“I can't ask for help in case they think I can't cope”
A parent may smile through the health visit, tell the school everything is fine and keep the hardest weeks to herself. Behind it there is often a fear that admitting a struggle will be read as failing, or will bring child services to the door. Reviews of mothers' experiences in pregnancy and after a birth have found the same fears again and again: being seen as a bad mother (Button and colleagues, 2017, 24 studies) and losing custody (Megnin-Viggars and colleagues, 2015, 39 UK studies). Those reviews looked at the months around a birth, so they say less about later years or about fathers. What matters most is what the fear rests on, and whether it is keeping the parent from help needed now.
What to check first
It helps to check what the fear is built on: something that happened to someone known, a story heard, a past contact with services, or a general dread. It also helps to notice how long things have been hard and whether sleep, eating or the care of the children has slipped. If low mood has lasted two weeks or more, a doctor is worth seeing, whatever the fear says.
What could be going on
Barriers to asking for help (help-seeking): Fits if the fear of what asking might bring, a judgment or a visit from services, outweighs the need itself.
Shame: Check whether the fear is of being seen as a failing mother, a feeling that sits on your sense of who you are.
Counterdependence (devaluing one's own need): Could be that needing help at all feels weak, so the need gets pushed down before it is ever spoken.
Major depression: Check whether coping has slipped for two weeks or more, with low mood, poor sleep or no interest in anything.
Telling them apart
Barriers to asking for help (help-seeking): The need may be clear and the parent may know where help is, and the risk of asking still feels bigger. Fear of judgment, of services or of owing someone may each hold the door shut.
Shame: The fear may go deeper than one person's opinion, into a sense of being a bad mother underneath. The parent may hide small struggles as well as big ones, and feel exposed even when someone kindly asks.
Counterdependence (devaluing one's own need): Needing anything may feel like weakness, a lesson perhaps learned long before the kids. The parent may say "I'm fine" before the question is finished, and feel uneasy when help arrives anyway.
Major depression: The worry about coping may be real because coping has slipped: two weeks or more of low mood, broken sleep and no pleasure in anything. Low mood can also make other people's judgment feel certain, so asking seems riskier still.
Questions to carry
- When I last held back from asking, who was I about to ask and what did I picture them thinking?
- What would it mean about me if someone saw that I'm struggling?
Also said as
- scared to ask for help in case they take my kids
- afraid child services will get involved if i say i'm struggling
- if i tell the doctor i'm depressed will they take my baby
- can't admit i'm struggling as a mom
- scared of being seen as a bad mother
- too proud to ask for help
Close to this
Situations that share these patterns.