Asking for Help

[tiger_spot]

There are two situations in which I ask for help

Comments

[mrissa]

I am terrible at this. The vertigo has made things better and also worse: I have to ask for help more, because there are more things I cannot do. This means that regardless of what it takes out of me to explain what needs doing--sometimes regardless of the inevitability that the only person I can ask will only do a partial job and will do some other things I do not want--I have to go that route.

It is not good fun.

[tiger_spot]

Oooooh yes, when the other person will not do the job you would do. Yes I know that one. It has so many different irritating flavours.

This is one of the nice things about acute rather than chronic illness, is there is so much more that you can just let go for a week or a month until you are feeling better rather than needing to ask someone else to deal with it. Chronic sucks.

[txanne]

Huh. That is a thing I need to think about. I'm glad you brought it up.

[wild_irises]

When abostick59's mother was ill (and she died in 2001, so that's some time ago), I made a conscious decision to get better at asking for help, because it seemed so hard to be really really sick and also have to learn to ask for help at the same time

[baratron]

Also,
5) Is the person likely to be able to provide help in a timely manner?
6) Is it going to use more spoons for me to stress about having to wait for the other person to do $fill_in_the_blank than for me to do it myself?

I have to ask for help for physical things all of the time now, but I also live with a woolly-headed wuzzie who forgets to do things, or agrees to do something "in a minute" which turns out to be an hour before he gets around to it. So lately I have taken to asking him when he actually thinks he'll be able to do something rather than his default "in a minute".

[tiger_spot]

You know, I don't much run into this one in the context of things that are my responsibility that I'm asking for help with, but I do run into it a lot with things that are a shared responsibility we are negotiating who will actually perform. That's interesting, I wonder what's different between the two situations that causes that.

[vvvexation]

Hmm. Looking at this from the other end, if I'm doing something as a favor to someone else, it gets flagged as a higher priority than if I'm doing it for myself...and even shared responsibilities can get tossed in the "for me, therefore less important" bucket. Also, shared responsibilities are more likely to be repeated tasks than one-offs, and I'm more likely to do a one-off task right away out of fear I'll forget it otherwise, or it may feel like less of a burden so I'll be less likely to put it off.

[tiger_spot]

I hear you.

Would you like Internet hugs? I have Internet hugs.

[tiger_spot]

Internet hugs!

::hugs::

::hugs::

::hugs::

[houseboatonstyx]

There was a wonderful long discussion about this sort of thing at Suzette Elgin's ozarque blog a few years ago. For us in 'indirect speech culture' (aka 'Guess' or 'Hint' culture), it's smooth and pleasant, though a little time consuming

[tiger_spot]

I would die before I did that.

Possibly literally, in the absence of 911.

I like my indirect speech to be completely optional and for entertainment only, because it has many fine qualities but it is really, really hard for me. I'm okay at parsing it as long as I'm expecting it and have the appropriate context, but producing it is amazingly difficult. It is like solving crosswords while standing on my head in a 6-foot tub of jello.

[houseboatonstyx]

A direct neighbor doesn't have to parse it, just speak innocently and honestly. Pretty soon the indirect person will get enough information as to how inconvenient the favor would be, then ask directly or go away.

[vvvexation]

So how do introverts typically get along in Hint culture? For me, it wouldn't just be difficult to figure all that out, it would also be exhausting to have to spend that much time talking to that many people every time I wanted help with anything.