I think everyone needs support at one point in their life. Whether it be financial, personal, spiritual or mental. I have always had a hard time asking for support. I learned at a very early age about survival and if I asked for support it showed I was weak. I wasn’t strong enough to handle the task at hand. And with that defiance came a shell. A very hard shell. Get past that shell and I was a push over. But good luck getting past that shell.
Trust has a lot to do with whether or not you will allow someone to support you. I always had it in the back of my head that I was going to pay a price sooner or later. Whether that was an agenda or whether it was with money but I always looked at relying on someone as a dangerous road to take.
I don’t want to take the feminine card but I have to say that had a lot to do with why I didn’t ask. My mother was a strong willed single woman and constantly let me know that I shouldn’t rely on anyone, especially a man. When I first started out as a makeup artist I was determined to show everyone I was strong enough both physically and mentally to take on any challenge. And so if someone asked if they could help me with my seventy five pound trunks of equipment I would, of course, wave them off and let them know “I could handle it”. Ha! So much for being strong. Ridiculous was more like it.
What I didn’t realize was that people wanted to help and support me. They received satisfaction from offering and my refusal was a way of pushing them away. Seems that has been a very strong thread in my life.
But now I realize that I was that person on the other end who also was offering the assistance and support and when someone refused my help I felt hurt and unwanted. What I viewed as strength and being self sufficient was really my fear of being vulnerable. I was afraid of letting someone in and taking the chance of being rejected. My idea of support was really my way of saying I was afraid. And I hurt them like I was afraid they would hurt me. What a crazy web we weave.
My idea of support is many times different from other people. That doesn’t make them wrong. It sometimes disappoints me and I’m hoping they will feel the same way I do. I’m am trying to understand that it isn’t that they don’t know how, it’s that they aren’t capable or willing. And that’s just how it is. No need to judge. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. But, again, I have to keep that moment to moment idea in my head and not take it personally. I need to support myself to just move on and focus on what is right for me.
Difficult? Yes. Vital for me to support me in my life? Absolutely.