Letting others help

This is a sensitive topic for me. I’ve always been the helper, no matter how bad things were for me I would put others first and help them in any way I could. I can’t keep doing that though. I need to accept that I need help and that’s ok.

My not accepting help or not knowing how to ask for help has caused so many problems for me. Problems that caused more problems. That can’t go on.

The other night I was barely able to speak, let alone move but I needed to get ready for bed, a process that could have potentially taken hours at that point if it happened at all. That’s when my girlfriend offered to help me. I felt terrible about needing help, but so reassured and loved that she did help me. It was that weekend, everything that happened in it that made me realise that I can’t keep going on not receiving help.

It was a couple of days later that made me realise that I should be actively be asking for help. That needing help because of CFS is no different to needing help for any other reason, like, say, throwing your back out and not being able to do anything as a result of that. Oh, yeah, I threw my back out and can’t really do anything as a result of that. Work has been so much fun since then.

I’ve not really been able to do much cleaning, I managed to do the changing rooms by asking someone else to carry the mop and bucket through for me, but I couldn’t brush down the pitches. Luckily, the pitches have just been done by an external company, on the day I did my back in actually.

I don’t know why I can accept help because of my back but I can’t because of my CFS. I can even ask for it due to my back.

Could it be because deep down I’m still blaming myself for developing CFS? For the few weeks before I developed symptoms when I first got ill I was in contact with thousands of people through work. There must have been something, maybe I didn’t wash my hands well enough before eating. Maybe it was the fact it took me months actually bother seeing a doctor. Maybe there was something I could have done. Maybe not.

Could it be because people can more easily understand back pain? This can happen to the fittest of people (yes, I know CFS can too). A quick google suggests 1 in 3 people are affected by back pain in the UK each year whereas just 1 in 250 people in the UK is affected by CFS.

I’m going to do my best asking for help, even if I need some reassurance along the way. It’s not going to be easy and I won’t be perfect with it, I don’t like admitting I’m not as capable as I feel I should be, but I need help. Needing help is ok. Whatever help I need is ok. That needing someone to pick something up for me because of my back is no different than needing someone to fetch me a drink because I don’t have the energy to walk to the kitchen.