Refusal to Ask for Help in Adulthood: Causes and Coping
Most of us don’t think twice about offering help to someone we care about. Yet when it comes to our own needs, something in us can have a hard time accepting the same support. We might wave off support with a quick, “I got it,” even if we’re drowning in responsibilities. We may also convince ourselves that the problem isn’t “big enough” or that someone else needs support more.
When asking for support seems risky, even small moments of vulnerability, like admitting you’re stressed or confused, can trigger shame or anxiety instead of relief. To help address the difficulty accepting help mental health issues can cause, this page focuses on:
- What it means to have a difficult time asking for help, and why we might avoid it
- Ways to learn how to ask for and receive help
- Therapy approaches for accepting support
- Where to find professional support
- Answers to commonly asked questions about the refusal to ask for help in adulthood
What Does It Mean When We Struggle to Ask for Help?
Struggling to ask for help usually means that reaching out feels emotionally risky or unfamiliar and is usually tied to old patterns that kept us safe. This difficulty is about more than being independent; it’s about the beliefs and experiences that told you to minimize your needs, stay in control, and avoid being vulnerable.
For some of us, this difficulty looks like carrying more than we can handle, like taking on work alone, hiding financial stress, or pushing through an illness instead of asking for support. For others, it’s more internal, like feeling embarrassed to admit confusion or worrying that asking for help might change the way others see them.
Underneath the surface, we may crave the support but not know how to express it or feel weak for admitting we need the help. These mixed emotions can leave us feeling isolated, exhausted, or unsure about why simply asking for a helping hand feels so overwhelming.
Why Do We Avoid Asking for Help?
We avoid asking for help for many different reasons. But often the common thread is that somewhere along the way, support became linked with discomfort, whether that’s fear, shame, or disappointment.
The most common reasons people avoid asking for help are:
Early Family Experiences and Childhood Conditioning
Our early childhood experiences shape our emotions, thoughts, actions, and relationships as we become adults.1 If we grew up in a home where caregivers dismissed our emotions or expected us to fend for ourselves, we might have learned to keep our needs to ourselves. These lessons can become habits that are automatic, unchallenged, and deeply tied to identity.Depression and Emotional Withdrawal
Depression can make asking for support feel especially difficult. When we’re depressed, reaching out can feel pointless, undeserved, or too exhausting to attempt.2 This helplessness can lead to depression and isolation behavior. In other words, we might withdraw, not because we don’t want help, but because hopelessness and shame convince us that we shouldn’t ask, or that no one will really understand.Perfectionist Tendencies
Perfectionism often convinces us that asking for help means we’re falling short. When we tie our self-worth to being capable, organized, or “strong,” needing support can trigger shame or self-judgment.
Perfectionism also creates a world where mistakes feel catastrophic, making it harder to admit when we’re struggling. Instead of reaching out, we might try to work harder, manage more, or hide the fact that we’re overwhelmed.
Anxiety and a Fear of Being Vulnerable
When we’re dealing with anxiety, asking for help can make us think of all the negative ways it could go wrong. Fear of vulnerability symptoms might look like worry about judgment, fear of rejection, or imagining scenarios where asking for support leads to embarrassment or conflict. This kind of anticipatory anxiety can make even minor needs feel like major risks.
Social anxiety also fuels second-guessing, like What if they think I’m being dramatic? or What if I’m asking for too much? Thoughts such as these can push many of us to stay silent rather than risk discomfort.
Trauma and Survival Mode
An independent personality often develops as a form of safety, especially after traumatic experiences. If we’ve had past experiences where relationships were unpredictable, abusive, or unsafe, relying on others could feel dangerous.
Even as adults, our nervous system can stay wired for self-protection. So, asking for help can bring up old feelings of vulnerability, powerlessness, or fear, making independence feel like the only safe option.
Cultural or Gender Norms
Many cultural messages equate independence with strength. Men, specifically, are often socialized not to show weakness, so they may have more stigma around seeking help.3 At the same time, caregivers and women are usually expected to meet everyone else’s needs before their own, sometimes making it harder for them to ask for help.These norms can create shame around needing anything at all, even when support is reasonable and deserved.
Coping With Trust Issues: Learning to Receive Support Without Shame
Relearning how to ask for help starts with understanding the old narratives that convinced us that our needs were too inconvenient or too risky to share. Strategies such as the following can help us build more trust in ourselves and others, so we can ask for help with increased compassion and less shame.
Start by Changing What Help Actually Means
Many of us carry unspoken beliefs that asking for help means weakness or failure. But help is a form of collaboration, not dependence. It allows us to connect, to be part of each other’s lives, and to distribute the weight of being human. Research also shows us that we often underestimate others’ willingness to help.4 So we may be too quick to think that we’re putting someone out by asking for support.
Instead, try asking yourself if someone you cared about needed support, would you see them as weak or a burden? The answer is usually “no,” and the same compassion you would typically give to someone else should also apply to you.
Begin With Small, Low-Stakes Requests
You don’t have to start with trying to meet big, emotional needs. In fact, practicing with everyday tasks can help retrain your nervous system and override relationship trust issues. For example, ask a coworker to look over something for you. Ask a friend to pick up something from the store. Or ask a partner for a few minutes of their time. These smaller moments can help your body learn that reaching out doesn’t always lead to rejection or judgment.
Notice the Feelings Beneath the Resistance
Most of us aren’t trying to avoid help. We might instead be subconsciously avoiding the feelings that come with it, whether they’re shame, fear of being seen, fear of disappointing someone, or old memories of needing too much.
Instead of pushing these feelings away, try naming them, like by mentally saying, This is anxiety or This is a belief I’ve learned, not the truth. Naming emotions can reduce their intensity and give us room to choose a new response.5
Therapy to Accept Support
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
The focus of CBT is to help us identify, recognize, and challenge the thoughts and beliefs that are contributing to emotional self-reliance problems.6 When we’re having difficulty accepting help, CBT helps identify what makes help-seeking feel threatening. For instance, it can uncover ideas like I should handle everything myself, Needing support means I’m failing, or People will think I’m weak.
Through CBT, we learn to examine these thoughts, understand where they come from, and replace them with more balanced, self-affirming perspectives.
Interpersonal Skills Since help-seeking is inherently relational, dialectical behavior therapy is often an appropriate treatment option. DBT interpersonal effectiveness focuses on communication, boundaries, and connection to help rebuild trust with others. In a safe therapeutic relationship, you can practice:
Expressing needs without apology.- Tolerating healthy dependence.
- Communicating discomfort without withdrawing.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
ACT focuses on identifying our core values, like connection, stability, community, and belonging. It also helps us learn how to act in alignment with these values, even when fear or discomfort shows up.7 For many of us, refusing help conflicts with our deeper values of wanting connection. ACT can work to bridge that gap.
Mission Connection: Support For Anxiety and Help-Seeking
At Mission Connection, we understand that difficulty asking for or accepting help isn’t a reflection of you, but rather of your lived experiences. Using approaches like DBT, ACT, and mindfulness-based work, we can help you explore the beliefs that shaped your independence, make sense of the discomfort that shows up around vulnerability, and practice asking for help in ways that feel safe and respectful of your boundaries.
With us, you can learn to explore what it might feel like to receive help without shame or fear. Contact Mission Connection today to learn more.
Frequently Asked Questions About Refusing to Ask for Help in Adulthood
If you have some remaining questions or concerns about the difficulty accepting help mental health issues can cause, the following answers to FAQs may help.
1. Why Do I Resist Asking for Help?
You might resist asking for help because doing so can make us feel weak or incompetent. It can also trigger old wounds about being judged, misunderstood, or embarrassed. But difficulty asking for help is far more common than most people realize. For this reason, there are a variety of treatment options that can provide relief.
2. Is Not Wanting to Ask for Help a Trauma Response?
It can be. Being unwilling to ask for help can come from past experiences where we felt unsafe voicing our needs. If seeking support caused harm, abuse, or neglect, or if being independent was valued, we might feel unwilling or unable to ask for help.
3. Do I Need Residential Mental Health Treatment if I Can’t Ask for Help?
You don’t necessarily need residential treatment if you can’t ask for help. But if it’s impacting your life or causing you a lot of distress, it might be best to find treatment that helps you feel safe. You might also want to look into treatment if not asking for help is causing severe mental distress or thoughts of harming yourself.
4. Does Mission Connection Help With Issues Like Fear of Vulnerability, Emotional Withdrawal, or Chronic Self-Reliance?
Yes, we specialize in helping adults who find asking for or accepting support challenging. Through trauma-informed therapy, CBT, EMDR, and mindfulness-based approaches, we look at the deeper emotional patterns that shaped your self-reliance and help you build a healthier, more balanced relationship with connection. Our goal is to support you in feeling safer, more grounded, and more open to receiving help when you need it, without shame or fear.
References
- Daines, C. L., Hansen, D., Novilla, M. L. B., & Crandall, A. (2021). Effects of positive and negative childhood experiences on adult family health. BMC Public Health, 21(1), 651. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-021-10732-w
- Pryce, C. R., Azzinnari, D., Spinelli, S., Seifritz, E., Tegethoff, M., & Meinlschmidt, G. (2011). Helplessness: A systematic translational review of theory and evidence for its relevance to understanding and treating depression. Pharmacology & Therapeutics, 132(3), 242–267. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pharmthera.2011.06.006
- Üzümçeker, E. (2025). Traditional Masculinity and Men’s Psychological Help‐Seeking: A Meta‐Analysis. International Journal of Psychology, 60(2), e70031. https://doi.org/10.1002/ijop.70031
- Zhao, X., & Epley, N. (2022). Surprisingly happy to have helped: Underestimating prosociality creates a misplaced barrier to asking for help. Psychological Science, 33(10), 1708–1731. https://doi.org/10.1177/09567976221097615
- Levy-Gigi, E., & Shamay-Tsoory, S. (2022). Affect labeling: The role of timing and intensity. PLoS ONE, 17(12), e0279303. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0279303
- Hofmann, S. G., Asnaani, A., Vonk, I. J. J., Sawyer, A. T., & Fang, A. (2012b). The Efficacy of Cognitive Behavioral therapy: A review of Meta-analyses. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 36(5), 427–440. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-012-9476-1
- P, A. S., & S, G. (2025). Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Psychological Well-Being: A Narrative Review. Cureus, 17(1), e77705. https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.77705