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The inability to ask for help and the habit of always taking on everything can be extremely destructive.
My friend and colleague met a tragic fate at the very pinnacle of his success.
He was a talented person and defended his dissertation in his youth and became the head of the department. Then he emigrated to another country, where he had to start all over again. There, from a scientist, he turned into a laboratory assistant. But unlike many who found themselves in a similar situation, he, without telling new employees about his past successes, so quickly and deeply delved into the essence of the problems that his laboratory dealt with, analyzed the results of research so well that he very soon became a co-author of scientific publications, was recognized as a scientist and transferred to scientific staff. Only then did he tell his colleagues that in a past life he had defended his dissertation and even headed a department. After some time, he was offered to become the deputy director of the laboratory.
His financial situation improved, and not only did he buy a house with a bank loan (as many did), but he called his parents and his wife’s parents and bought them apartments, although they were eligible for social housing, moving to this country. But he wanted them to be the owners of their own apartments and, as in everything in his life, he took full responsibility for this.
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- Social status or high achievement
Of course, loans were required to pay large incomes. He had a feeling that he could handle it all, his professional ambitions grew. He, a new emigrant who had recently received a prestigious and well-paid position, decided to create his own laboratory, in which he would be the complete owner. To do this, he passed the most difficult exam, which was successfully passed by a few.
He opened a laboratory. It was a risk, but he had reason to believe in himself. For this laboratory to be truly competitive, he needed professional consultants with appropriate diplomas. But here he did not take into account the decisive thing – his reaction to such a situation. His laboratory, his status and earnings were dependent on professional consultants, whom he had to constantly find and negotiate with them.
The fact is that for him any dependence on others where he considered himself the main one was very traumatic. It was one thing to submit to the position of a laboratory assistant, which he rightly considered temporary, corresponding to the situation of emigration, which he himself had chosen. It could be experienced. But it’s a completely different thing to be dependent on someone at the peak of your success.
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- Depression: how to get away from black thoughts?
This unbearable addiction manifested itself in his personal relationships. He did not accept help even from friends – therefore he did not even tell them about his past successes. When his wife received an invitation to a good job in another city, which, with their debts to the bank, was not at all superfluous, he reacted so painfully to this that he began to have irregular heart rhythms.
In relations with his wife and loved ones, he established a clear hierarchy from the very beginning – he is responsible for everything, and they accept it.
Such was his I-Concept – he had to achieve everything himself and take responsibility for everything and lead those close to him – for their own benefit and with his complete independence. This is how he saw his role in life.
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- “Time to go”: the formula that doesn’t work
When it was discovered that he could not fulfill this role in his own laboratory, his spirits dropped. Of course, he could return to the laboratory from which he left, but this would be a retreat, completely unacceptable to him. He was ready, having emigrated, to start everything from scratch, but he was not ready to cross out anything on an already written sheet.
He got depressed. She completely unnerved him. But worst of all was that at the same time he felt acute shame for his state of depression. He could not afford to openly share these experiences with his wife or close friends – it was humiliating for him. Despite the most severe symptoms, he almost did not seek help from doctors, and when he did come to them, he could not tell frankly about his experiences and feelings, because he believed that he had no right to them. Feeling worthless because of the depression made the depression worse. He began to distort reality. The inability to accept help from others ruled out the intervention of the wife – she firmly knew that she could not and should not take the initiative. It all ended in tragedy. He committed suicide.
Psychological studies have shown that men in a state of depression are much more likely than women to avoid seeking help – from psychiatrists and psychologists, which reduces the chances of timely and successful treatment of this terrible disease. Feeling like a man worthy of this title is incompatible for them with any manifestations of weakness, and depression is a sign of personal weakness.
In this case, it was the unacceptability of not only dependence on anyone, but also the rejection of the natural manifestation of sympathy and help from loved ones. “I’m ready to give everything, but I can’t take anything.” However, an emotional connection cannot be one-sided, it needs reciprocity, otherwise it breaks …
Thus, a good quality – a sense of responsibility – is transformed into alienation and isolation, into a breakdown in communication with precisely those for whom a person considers himself responsible and whom he seeks to help.