Is It Really That Bad? Why We Struggle to Ask for Help (Even When We Need It)

When I first considered going to therapy, I remember thinking: “Do I really need this?”

“Am I taking someone else's place who needs it more?”

I even told my therapist about someone I knew who had it far worse — as if that somehow justified why they should be there instead of me. My therapist replied simply:

“Are you going to pay for their therapy?”

It was blunt, and I felt a little embarrassed because — no, I wasn’t. I could barely afford to pay for my own sessions. And I was doing it not just for me, but for my family, for the people I loved, for the life I wanted to build. That moment helped me see more clearly: I did need help. It was obvious when I wasn’t okay. The paradox was that I was more often okay than not. When I felt okay, the idea of therapy seemed unnecessary — dramatic, even. But then, when I wasn’t okay, I desperately wanted support. It was like I was two different people.

So why didn’t it feel like I needed therapy?

Looking back, I see now that my coping strategy was disconnection. I wasn’t falling apart — I was foggy. Fuzzy. Shut down. That doesn’t feel like “a big problem,” but it caused plenty of them. Disconnection had been my way of surviving since adolescence — and the longer I used it, the more deeply it took hold. And here’s the kicker: the more shut down I was, the less I could feel that anything was wrong. It also meant that from time to time, when things really got bad, the mechanism failed — and I would feel like I was going mad. The unwanted second version of myself was popping up more and more like Jeckyll and Hyde.

Day to day, to survive what I couldn’t bear to feel, I went into my head. It wasn’t like I thought “ooh, I can’t bear this, I’ll retreat into overthinking” — it was more that it happened automatically. I wasn’t aware I couldn’t bear what I felt; I just found ways to distract myself. This could be drinking or watching TV. If those kinds of distractions weren’t available or socially acceptable, I would procrastinate or think obsessively about anything and everything that felt like a problem to solve.

Avoiding Emotional Pain

I was unconsciously avoiding emotional pain by overthinking. And yes, thinking can be a gift — but when it becomes the only way we relate to the world, it becomes a defence. A way of not feeling. Eventually, this can lead to deep anxiety. The nervous system goes haywire, but if there’s no connection to the emotional signals the body’s trying to send, the cycle repeats and gets more accentuated. The other major downside to this is that I was sometimes numb to feeling positive emotions as well. I had lots in my life to be grateful for but struggled to connect with any sense of joy.

Shutting Down

In a social situation, this might look like someone who suddenly “freezes” or can’t think straight — a shutdown caused by anxiety that overwhelms the thinking brain, especially the prefrontal cortex. I’ve seen this in myself. I now see it in others — especially in clients.

I work with a lot of young adults and adolescents. This foggy, flattened state is common. Sadly, it’s often misinterpreted by parents, teachers, or peers as laziness or apathy — which adds more pressure, more shame, and more shutting down.

How This Happens With Men

This can be particularly prevalent in men. William Pollack writes in Real Boys:

“I believe that boys, feeling ashamed of their vulnerability, mask their emotions and ultimately their true selves. This unnecessary disconnection – from family and then from self – causes many boys to feel alone, helpless, and fearful. And yet society’s prevailing myths about boys do not leave room for such emotions, and so the boy feels he is not measuring up. He has no way to talk about this perceived failure; he feels ashamed, but he can’t talk about his shame, either. Over time, his sensitivity is submerged almost without thinking, until he loses touch with it himself. And so a boy has been ‘hardened’ just as society thinks he should be.”

To some this may seem out dated but I feel that a lot of these messages still exist today even if they are implicit. We maybe saying one thing as a society but sending very different messages in others.

Intellectualisation & Survival Strategies

Later in life, the defence might evolve into something more refined. For me, it became intellectualisation and competitive survival strategies. First, I became interested in food. Looking back I wanted to compensate for some unfelt lacking by being competitive or successful — I didn't just think, I like cooking so I'll learn some new recipes, I became a chef and trained in one of Gordon Ramsay's restaurants. The same happened with alcohol — I forged a career in the wine industry. Then psychology and philosophy — which eventually led to me retraining. These pursuits for identity and meaning have had lots of benefits.

They were also very charged and acted as a way to distract me from something at my very core. If I am not in touch with my whole self, if I’m not careful, I can use these strategies to override lived experience — mine and others’. I know when I am in my head or something has taken over because I feel a contraction of muscles, my jaw becomes stiff, as I feel the need to impose my ideas onto somebody else instead of just trying to understand that person, where they are coming from and how best I can be with them in that moment. It is a subtle shift to let go of tension but it can make the world of difference.

And that’s something I’m always mindful of in my work with clients: staying curious about their experience, by keeping grounded; holding my ideas lightly by staying in touch with my body; and allowing my ideas to be wrong or off target by checking back in with the client.

One thing I’ve noticed: this thinking-based defence often becomes particularly strong in older adults and in men. It becomes an identity. And when the mind becomes the only acceptable place to live, there’s very little room for the rest of the human experience.

And so people sit in therapy (or resist going altogether), thinking:

“I should be fine.”

“Others have it worse.”

“My childhood was okay. I shouldn't complain.”

If all you are in touch with are those thoughts, it can be difficult to listen to or notice other signals and signs.

I’ve heard those thoughts many times - I have thought them myself. I had loving parents. I still feel deep gratitude for all they gave me - including my life. But that doesn’t mean my childhood didn’t have difficult, confusing, or emotionally lacking moments.

Many of us grow up in families that look stable from the outside but contain emotional dynamics that are hard to name. Critical voices. Distance. Unacknowledged stress. The child will absorb these things and carry them internally. That may distort how we interpret other people and cause us to grossly miss understand what is really happening in the present.

If we don’t allow space to understand how our early environments shaped us, we risk blaming ourselves for our pain. We may think:

“Why do I feel like this?”

“I have no reason to be unhappy.”

“I should be over it.”

Inherited Trauma

Trauma isn’t only found in catastrophic events. It can live in quiet moments. It can be passed down through nervous systems, relationships — even through biology.

Research shows that trauma doesn’t need to be remembered to shape our nervous system: epigenetic changes in how genes are expressed can be inherited across generations. These patterns can live in us without ever being named.

My grandfather saw untold trauma in the Second World War — as did my grandmother. My father and mother also had some incredibly difficult childhood experiences. All of these shape me today, both through how I was parented and through what I inherited genetically.

These traumas live underground — in our bodies, in our unconscious.

As Gabor Maté writes:

“It doesn’t matter whether we can point to other people who seem more traumatized… for there is no comparing suffering.”

Another way of saying this is what I often quote to my kids from Frozen II, when Kristoff’s moose, Sven, says to him:

“You feel what you feel, and those feelings are real!”

The Truth Is: You Don’t Have to Justify Your Pain

You don’t need to prove your suffering to deserve support. You don’t need a crisis to need connection. If you’ve been feeling foggy, anxious, flat, or like you're just not fully here — that’s a good enough reason to talk to someone.

Therapy isn’t about comparing who has it worse. It’s about making space for your experience, however quiet, confusing, or long-held it may be.

You’re allowed to take up that space.

References- Maté, Gabor. The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness and Healing in a Toxic Culture. Vermilion, 2022.- Youssef, N. A., et al. (2018). Epigenetics of trauma and PTSD: beyond the usual suspects. Neuropharmacology, 145(Pt B), 296–306.- Yehuda, R., et al. (2016). Holocaust exposure induced intergenerational effects on FKBP5 methylation. Biological Psychiatry, 80(5), 372–380.- Pollack, William. Real Boys: Rescuing Our Sons from the Myths of Boyhood. Owl Books, 1999.- Frozen II. Directed by Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee. Walt Disney Pictures, 2019.