It Takes a Village

Your brain is a powerful thing. Depression takes root in your mind and uses all its resources to wreak havoc on your life. Things that have always been struggles become magnified to cripple you.

My natural inclination is to be self-sufficient, independent, and never ask for help. The fact that I can successfully complete a task on my own is a win in itself. These qualities stem from my belief that needing help in its simplest form, is an admission and exposure of a weakness. I have always had a hard time asking for help. In its purest and simplest form I feel that asking for help is an admission of your inability to do something. The help you receive is a constant reminder of your failure.

I have come a long way in adapting this belief to recognize the benefits of asking for help, relying on others, making others feel good because they were able to help, but ultimately, we weren’t created to do anything alone.

For me, entering the world of parenting, I tried to approach it with the mentality that it takes a village to raise a child. To truly embrace the meaning, the break it gives the mother, the additional love expressed to the child, the increased trust amongst the community, etc. And to my credit, I think I did pretty well with Rocco. I took advice and criticism (mostly) in stride. And welcomed other hands. I didn’t exactly embrace the asking for help part, but I felt that I had grown a considerable amount with just these few things.

When Declan was born, I felt out of control and intense guilt for his illness, and was exceptionally sensitive to any comment or insinuation that I wasn’t doing something the right way, or there was a better way, or worst of all that my current method would eventually cause “irrevocable psychological damage.” As you know from reading my previous posts, my depression and anxiety only complicated my interpretation of what people said to me. I felt an explosion of emotions resulting from needing help. Now, not only was I failing at a particular task, but I was failing at parenting, and felt immense guilt for the decreased time spent with my children, by my own choice no less. I spent hours in turmoil debating in my mind whether or not to ask for help from others.

Soon the helper was no longer just a reminder of my failure, but now someone who was able to enjoy my children when I couldn’t. This bred resentment and anger towards this awful disease, but also in searching for a more concrete target, the helper themselves.

I’d like to say that I have grown to accept help gracefully, but I think I have a long way to go. Most of the time I ask my therapist if I will ever get back to being that person who could do everything for herself. And while I realize that there is something to be said for allowing others to help you, the joy they experience in being able to provide aide, and in the greater sense, the fact that asking for help admits we are human and accepts our imperfections, I have yet to reach that level of enlightenment. But I can hope someday I will.