Children were waiting at the sidewalk for their school bus to arrive. Some were playing. Out of the blue, one of them fell. She remained on the ground, afraid to make a move in case they laughed at her. I calmly walked towards her and offered my right hand. She looked up. I gently smiled at her. She placed her hand on mine and got up.
Thankfully, the other kids were quiet and did not bully nor tease her about her fall. They just quietly watched. From a psychologist’s point of view, having received help from a stranger made the little girl feel not incompetent nor weak and inferior. In actuality, she felt relieved that she got help and was not made fun of. A month after that, on Valentine’s Day, she gave me a lollipop as her way of saying thank you.
There was an instance of bullying a long time ago in a kindergarten class. The young boy went home and simply told his mother that the teacher said there were no classes in the next few days. As a family, they found that weird because everybody else had their regular class schedule while he did not. One of his siblings went to check and see if there was any trouble or to find out what really happened. He directly asked his teacher if it was true that there were no classes. The teacher said no. Classes were on schedule. But he was surprised by what the teacher said next. Their brother got into a fight. A really big boy, way bigger than his brother, was bullying him.
ENOUGH OF BULLYING
What the big boy did not expect was that the little boy would fight back. He just got so mad and has had enough of his bullying so he kicked and pushed the big boy to a table. After that, the little boy went home and told his mother that there were no classes. Isn’t it a twist of irony that those who got bullied from their childhood tend to shy away from asking for help even into their adulthood?
One time, a family went to Tagaytay Lake to go boat riding. But their raft got toppled. Two of the three siblings had their life vests on while the other had no life vest but was quickly able to hang on to the raft so as not to drift away. On the other hand, one of those who had a life vest started to panic and struggled to stay afloat. He was kicking so hard and panicking for fear of drowning.
Thankfully, the elder sibling was quick to react and told their brother to be calm as he placed his arm underneath their brother who was almost drowning. He was able to keep him afloat until the lifeguards and rescue boat arrived. Even without asking for help, but seeing his brother was in dire need of help, they were all able to save each other from drowning.
In psychology, there are pros and cons to asking for help. After all, no man is an island. Human beings are social creatures by norm. There might be a fear of holding back because of being told “No” if they ask for help. There is also the social awkwardness or being timid if they sought help as it might be connoted as being weak.
CARING FOR EACH OTHER
According to Stanford News we need to rethink the way society perceives people who ask for help: “Instead of promoting ‘self-care’ and implying that it is people’s own responsibility to sort through their own struggles, perhaps our culture could emphasize the value of caring for each other and create more safe spaces to allow open discussions about our challenges and imperfections.”
This was discussed more in detail by Xuan Zhao, who is a research scientist at the Psychology Department of Stanford SPARQ. She said a faculty director of Standford SPARQ, Hazel Markus, was able to shed light regarding that issue and shared her insights as well.
Before you ask for help, there is a primary need to identify first what the problem is. Once you have established this, choose to whom you should ask for help. It would be difficult and a paradox if we end up asking for help from the wrong people who would only be inflicting more harm or wants to further hurt you. Not all help is good. It’s a sad reality that there are people who do not have your best interests at heart. If it’s a personal problem, you should find someone who is really trustworthy. It should be someone to whom you can entrust your life with and someone that you can feel safe and believe in.
