On Help and Humility

I have spent the day packing, cleaning, and spackling holes in preparation of painting my entire house... An entire day for it to look like I just moved a bunch of stuff around. I also decided today that it would be so much easier to just burn it all to the ground.

Please keep any flammable items - lighters, matches... hell... even magnifying glasses - out of my reach until I am safely residing in Tennessee. Otherwise I will absolutely light all this up.

I digress. My husband leaves Tuesday night to be with his family as his grandfather and the Nelms family patriarch passes out of this life and on to the next. Once Jason leaves his family in West Tennessee, he will head to one of his job options – neither of which are here with us. Our indefinite time apart beings within 24 hours.

I find being overwhelmed with how much there is to do to be my knee jerk reaction. I’m going to bed insanely late. Get up ridiculously early. Sacrificing time with my kids – who I genuinely like – becomes a necessity out of too much pride and shame to ask for help. We all know being a parent in general is a big job. Being a solo parent for a few months is a slightly bigger job. Selling a house and moving states away while your biggest support can only video chat with you is damn near impossible.

But here I sit... feeling like I have to do it all by myself. Like asking for help is an admission that I am not capable of managing my own life. That simply saying “I need _____” is the absolute worst thing I could do right now. But why? Why is asking for help such a sign of weakness? Everyday I tell my kids when they are sad or frustrated that I can’t help them if they don’t ASK FOR HELP. Why can’t I take my own advice? Even accepting offered help is incredibly hard.

BUT WHY?!?!?

As I spackled my four millionth hole today, I really focused on this question as I fought back tears of overwhelmed-ness. For me, it comes down to two big reasons. Being fat means I have been taught that I am not allowed to inconvenience others – ever. Simply existing in more space than others is already viewed as an inconvenience, so asking someone to do something for me makes feel the weight of that overarching judgement pretty heavily. Which really sucks, because there are a lot of people who really love me and want to help me, but accepting that makes me feel weak. And, as discussed in previous posts, being weak is not an option when you are fat.

I also reflected on my time in the LDS church. I was Mormon for a long time and a lot of the great things in my life have come by way of the church. But, through my formative years and a large portion of my adulthood, I was told that self-reliance is the way to peace, happiness, and a blessed afterlife. Self reliance, enduring to the end, and seeing trials as a test of one’s character and faith were drilled into me from the time I was 12 until I left the church at 30. Essentially, asking for help was an open admission that you lacked faith or had made a bad choice somewhere along the way.

I think my inability to ask for help comes primarily from these experiences. I am also an insane control freak whose never really needed help. Or, I have been in denial about when I need it. ‘ll save that crazy for the therapist! But instead of using this platform to whine, I am hoping to use it to change myself and help others think. Melissa from this morning was brainstorming ways to not need help. So, the more enlightened Melissa from tonight will simply as for it. Like Michael Scott declaring bankruptcy, I stand before you stating:

I NEED HELP. LOTS OF IT.

I need help with my kids. I need help in my house. I need help with my feelings. I need help. I’ve been so bold as to create a signup  sheet on google docs. If you would like to see said sign up sheet, let me know. I’ll share it with you.

I am not sure how being this bold in asking for help will be received. If people think I am abusing the opportunity to ask for help, so be it. They don’t have to help. But for anyone who has a spare minute that they want to throw my way, I would take it in a heartbeat right now.

I would also be grateful forever.

I am trying to be real. Honest. Vulnerable. Let people know that, even though I am a generally happy person, who is loved and loves others deeply, that struggles aren’t always a result of your actions. And sometimes, you have a hard time even when you are a good and happy person. It's called beig a human. Sometimes, there is just a lot to do and not enough resources to do it. And that doesn’t make you a bad, faithless, less worthy person. Needing help is ok. It’s allowed.  Even for a fat ex-Mormon like myself.

I hope you know that I still see my life a beautiful and charming. It’s just hard right now. It won’t be hard forever. But I am learning that the level of hard is directly proportionate to my willingness to exercise genuine humility and ask for help.