The human need for help

Human beings are social creatures and we are born helpless i.e. unable to survive on our own. Generally, others of our species support us in reaching maturity. Due to this, we learn to rely on others for help.

Expecting and relying on help from others must become a deep rooted part of our personality then. We are likely naturally inclined to expect help from others from birth too. From the beginning, others seem to have the answers and solutions to our problems. Food, shelter, protection from harm, etc., are the first of our needs that they meet. Children must be taken care of. That’s pretty much fact across all human society to the best of my knowledge. Most people have an inner urge to care for children, and those who don’t, usually still have to because society expects it. But more on that another time.

So for us as children, the first of these caretakers are their parents and teachers. Based on how they treat us and respond to us, we learn to act in ways that allow us to survive, if not thrive.

So, as we grow older, we interact with more and more people; strangers very different to us. Some we make friends, others remain acquaintances or even become enemies. Most strangers we forget as we’re unable to communicate with them. Reason generally being differences of culture like upbringing, status, interests, religion, or demographics like location, time, etc.

Those people are not really important to us. If we never get a chance to communicate with someone or even observe them for some amount of time, we can’t form a lasting opinion on them, thus they remain a stranger.

But the thing is when we face a problem or have a need that we can’t fulfill ourselves for any number of reason. What is our first response?

To try and reach out in some way for help.

But human beings in general are not comfortable showing weakness or asking for help from others instantly. These days the internet is probably messing with this in ways we can’t comprehend fully yet. But let’s just say a lot of people’s first response in 2018 is to do a Google search, read up, then talk to someone about it. That’s not actually a bad thing, it’s positive in many ways. Likely makes us more informed, independent and introspective. But this too is a topic for another time.

But, when we do ask for help, we first ask for help from those closest to us, or those who are more qualified than us. These people might change with age but friends, partners, parents, siblings, doctors and teachers are the most important ones. And we approach them for different things too, because we learn that different people are able to help us with different things.

There’s people who also can’t ask for help from others, that can stem from various reasons too. Generally others ignoring or not taking one or more of their attempts or requests seriously, or may be even punishing us for asking for help. That is a sad place to be in but that’s not the purpose of this either. I think most people would agree with what I’ve described above, none of that is really some unique discovery.

My purpose for writing this was to ask one question. These other beings that we’re interacting with are as helpless as we are. And they’ve learned and been brought up by beings as helpless and limited as them. Do they really have the answers? They’re mostly genetically similar to us but that’s about it, right? What if they don’t have the solutions to some our problems or needs? Especially, the ones we struggle the most with?

I’m going to have trouble explaining this. The image of us that other people interact with is just an imperfect representation of us. It’s what they can physically see, hear, smell, touch and interact with. That’s not really the you or me. That representation is further impeded by our learned behaviours that hinder us from even taking full advantage of our physical communication abilities. And the learned biases of people we interact with so they might not even be able to understand what we’re trying to convey. I certainly say this after I’ve been helped by so many amazing people throughout my life. But that has a limit I believe. As people can’t fully understand us, they can’t solve our every problem or answer all our questions.

Especially true for problems that are not obvious and hard to communicate like mental health or emotional problems, the answers are even fewer and far between. But what if when we reach out for help to these issues, solutions or answers is not what we’re looking for? What if the only thing that’s needed is that we’re able communicate our problems and perspectives honestly and effectively, and the only thing that others can provide us is understanding and acceptance?

It’s not easy, it’s hard to even understand ourselves when we’re going through these problems to be able to communicate well, if at all. Those who suffer the most are usually the most silent. So, who can really help us with these issues? That’s a question I have. I don’t have the answer. Some ideas might be to go to a therapist, psychologist or psychiatrist. But that takes repeated effort, usually the first therapist or the first medicine we try doesn’t work. This can be especially discouraging for a lot of people going through tough times, it takes repeated effort to get help. Some people are just not in a place to have that must perseverance, I wasn’t for a long time.

May be the only one that can help us is our own self after we’ve stripped away lenses like shame, self-consciousness, hopelessness, anger, judgement, pride, narcissism, etc., because those are learned behaviours too in many ways. That’s a line of thought I’ve being trying to explore among trying therapy, medicine, asking for help from others and doing my best to communicate with others.

I’ve certainly been trying strip away feelings like shame and self-conciousness for a long time to be see myself more clearly, but been unable to. Trying to clearly see which parts of myself make me uncomfortable and then exploring them. I’ve had very slow and unsteady progress with this, can only be measured in years. It still feels like the right problem to work on and I still look inwards often to understand myself better. It’s sort of the opposite of trying to conform to the expectations of others and the world, it’s about finding what are my own expectations of myself and understanding why I’m not able to meet them.

Barring those who are special to me, trying to conform to the expectations of others is essentially seeking their approval. And it does feel good when I succeed but I also feel guilty when I fail — which is more common by far. For a long time, that’s all I was trying to do. That’s trying to fit in a box that wasn’t made for me. I think only a few people can fit into the box that their society and culture creates for them and feel satisfied in it.

The thing that has helped the most is being able to form mutual close connections with people I like and respect. Close connections allow us to be vulnerable and honest around others, that alone is worth a lot even if they don’t have the answers. Knowing that there are people who are comfortable with and even cherish the aspects of us that we ourselves have trouble accepting feels good; feels secure. Different people for different aspects of ourselves.

So these days, any uncomfortable emotions and thoughts I feel that I can’t resolve myself, I try to share them with someone who I feel might understand. And I try to do the same for them. It’s also becoming easier to form close connections the more I do it too. I don’t think that’s a solution to the question I posed above though, just my experience in life.

I didn’t have any people like this in my life for a long time. I also don’t have a connection like this with my parents or siblings. The few people who’ve helped me heal the most, I’ve been very lucky to be able to find and have a mutual connection with them. I’ve found them in the unlikeliest of places, often when I was least expecting to. Sometimes (usually to be honest) my first impression of them has been completely wrong too. Some of them are not even in my life anymore but their impact has been resounding.

That’s been my experience but I’m still figuring things out. If you couldn’t tell, this post was me asking for help from the world, I’d like to find an answer to the question I posed earlier: What if other people don’t have solutions to some the hardest problems we face in our lives? What if the answer just doesn’t exist yet?

I write about mental health, emotions, culture, society, philosophy and code.