Since his lecture, I have been trying to analyse what prevents me from vocalising my needs to others. I have many theories, or rather, I think there’s a bouquet of possible explanations rather than a single rationale. I have somehow either been programmed or programmed myself to think that asking for help means having to acknowledge a failure at being self-sufficient. I have this memory from childhood of asking my older brother for help and him often refusing by saying, ‘just think about what you would have done if I was not here and do that’. It was borderline cruel, I think now. I may have internalised that asking for assistance means not being able to do something oneself. I’ve possibly even connected it with shame. There’s also the insecurity of being refused the help you seek and the ensuing fear of rejection that makes it easier to complete the task on hand oneself. 

Or maybe, depending on other people is an act of faith, and my faith never grew to the size of a mustard seed. I’ve no problem asking for mundane things, like directions, or recipes, or admitting failure even. It’s easier with strangers, the stakes are lower. But having to ask loved ones for something means having to accept a state of dependency, which binds me to them and exposes me in a way. Maybe I am afraid of being judged or taken as someone who cannot function independently and needs others. 

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I have also been conditioned to always anticipate the needs of others and to find ways of fulfilling them without needing them to articulate the same. As a woman, I have also frequently had to place other people’s needs above my own, which has meant that the process of empathising with myself has been one I have had to initiate, inculcate, and internalise through therapy. Becoming an expert at identifying other people’s needs by over-focussing on them instead of your own also means one gets good at harbouring resentment against those in your intimate circles for not exercising the same penchant for mind reading as you. Passive aggressive behaviour starts to manifest without your active promotion of it. Also, as a woman, so many needs are ascribed to me in situations that I have to stand up and assert that I didn’t ask for something, like unwanted attention or an othering gaze.

I suppose learning to ask from a space of security represents being comfortable with the boundaries of one’s potential. It involves refusing to be a martyr and instead accepting that we need other people, and that the person you ask has the right to refuse and it doesn’t mean they are rejecting you. Eighty per cent of the time, when I ask from a space of kindness, my needs are satisfied. I just have to find it in me to be graceful enough to articulate what I need. To begin with, it’s for my in-laws to cook me lunch on the days when I am working. They’ve already eagerly said I can even live with them if I need to. The next ten days will be a test of how ready I am to accept the help being offered to me. Wish me luck.

Deliberating on the life and times of Everywoman, Rosalyn D’Mello is a reputable art critic and the author of A Handbook For My Lover. She tweets @RosaParx
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The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper.