just ask for help

 "...if you need any help, just let me know."

it's something you hear all the time. in stores, from people, pamphlets and commercials.

just ask for help.

why didn't you ask for help?

what help?

where?

last week i received a 14 day pay or vacate notice for my apartment. there's several things that bother me about it- mostly that i've only missed one month of rent (technically 2 i guess since i can't pay this month either).

they included 3 pages of: "if you need help" information including legal aid, rental assistance, and mediation.

i called legal aid. after grilling me on all my resources- do you know how particularly humiliating it is to be asked "if you held a yard sale today and sold everything in your home, how much would you get?" and have the answer be *maybe* a few hundred bucks? BECAUSE I'VE TRIED TO SELL EVERYTHING AND IT AIN'T WORTH SHIT. paintings? nope. stupidly expensive vacuum? nope. collectibles? nope. clothes? nope. NO ONE WANTS MY STUFF, OK? but thanks for that extra little shovel full of rock bottom. after grilling me on resources and suggesting things i'd already done, they just told me to fill out the mediation form.

the rental assistancesheet? one resource for people living outside city limits and the other for covid relief funds, already publicly announced as completely depleted several months ago.

so, in reality, zero resources in their three pages of resources.

and that's just the most recent example.

WHERE DO YOU ASK FOR HELP?

during that same phone conversation with the not so helpful legal aid intake, the guy made sure to ask all the painful questions: family? friends?

dead or in other cities.

besides, have you seen what the last two years have done to EVERYONE?

 

it's bothered me all week. how many times a day on the news, social media, in person do you hear OVER AND OVER AND OVER: JUST ASK FOR HELP.

how many times as a kid did i ask a teacher or a grown up for help and the answer was "i can't do everything for you, figure it out."

how many times have i asked for help at work just to hear "...not my job."

how many times have i asked someone for help only to find out now i "owe them something?"

how many times have i asked for help only to be ridiculed for being weak, incapable, unintelligent, or a hundred other hurtful demeaning things.

when i was leaving a domestic violence marriage, and asked my mom for help, she told me it would be too embarrassing for her husband at work.

when i asked my brother for help leaving the domestic violence marriage he told me "...you can only ask family for help so many times before they stop showing up."

when i asked my mom for help after her husband sexually assaulted me she said "...what do you want me to do? it already happened."

when i asked my brother for help after his roommate raped me he said "...[roommate] wouldn't do something like that, he's the sheriff's son."

when things were going bad with my second son, i asked the police for help. the cop looked at me and said "...it's time to start being a mom" and left.

after the first big covid lockdown, when were finally allowed outside again with masks, i asked a friend for help with feeling isolated and alone- maybe we could have an outside bonfire, distanced, with masks. their poly group as a whole voted no. there's a particular pain in having a whole group vote not to help you.

when i was having a mental health crisis at work due to staff shortages, workload, isolation, work from home, no managers, no resources...after several emails and requests for help they fired me.

i've been job searching for 6 months and yeah, there's "help" available. classes with bad information/instructors, burned out workers who forget who you are between contacts. suggestions to apply for jobs that destructive and demeaning (no, i do not want to work for amazon.)

really, where is this help? what does it take to get help? what even is or would help look like at this point? 

therapy? they're either not taking new clients, don't accept insurance, quit a few weeks in (had a counselor and an EMDR therapist both quit their jobs in the same week.)

i know better than to ask doctors for help anymore. i'm fat and female and poor. three strikes.

and yes, i fully acknowledge i have been more than lucky; i have drained the luck well dry over the years with the help that i HAVE received. i was able to get housing leaving the dv marriage because of an amazing social worker and landlord. i have an amazing friend that has been absolute life support helping out financially the last year. over the years i've had people help me move, watch my kids, watch my dog. i'm one of the absolute lucky ones that HAS had very critical points of help.

how many haven't had anything?

how many haven't have anyone at all?

and then you start adding layers in: how many haven't had energy to ask for help? the resources to get to or use the help? education or knowledge on how to utilize the help? how many have been abused/grifted/taken advantage of by "helpers?" in some of the darkest situations, how many have called a hotline to be disconnected or put on hold?

it feels, too many times, like paperwork and red tape and hoops are there to drain the non-existent reserves of people asking for help INTENTIONALLY to make them...go away? (where is away?) if they just wait long enough, maybe we won't need help anymore.

how many, like me, have been shut down, ignored, or attacked for asking for help? which then makes even asking a monumental task.

programs are out of funding. workers are burned out. resources aren't available. 

sometimes you figure it out.

sometimes you end up writing a blog post at 2 am because you don't know what else to do.

i need HELP.

i need people, i need a job, i need security and stability and safety. it's pretty clear i'm fucking it up spectacularly on my own.

i just don't know where to find help.