We all need help

(so why is it so hard to ask for it?)

It starts when you’re very young. Or at least it did with me.

“Ask doesn’t get”

“Children should be seen and not heard”.

And when I cried because I wanted help in my distress, I was told to stop crying.

So many of us were.

And like so many, when I was a child, I was taught not to ask for help.

It was part of my training as a man.

Don't show weakness, I was told, or you'll suffer for it.

And in the boarding schools, everyone tormented mercilessly those who showed weakness.

So I tried not to.

And then when my mum died and my dad just left me in the school,

I got a very clear message that no matter how bad things were

It was no use asking for help from your family,.

And then as I got bigger, the thing I most needed help with was the fact that I hated being a boy and it didn't fit me, somehow.

But that was the one thing it was far, far too dangerous to tell anyone, so how could I ask for help for that?

So I struggled on alone.

I’d like to think that in all the years we lived together, me and Susie, and brought up our daughters, I maybe did get a wee bit better at admitting weakness and asking for help…

But then when Susie was dying I found myself compelled to be the strong one in the family and try to hold everything together.

And that spilled over to dealing with my heart surgery

And my stopping living as a man

And all the surgery and mobility problems that have happened since.

And in spite of everything, it freaks me out to discover how much I’ve been very like my Dad.

He was about my age when his health began to break down; he found it humiliating being ill, and humiliating having to ask for help.

It was a horrible extra burden he had to carry in his last years.

One of the gifts of this new hip problem is that I’ve been able to put down at least some of that burden.

I have at last been able to ask for help.

And all sorts of unexpected gifts have started to appear.

This is me in a mobility scooter an amazing kind friend has just given me.

I love it. It’s like Noddy’s little red car he was so proud of and that I wasn’t allowed to have,

And the freedom it will give me to go about without pain is maybe an image of the different life I am about to live.

Because of course people have been willing to help, in all kinds of different ways.

And what a beautiful chance it is to get to know them better.

It gives us a glimpse, too, of the kind of society we are dreaming of:

Where humans are not set against each other to compete for money or prestige or power…

But share with each other instead.

Share our weaknesses, share our strengths:

And help each other to create a better world.