Is depending on others a weakness?

Healing stories #3: My feelings around dependence and trust.

Recently, my grandma lost her vision in one eye to a late-stage cataract. There is nothing that could be done. She has to carry on her life with the other eye. She is a strong woman with pride. One day I heard her talking to her sister on the phone. She said, “I hope God takes away when I’m still able to see.” 

That was heartbreaking to hear. But that was her pain and pride speaking. She doesn’t want to depend on others. More than that, she didn’t want to be seen as a burden. 

I don’t know if it’s a coincidence to make me think more. But I’m working on the same thing on my healing journey. I have already talked about one part of it: my trust issues. The other is my openness to depend on someone for my needs. 

Independence and a sense of control are a basic need for sure.

But every day living doesn’t work that way.  You are mostly dependent on someone for something.

There are some special circumstances that are non-negotiable and widely accepted:

• Old people with the inability to look after themselves.

• Young children up to a certain age.

But I’m talking about the less talked-about yet vastly experienced ones:

• Like a mother who gives up her job to be with her children is dependent on her husband for money.

• Like a husband who runs to make a living for his family depends on his wife to provide food and care.

• Like an adult who depends on his parents till he gets the right job.

• Like the sister who depends on her brother to pick her up late at night after work.

• Like the friend who can’t eat alone without her bestie.

Do you get what I’m trying to say? These experiences are subtle ones. Most feel that it’s their right. Many don’t even see it as a problem. But someone like me—wounded, sensitive and overthinking—sees it in a different way. Even with people who love me and are ready to help me.

How I feel when I have to depend/rely on someone else:

• Am I disturbing them?

• Will they think of me as a weak person?

• Will they use me for this?

• I’m in debt to them till death.

• Oh, it’s a shame that I have to depend on them. Why can’t I find some other way ?

• Will they be condescending to me? Oh, that’ll hurt like hell.

Why do I feel this way?

Well, I don’t know completely. I thought it was the social media. Where most people seem to do it all with no help. But also realizing that most of it is a lie, I don’t think that’s the reason anymore. Because my healing journey says its due to something else. 

There are factors like fear of losing one’s identity, cultural values and parental beliefs transferred behind such thoughts. But the root cause is our past experience of abandonment and neglect in early life. Everything starts there, it seems. And it feels right when you are actually wounded. As your ability to trust weakens, your fear of dependency stems. Even though most around you say, it’s okay to rely on a loved one or a family, it’s hard. This is because it’s mostly with some loved ones or family with whom you had to face this hurtful experience.

And you need to get to those roots to feel trusting and relying on others. The pain has to be healed. Rewritten. And it’s actually hard to regress to that level of pain that you had safely dumped in your inner attic.

Past cannot be changed. But past can be rewritten. In your mind. At least for your inner child.

So this week was all about getting to that infant inner child, knowing her more and getting her to trust me. Making her know that she will never be left alone again. I’ve written about my experience with meeting my infant within here.

I had to get to her level of pain. This involved recalling some incidents that I faced as a child. It was emotional and confusing. I had to take several breaks in between. But it felt good to rewrite one of the unforgettable incidents that I faced as a child. Even though my adult self knew this was an imagined story, my inner child felt happy and calm.

So, am I now okay with relying on others for my needs? Not completely. Can I trust people? I feel that I can do better than before. What helped? Because now I know it’s the inner child in me that needs to learn its okay to trust and rely on others. And the adult self has to guide it in that journey of learning and unlearning. I learned the skill of separating the voices. I will use it when situations come up to test that skill.

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This week's favorites: 

I love being a part of Christina Fang’s 90 words in 90 days challenge. These are some of the latest.

Mohika’s Confessions of a Waxing Wimp. It’s about body image and self-love confessed in a beautiful and vulnerable story.

Jessie’s Can’t stop comparing yourself to Other people. Read this. It made me remember how I was stuck in an inspiration rut, preventing myself from doing the work.

Tanmeet Sethi’s Trusting yourself is a path to joy. Know that trusting yourself is the best gift that you can give yourself. 

If you feel like supporting me, you are just one click away:

A question for you:

What do you feel about your ability to completely rely upon someone? Are you okay with it or does it feel uncomfortable?

Until next week

Love from 

Shanjitha