Self-reliance is often encouraged over asking others for help in the modern world. But doing everything yourself can be a sign that you are scared of intimacy
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hen a relative was seriously ill and in intensive care for more than a month, Cianne Jones stepped in. “I took it upon myself to be that person in the hospital every single day – chasing doctors, taking notes, making sure I understood why they were doing things.” It was so stressful, she says, that at one point her hair started falling out, but she ploughed on.
It was Jones’s therapist who gently questioned whether she was going to ask for help. Jones laughs. “The hair falling out didn’t suggest to me that I needed help, it was somebody else looking in and saying that.” She has a large, close family who would have helped immediately – and did, once Jones asked – it’s just that it didn’t occur to her to ask. “I had taken that role on: ‘I’m just going to get everything done.’ I just took off, and that was it.”
It’s an experience many of us with so-called hyper-independence will recognise. I’ve behaved in similar ways, from more serious situations (I too have shouldered care responsibilities) to ridiculous ones, such as moving house alone, and the time I bought some weightlifting equipment then realised I wasn’t strong enough to carry it home. For most of my life, I’ve prided myself on my hyper-independent lone-wolf status – not relying on anyone but myself. But in recent years, I’ve come to see it not as a sign of my superior capabilities, but fuelled by fear of burdening others with my requests – or worse, being rejected – or of losing control.
