive.
I think this is one of the things that made my ADHD diagnosis (at age 33 after my 2nd daughter was born) so complicated.
There was relief in understanding myself, but there was also grief. Grief for all the years I spent trying to force myself to function in ways that didn’t necessarily work for my brain. Grief for the times I thought I was inconsistent, flaky, irresponsible, or simply not trying hard enough.
And grief for how often I learned to struggle quietly.
Usually I don’t need someone to do it for me.
I just need someone to help me get started or hear that things are hard.
This is something I’ve come to understand more deeply about ADHD and executive functioning. There are things I genuinely want to do and things I know how to do.
Things I may have done a hundred times before and yet, in a particular moment, I cannot seem to make myself begin.
It can be incredibly frustrating, because from the outside, it might look like I just need to get up and do the thing… and sometimes I look at myself that way, too.
But what if the problem isn’t that I don’t know how?
What if the problem is that my brain needs a little more support getting from thinking about the thing to actually doing the thing?
Maybe I need someone to sit beside me. Maybe I need help breaking it down.
Maybe I need someone to say, “Let’s just do the first part.”
Maybe I need someone to take one small thing off my plate.
Maybe I need a reminder.
Maybe I need a hug. Often, the hug is how I feel acknowledged and seen.
And sometimes I need all of those things, but I can’t quite figure out how to communicate that, so I sit there, overwhelmed, wondering why I can’t just do it.
The fear of being too much or incompetent
I think there is also something tender underneath the difficulty of asking for help.
The fear that we are asking for too much, that we are going to drain someone or that someone will get tired of us.
That they’ll think we’re incapable.
That they’ll say no.
That they’ll say yes, but secretly resent us.
That they’ll help us once and then expect us to be able to do it on our own forever.
That if people really knew how much support we needed, they might see us differently.
I don’t think these fears come from nowhere. They come from YEARS of being really good at appearing capable.
We figure things out.
We overprepare.
We overexplain.
We push through.
We tell everyone we’re fine.
Until we’re not, and then asking for help feels like exposing something we’ve worked really hard to keep hidden.
Independence can become a way of abandoning ourselves
I value independence and to have agency and autonomy, are two of my core values.
I like being capable. I like figuring things out. I like knowing that I can take care of myself, but lately I’ve started to wonder how often independence becomes something more than a preference.
How often does it become a rule?
“I should be able to do this myself. It’s not that hard.”
“I shouldn’t need anyone. I have done this before. I am a fully capable human.”
“I don’t want to inconvenience anyone. Other people have enough going on and I don’t want to add to that.”
“I’ll just push through. If I skip the gym or stay up late, I can get caught up.”
And what happens when that rule becomes so rigid that we stop listening to what we actually need?
What happens when we would rather be completely exhausted than risk asking someone to help us?
I think there is a difference between being independent and being unsupported, and sometimes, I have confused the two.
I’m learning to ask a different question
Instead of asking myself:
“Why can’t I just do this?”
I’m trying to ask:
✨“What would make this easier?”
Instead of:
“Why am I struggling so much?”
I’m trying:
✨“What part of this is actually hard?”
Instead of:
“I should be able to handle this.”
I’m trying:
✨“Do I really have to handle all of this alone?”
These questions don’t magically make everything easier, but they do something important. They move me away from shame and toward curiosity.
They help me see that support isn’t always about someone rescuing me or taking over.
Sometimes support is simply creating the conditions where I can do something that felt impossible five minutes ago.
Sometimes it means letting someone see the messy, overwhelmed, unfinished version of me.
Sometimes it means saying, “I don’t know what I need. Can you help me figure it out?”
And sometimes it means accepting that I need more support than I wish I did.
Maybe asking for help is part of coming home to yourself
I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to come home to yourself.
To stop fighting the way your brain works.
To stop measuring your worth by how much you can accomplish.
To begin listening to the signals that say, "This is too much. I need something different."
And I think asking for help is part of that.
Because coming home to yourself means acknowledging that you have needs.
Not just the needs that are easy to explain.
Not just the needs that other people understand.
But the messy, inconvenient, confusing, sometimes hard-to-name needs, too.
You don’t have to wait until you’re falling apart to deserve support.
You don’t have to prove that you’ve tried hard enough.
You don’t have to make your struggle worse before you’re allowed to ask for help.
You are allowed to need people.
You are allowed to ask.
You are allowed to receive.
And maybe the next time I find myself thinking, “I’ll just figure it out,” I’ll pause for a moment.
Maybe I’ll ask:
“What if I didn’t have to figure this out alone?”
And maybe that’s a place to start.
If you made it this far, thank you. If asking for help is hard for you, I hope you know that you’re not alone. There is nothing shameful about needing support, and you don’t have to earn the right to receive it.
A little reflection for this week:
What is one thing you’ve been trying to handle on your own that might feel a little easier with support? What kind of help would actually make a difference? P.S. It is not the help you think you should need, but the help you genuinely want.
Want more? Let’s connect!
Local to Charlotte, NC? Come to Neurodivergent Crafting Night Out and walk away with good times, new friends, and a few crafty creations.
Join my upcoming group: Chaos to Compassion for women with ADHD . This group is a 6 week program open to participants worldwide. Groups run from 12-1PM EST or 6-7 PM EST via Zoom.
Work with me: I offer virtual counseling in NC and SC as well as ADHD coaching support to those outside of NC & SC.
Email: rachel@racheltenny.com for more information.
Resources for ADHD: I have a library of mental health resources and a section just for ADHD and Women with a Late Diagnosis!
Are you a therapist? I offer supervision and consulting for therapists as well as The Therapist Toolbox Resource Library for other providers.
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Not because it was productive.
Not because it was good for your mental health.
Not because you could turn it into a hobby, a side hustle, or something to check off your list.
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Not distracted. Not uninterested. Just…stuck.
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