Asking for help
I was raised never to ask this question. I practiced figuring out everything on my own through school and at work. I was never offered help, and I didn’t trust people meeting my expectations. I learned from the culture of “figure it out or go home.” I had no desire to be dependent on anybody because that meant that I was weak.
A simple lesson that changed my mind was that no one is good at everything. There are things you have talents and skills in and that you can excel in. There are things that you’re not good at or don’t have any interest in learning or doing at all. Personally, I have a desire to be of service to my community in a more significant way utilizing emergency services like fighting fire and challenging people’s thoughts to help them live healthier lives. I also have no desire to be a hair or makeup specialist because those have no value in my life.
The problem for us “Type A” personalities have is that we take on too much responsibility and think we can handle everything on our own, and it’s expected of us. But the purpose of asking for help is not to label us as weak; asking for help is simply an act of becoming better. It offers us a chance to learn, a chance to embody humility, patience, kindness, appreciation, and an opportunity to achieve new things. So, to ask the question, “I need help, will you help me?” is asking to grow.
I was only able to thrive, learn, become resilient and grow as a person because I asked for help. I wasn’t taught about mental health growing up, but my service taught me that it’s essential that I take responsibility and show up as the best person I can be. The best version of myself supports my family with love, I gain experiences from the world, and I lead myself before others. Asking for help is asking, “will you be my teacher?”
A friend of mine named Macy was struggling in the off-season after suffering a physical injury on a fire. The off-season can be challenging for many reasons, including lack of work, lack of purpose, and lack of support. She had severely broken her wrist and strained her neck in a traumatic fall while completing an assignment that was deemed unnecessary. After having surgery, but still being so injured that she would never have full use of her wrist again, she began feeling depressed, angry, and, as she put it, “useless.” The injury had taken away her purpose and motivation for doing things she loved because of her hand’s lack of flexibility and strength. Finally, she came to me in the new year after suffering for months. We had worked together for several seasons, and I was happy to hear from her but didn’t know how much she was suffering.
In conversation, it came out that she “didn’t know where she was going.” As we dove deeper, we discussed that she was feeling hopeless, and she had lost her meaning of continuing to fight for what she wanted in her life. She wasn’t excited to go back to work. We ended up talking for a couple of hours. I didn’t need to tell her, “everything’s going to be fine if you have a good mindset.” Macy just needed to work through her grief on her own time. She did all the hard work; opening up to a “safe” person and dealing with the issues she had going on with a trusted person.
Macy is now a captain on a wildland fire crew and is thriving in life. My presence had nothing to do with the fact that she was doing so well. Instead, her willingness to be open and strong to deal with the things holding her down was the key to her success. It may seem incredibly difficult to ask for help when the weight of the issues seems so large, but it will be worth it.
We spend much of our lives learning things in different ways: In school, from experiences, from failures, from our family and friends, and our thinking. We learn to become better, to increase our value and positive emotions in our lives. Asking for help is just another way of learning, making your own life happier, more exciting, more confident, and resilient so you can lead yourself and help others.
It’s important to ask for help.
