It Is Okay to Ask for Help

There is a stubborn part in a lot of us that wants to carry everything alone. I know it well, because I tried to do exactly that for a long time, and it took me to a very dark place before I learned better. I told myself I was coping. What I was actually doing was slowly running out of road on my own, in private, where nobody could see it happening.

I think a lot of it is pride, though I would not have called it that at the time. I called it not wanting to be a burden. Not wanting to be the one always with a problem. Not wanting to see that look on somebody's face. So I said I was fine, over and over, until fine was so far from the truth that I could not have found my way back to it on my own.

If there is one thing I would want every tubie and every family member to hear, it is this. Asking for help is not weakness. It is one of the bravest and strongest things you will ever do, and it is far harder than gritting your teeth and saying nothing. The people who love you would far rather you spoke up than struggled in silence. Ask any of them. They will tell you the same, and they will be hurt you ever doubted it.

Help comes in many shapes, and it is worth knowing that, because the shape you need today might not be the one you needed last month. Sometimes it is a professional, and there is no shame whatsoever in that. Sometimes it is family. And very often it is another tubie who has walked the same road and simply gets it, without you having to explain a single thing first.

So if today is heavy, please reach out to someone. You do not have to have the words perfect, or the situation neatly summarised, or a clear idea of what you are even asking for. You just have to start. The rest sorts itself out once you have said the first bit. You are not on your own in this, and you never were.