Why we resist getting help…
…when in a low place.
Because I’m talking about emotional stuff everyday with my clients, I sometimes forget how hard it can be to ask for help, or to reach out when we’re struggling, or to talk about the past, or the things we don’t like about ourselves, or our dark feelings like shame. Then I remember how I used to feel driving to my therapist’s office…
I honestly don’t think I would have ever gone to therapy if I didn’t have to go. Thankfully though, it was a requirement of my course and accrediting body that I get 120 hours of personal therapy, so I had no choice.
But man at the beginning I really dreaded it. I found it so so uncomfortable to sit and talk about myself and my feelings. Luckily I had a great therapist who was kind and strong. He was able to make me feel safe enough to very gently start to look at my past, and my pain, and that’s when things in my life started to change for the better. I can honestly say now that going to therapy is the best thing I’ve ever done for myself.
But why is it that we resist getting help when we’re feeling low? Why do we find it so difficult to ask for help, even when we know we need it? Here are some of the key reasons.
SCIENCE
It can be really hard to look at our inner ‘stuff’ because often there are lots of icky and painful emotions inside that we don’t want to face. These can be shameful and embarrassing, painful and uncomfortable.
Let me tell you why, in neurobiology, the part of our brain that processes emotional pain stores the feeling along with the memory. We don’t feel the pain of a physical injury when we remember it, but we do with a painful emotional memory! This is so incredible to witness with clients, they recall a memory and all of a sudden the emotional pain surfaces as well, that pain has been there the whole time, stored away. I get it - no wonder we want to avoid this, because we’re biologically programmed to avoid pain.
But we need to look, it’s much more painful in the long run to keep our feelings about ourselves or the past locked inside, because when we don’t release these old stored feelings, over time they can really warp our view of ourselves and the world. It’s like we have to create a load of dysfunctional ways to distract ourselves from looking at this pain - unhealthy coping mechanisms.
There’s a quote that says ‘shame dies when stories are told in safe spaces’ and I couldn’t agree more. My clients often talk about the relief they feel after being able to tell their story with me, and how shame is released when their feelings and experiences are validated.
MINIMISING
Often a female trait (but not always), minimising is that way we have of making ourselves small and unimportant.
Something I hear time and time again in my therapy room is clients not believing that their problems are that important, because they’re not the ‘BIG’ problems that other people have. This is just simply not true. All of our problems are important, equally. There is no barometer that determines who ‘deserves’ support more, because we all do. Life will be challenging for all of us in different ways, at different times. As a therapist, I’m not judging the problem by its ‘size’, I’m just curious about the impact that it’s having on you the client.
WORTHINESS
We are all worthy of support, but if we don’t have great self worth in our day to day life, chances are we will put off getting help for our mental health because this comes last on our list of priorities. We might simply just feel life we don’t really deserve it. This is such a common and understandable standpoint, but I really urge you to get help if you feel you need it. We need to put ourselves first so that we can show up sufficiently in life for everyone else who depends on us.
