When we were in London this summer, I was crying uncontrollably in a tube station when a train across the platform pulled ahead and directly across from me was a sign that read in big block letters: It’s Okay to Ask for Help.
I remember staring at it, through my tears, and looking from side to side like this message might be only visible to me. I saw my husband and my kids, waiting for our train and filled to the brim with enthusiasm on this first day of our 25 day European holiday, and I realised with a sense of impending doom that I was falling apart.
Sometimes it takes awhile to understand that we are not okay. I had no idea what to do on that underground platform when I couldn’t stop sobbing. I was exhausted, overwhelmed, stressed to the max, and full of fear. I felt alien to myself. I knew that my kids in particular were worried about me, and I couldn’t reassure them because I didn’t know what was happening myself.
But I clung to that tube station message, like a drowning person holds a life preserver, for the remainder of our trip. It helped me, when I felt utterly lost. I believed in a philosophical manner that it was okay to ask for help, but I had no real experience with this as a practical concept. I was accustomed to being the person who offered help to others. Receiving it for myself was a new experience.
When we got home in mid-August, I felt relieved. Once again, I was in familiar surroundings and felt slightly more capable. But slowly, I came to understand that I was not well and needed medical attention. Throughout the fall, I went to my doctor a lot. I cried in her office every single time. My blood pressure was too high. My sleeping was for shit, and for the first time I considered that I might be struggling with anxiety and depression.
She put me on an oestrogen gel for perimenopause symptoms, and within two weeks I felt significantly better. A month after that I went on the lowest possible dose of a blood pressure medicine, and my heart palpitations/generalized anxiety went away shortly after that. Two months on this medicine and my blood pressure is back to normal, where it always was before.
The long and the short of this post is that It’s Okay to Ask for Help. At any stage or age. Even when it’s inconvenient, like at the start of a big European holiday that we saved for and planned for nearly two years. It’s okay if you don’t even know what’s wrong. And it’s okay to fall apart if you are a wife and a mom and secure in your identity as the one who holds it all together for everyone else. Maybe it’s especially important to know it’s okay when it’s a foreign concept for you, like it was for me.
The second day of our trip, at a gorgeous old pub in Canary Wharf where we had lunch, I told my family that I was thinking about flying home. They were kind and gentle with me, assuring me that I should stay, and that I could take things at my own pace. It was strange and surreal to feel so sad and unmoored and not be able to articulate why I was feeling this way.
In the summer, I couldn’t find a reason, because I didn’t know the reason until the fall. But in ten different countries in Europe, I cried and felt overwhelmed and allowed myself to simply be a mess and not have it all figured out. Looking back on it now, I can see how freeing it was to let go. To ask for help and to try to figure out how to receive help from my loved ones. Jason, Ava, and William were their best selves on that trip. They all thrived, so they led the way and I followed.
As women, we need to learn to ask for help when we are struggling. The last half of 2023 has been a daily exercise in learning how to receive help from others: my family, my friends, my doctor, my counselor. It’s uncomfortable at first, but it’s so worth it, as now I feel stronger and better than I have in a long time. But it starts with asking for help.
As this year ends, and a new one begins, how are you doing? I’m here to remind you that It’s Okay to Ask for Help.