Admitting you need help is the first step…

 

Sometimes being strong enough means admitting you need help getting over something, instead of dwelling on it on your own.

I have always been told that I need to stay strong and that I need to never show weakness, but that is wrong. It is ok to admit that you feel weak and helpless sometimes. It is especially ok to admit that you need help because admitting that is always the first and hardest step on the road to recovery.

I have many people who I need to be strong for and so showing that indeed inside I feel weak and helpless was not something that I thought I could admit. When it came to problems that I had I hated to have to tell people who I had to be strong for, but in the end, I realised that keeping in all that hurt, anger and sadness was not doing me any good. So if it wasn’t doing me any good then I wasn’t doing my job of being there for my family.

Admitting you need help, although hard and sometimes something that you would never normally even think about doing, is something that you need to do if you are told or even if you realise that the people around you have started noticing that you are keeping things bottled up. Keeping things bottled up is not a good way to deal with guilt or loss of a loved one or sadness because in the end all the guilt, anger and sadness will just bottle up to the point that you could end up hurting yourself or those around you.

I admit that getting an appointment with your local GP is hard and can take up to a week, which by that time you think you are better, but still go to that appointment and tell them what is wrong, what is going on inside your head. That’s what they are paid for, right?

I have always been a proud person, but pride can be your undoing and I never wanted to admit that I needed help, but when things get too bad and you can’t see a way around anything anymore then you know that it is time to go to someone else for help. It doesn’t have to be someone you know, go to a therapist once a week and just get things off your chest. They do help and it is a good way for you to release everything.

As I have said before, friends are a good way of helping you to deal with all the problems in your life because a true friend will listen to you and a true friend will be there to give you advice that they think you will need, but as I have also said before, if you want the harsh truth behind something then talk to someone who doesn’t know you. They always give the best advice.

So, even just admitting to yourself or another living being that you think you need help because you aren’t coping with everything that is going on in your life is the first step to recovering from the pain and the hurt that has been caused. Admitting that you are not yourself and that you are not as strong as you want to be or thought you were is a step in the right direction, the direction to the person that you want to be.

I know it is hard and I know that you don’t want to appear weak, but actually, you’ll be the strongest person out there because you will know that you need outside help and that you want to get better. You will be stronger than you believe because you will be helping not only yourself, but everyone around you because if they see this proud person admitting that they need help, then maybe they will also realise that they are not as strong as they thought and they too will admit that they need help. Domino theory.

If you think you have anxiety or depression or need therapy then don’t just sit there and keep thinking about it, do something about it.

It isn’t easy giving up power admitting that we might need help from friends and neighbors, deciding that a loved one might know what’s best for us, giving up our better judgment for a slightly darker agenda, but for some the hardest kind of power to give up is the power to control their own desires.