Why people don’t ask for help
This article is part of an ongoing discussion series on Mental Health and the Church. While each article can stand on alone, if you’d like to start at the beginning click here.
I’ve mentioned several times in this series that it’s wise to reach out and ask for help when you’re suffering or struggling to cope, yet so often, and for varying reasons, we don’t feel that we can. As we look at some of the reasons why that is, maybe you’ll relate to some of them, as they don’t only apply to mental health struggles.
The truth is that neither society nor the church has had a good track record over the centuries in how we’ve treated people who have suffered from ongoing problems – mental health issues, or chronic long-term or serious sickness struggles. That has unfortunately often made it hard for people to open up and admit that they’re struggling. And if you do, well…sometimes you can feel like the picture above – vulnerable, exposed, and like everyone can see your mess laid bare and on display before them.
No doubt there are many reasons why we don’t feel we can admit that we’re struggling, but here are some of the main ones I’ve found, either in my own life or the lives of others I’ve talked to…
We may not yet have realized that we are actually struggling. Sometimes it’s not until we’re well into a struggle that we suddenly click that we really not coping as well as we thought we were. Often that’s because we’re just so used to trying to cope on our own, or the struggle has slowly increased and become harder over time until it dawns on us that we’re not coping well.
We don’t want to be a bother. None of us really want to be a burden on others, so we think that we need to struggle along alone, sometimes hoping someone will notice, but at the same time not wanting to add our load to someone else’s pile of stuff that they’re already carrying. So we stay quiet.
Shame is a biggy! We may feel ashamed of our situation, or ashamed of our inability to cope. Sadly the church has had centuries of practice at making people feel shame for not being perfect, when Scripture is actually clear that in Christ there is no condemnation, no shame.
We minimize what we are going through – others have it far worse than me… or we put others’ health before our own, thinking that we’ll hold on just a little longer…
We may be worried about what others may think of us, or say about us. We don’t want to be seen as overly emotional, needy, incompetent, or weak as a Christian. Performance-based acceptance is, unfortunately, flourishing all too well within both our churches and society at large.
We’re worried that if we share it will affect our job, our ministry, our relationships, our future, etc.
Sometimes we find it hard to trust others – usually because of previous negative experiences. For example, when we’ve opened up and shared and we’ve not been treated kindly, taken seriously, or felt dismissed with glib phrases, or unhelpful advice.
Sometimes it’s because past experience has made us feel that it’s just us against life, and we have to look after ourselves or make it through on our own,
Sometimes we can be strongly independent, rather than being interdependent. We don’t like to feel like we’ve lost control, or we feel uneasy because asking for help means surrendering some of our control to others.
The contradiction of need and fear
All of these are very real reasons why we don’t ask for help. We have this strange contradiction that happens within us as humans – we both long for, and fear, relational intimacy, and often we have both those feelings at the same time. That fear of intimacy creates in us a negative feeling which, if we embrace it, can develop into a habit of avoidance, so we don’t reach out, we don’t admit we need help. We’re scared…of all the things mentioned above. And so our inner critic bullies us into silence, telling us that we’ll be exposed as a failure – as a person, and as a Christian. And often too, we can know, really know, that God loves us and accepts us as we are, but we’re just not sure that people will.
We can all be influenced strongly by our “internal voice” or “inner critic”. We all have one, and it’s powerful. It can bully us and rule our lives if we let it. It’s that internal dialogue that happens in our mind, that voice inside us that criticizes us or tells us that we aren’t worthy, that we’ll be a nuisance, that people don’t like us, our problem is too personal, or sometimes, even, that we are beyond help. It reminds me of that tape we sometimes see at the bottom of the TV screen that’s filled with little statements, just rolling along there in the background, but not filling the whole screen. It’s supposed to be informative, but instead is often distracting to us and it upsets and shifts our focus. We may try to ignore it, but the more we do, the more we are conscious of it, drawn to it, and take note of what it’s saying.
Created for relationship
Yet we do need others. None of us is an island, created to stand alone in the vast sea of humanity. We were created to function best in relationships, sharing our hearts and lives with one another – giving and receiving, helping and being helped, encouraging and being encouraged. The Bible uses the analogy of us all being part of one body in 1 Corinthians 12:12-27 and explains that in Christ we are all linked one to another. It also goes on to say that our gifts and abilities are given us for blessing and helping each other – 1 Corinthians 12:7 and 1 Peter 4:10-11 are some of the verses that tell us this. I need you and you need me. This is how we were created, and this is how we function and thrive best.
For the next article in this series click here.