The challenge of asking for help

My partner is visiting India while my kid and I are in Tramin. His advice to vocalise my needs to his parents if need be paved the way for a deep dive into why it is so difficult to seek help, especially from loved ones

As I write this, my partner is at the airport in Milan, en route to India. It is strange that he should be travelling without us, but our little one is still passport-less, and perhaps too young to be able to attend a big, potentially loud Indian wedding. I was eager for my partner to be present and luckily, he was himself enthusiastic about going, moving mountains in order to make the time to travel. I have so many mixed emotions about him being there without us. On the one hand I love the idea that he will, after the celebrations in Bhopal, travel to Mumbai and meet my parents and stay with my sister, but on the other I am envious of the fact that he will be served the prawn curry rice and potato chops and all the other delicious things my parents will certainly have on the menu. I will relish them only second-hand, through photographs and his feedback. I am almost frightened about the nostalgia it will evoke, and whether the knowledge of him having such intimate contact with my family will only enhance my homesickness instead of placating it.

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In the meantime, I am holding the fort back here in Tramin. Our child is showing signs of being on the verge of both crawling and teething, a curious combination of milestones. I am enjoying him being more mobile and exploring the world in his own awkward way. But I am nervous about managing full-time work without my partner’s support, which has, since I became a mother, made it possible for me to manage such a vast portfolio of freelance work. To enable me to be productive in his absence, he gave me a small sermon about how I needed to be more assertive about my needs when it came to his parents. That they are always eager to help me, if I could only specify what I need from them. If only it were that simple. In fact, asking for help is certainly one of the most challenging aspects of adulting. 

Since his lecture, I have been trying to analyse what prevents me from vocalising my needs to others. I have many theories, or rather, I think there’s a bouquet of possible explanations rather than a single rationale. I have somehow either been programmed or programmed myself to think that asking for help means having to acknowledge a failure at being self-sufficient. I have this memory from childhood of asking my older brother for help and him often refusing by saying, ‘just think about what you would have done if I was not here and do that’. It was borderline cruel, I think now. I may have internalised that asking for assistance means not being able to do something oneself. I’ve possibly even connected it with shame. There’s also the insecurity of being refused the help you seek and the ensuing fear of rejection that makes it easier to complete the task on hand oneself. 

Or maybe, depending on other people is an act of faith, and my faith never grew to the size of a mustard seed. I’ve no problem asking for mundane things, like directions, or recipes, or admitting failure even. It’s easier with strangers, the stakes are lower. But having to ask loved ones for something means having to accept a state of dependency, which binds me to them and exposes me in a way. Maybe I am afraid of being judged or taken as someone who cannot function independently and needs others. 

I have also been conditioned to always anticipate the needs of others and to find ways of fulfilling them without needing them to articulate the same. As a woman, I have also frequently had to place other people’s needs above my own, which has meant that the process of empathising with myself has been one I have had to initiate, inculcate, and internalise through therapy. Becoming an expert at identifying other people’s needs by over-focussing on them instead of your own also means one gets good at harbouring resentment against those in your intimate circles for not exercising the same penchant for mind reading as you. Passive aggressive behaviour starts to manifest without your active promotion of it. Also, as a woman, so many needs are ascribed to me in situations that I have to stand up and assert that I didn’t ask for something, like unwanted attention or an othering gaze.

I suppose learning to ask from a space of security represents being comfortable with the boundaries of one’s potential. It involves refusing to be a martyr and instead accepting that we need other people, and that the person you ask has the right to refuse and it doesn’t mean they are rejecting you. Eighty per cent of the time, when I ask from a space of kindness, my needs are satisfied. I just have to find it in me to be graceful enough to articulate what I need. To begin with, it’s for my in-laws to cook me lunch on the days when I am working. They’ve already eagerly said I can even live with them if I need to. The next ten days will be a test of how ready I am to accept the help being offered to me. Wish me luck.

Deliberating on the life and times of Everywoman, Rosalyn D’Mello is a reputable art critic and the author of A Handbook For My Lover. She tweets @RosaParx
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The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper.

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