They can't ask...

I want you to sit with me for a minute.

I want you to think of your life.

How much of it was spent with people who loved you? People who valued your existence? Who respected your basic needs (food, hot water/heat, sanitation). Who comforted you when you were heartbroken?

That's not everyone.

Some people spend their lives being ridiculed for having questions or fears. They are mocked when they are unsure. They are forced into situations that terrify them, sometimes with threat of punishment if they do not comply. They are treated as a bargaining chip. They are treated as a whipping boy for other's frustrations. They are told that they are an embarrassment.

They are told they are too much to deal with, while making them take on more than most people can manage.

They are told they are lazy, or inadequate, while their hands are tied to keep them from acting.

They are scapegoated for failures beyond their control.

They are blamed for drinking problems, drug use, physical abuse dealt to them, and more.

Sometimes, their consent is violated. Repeatedly. While being told they already made their choice.

In all of this, these sequential failures and barrage of inadequacies, when they ask for the barest minimum, heat in the winter, clothing, or even healthy food, they are told that they ask too much, and that they are draining others.

They are lied to and told they'd get support so they could work, then it is ripped away, and when they inevitably lose their job, it's of course because they just couldn't 'cut it' like everyone else.

There is never anything they can do that is good enough that they have basic human value.

Sometimes, they were beaten for this.

Many become deeply depressed. Many fight it, and luckily, survive. Barely. White knuckles on knife handles, beer bottles, steering wheels… they've fought…

They've made it. Barely. Many haven't.

But then they met you.

They've come to trust you, and need you. They may work to anticipate your needs, and try to take care of you. Mostly because they love you, but also because there's always a terror that if they don't do enough, you'll throw them out like everyone else. You too will turn on them, like everyone else.

Then… something happens.

Something causes these decades of abuse to burst out over seemingly innocuous events, and it drives them to desperate feelings that, while they fight them, they can't.

In these moments, they can't ask for what they need.

Because they've been there before. In that place where they felt like this. And when they asked for help, they were mocked, demeaned, or told to go ahead, do that thing they were feeling.

They can't ask.

They don't know what they need. Because their heads are screaming that there is one final solution to all of the pain and panic and fear and grief and it is taking all they have to say

"NO, no… I am not going to do that".

"No, I'm just going to sit here, and not move"

They can't ask.

They can yell, and scream. They can sometimes cry. They can panic. They can withdraw. They can lash out.

But they can't ask.

If you know them, don't make them. Look for the signs. Take what they say seriously. See their reactions for what it is.

Because waiting for a traumatized person to ask for what they need may mean they don't get it.

https://womenyoushouldknow.net/stop-telling-us-to-ask-for-help-depression-doesnt-work-like-that/