THE NARRATIVE ARC
Not Asking for Help Was My Strength Until It Became My Worst Liability
Those things about ourselves to which we are most attached can hurt us over time
My own two feet
For the first half of my life, I believed that “Help” was a four-letter word.
Not giving it.
But taking it.
If my mother’s labor hadn’t been so hard, I probably would have delivered myself. As the firstborn of six, the fact that autonomy came to me naturally was a definite plus to my overwhelmed parents. I quickly became a junior Mother and loved helping. With the arrival of more kids came more demands.
I learned to do things for myself. In fact, one of the high points of my young life was when I overheard my mother tell a neighbor that I “had always stood on my own two feet.” And the icing on the cake, “I never have to worry about Martha.”
I was THRILLED. My mother needed me. I was special because I was not a burden. This led to years of stubborn independence. I solved problems on my own. If I felt really sick, anxious, or needy, I was ashamed. I kept it to myself. In my young adulthood, I was an IKEA cautionary tale. I actually thought it was better if I first tried to…
