In short, the answer is you – or should be you. No one will meet your needs as you do. Most people either don’t know what you need or don’t care. Sure, they might ask you what you need and some are sincere and some use their offer as a tool. It’s people’s timing and often wording that defines their sincerity. The other important half of it is how or whether we ask for help. If you’re like me, you don’t care to “put people out”. Most often, I’d like to think, that we aren’t putting them out. I like to think that most folks are like me and willing to help at the drop of a hat.

There are many personalities. Mine is to not complain and to serve others..no matter what. This has gotten me into despair and worry. I don’t ever want to disappoint. Why? With my parents everything was about not disappointing them no matter how uncomfortable, wrong and inconvenient it felt; we did as we were told and kept our opinions to ourselves. This has unfortunately carried into pretty much every relationship, friendship and workplace connections. That has caused me pain and anxiety. But still, I try not to let others know.

I’m not often sick. I don’t consider chronic headaches/migraine a sickness though it’s often debilitating. I complain about splitting headaches to my two closest people but not to those around me on a daily basis – at work, at down time etc. I have learned to function with head pain. What I don’t do is put myself first, well, not until I truly need to stay home and battle whatever illness decides to attack me. Even using the word illness here, I cringe – I’m not ill, I’m just not well. How dare I be ill!

These past two week I have been ill. I have rescheduled clients, but I also tried to be a trooper and work through the ick. It didn’t serve me well. I did protect my clients from germs, thankfully. But I didn’t take care of myself through it until after. I hate to reschedule more than once, I hate to disappoint. In all that thinking, which truly isn’t logical, I have let myself down.

No one will take care of me except me. At least not as well. No one knows exactly what we need in any given time, they take queues from us and if we’re not sending signals then we are on our own. What signals do you send out? Do you ask for help? How does asking for help make you feel? Are you one of the few who fully takes care of what you need?