There are 2 types of people who don’t accept help: those that help others, but don’t accept help for themselves and people that don’t accept help no mater how bad the situation is. Of course, the latter is a disaster waiting to happen.
Both types say they are independent and not rely on anyone. “I can manage on my own”, “I don’t need help from anyone” (this latter sentence is a big red flag!). This 200% self-reliance is not really possible in our world, where you need networking to succeed. What many people try to do is to substitute a real life network with recommendations and advice from strangers, via Google or social media. Reading reviews is after all, a form of getting help and guidance from other people.
Funny enough, if that aid would come under the form of a special offer, campaign or government funds (grants), it is accepted. Because in this case the fundamental difference is that “the help” is not targeted at them directly. In fact, we all consider ourselves pretty smart when we take advantage of an offer.
One thing is for sure: it’s not pride. People who refuse to accept help will say it is, but it’s not.
How does it manifest?
These people help others, but refuse help. They consider help has to be earned, if accepted at all. Paying it forward also works – meaning they do something for you first and as a result, you’re “paying them back”, not helping. I know, it sounds childish and that is a correct statement from the emotional intelligence point of view. Read further.
We’re talking here about a mix of counter-dependency, low self-esteem, various emotional trauma and possibly narcissism in a few cases.
Their way of asking for help is exposing a problem to you, so that you can jump in and get refused a few times. But in the end, if you insist, well they didn’t want your help, but you really pushed for it. Immature right? People can get stuck emotionally at an age when something really bad happen, until they overcome that. Now you might understand why some people behave like teenagers.
The reasons behind
In short: betrayal and abandonment.
People who refuse to accept help don’t want to be in debt. It could be that at some point they faced strong reproach from someone who provided them help. This resembles counter-dependency, which is typically derived from being abandoned or neglected as a child.
Here’s something that I want to emphasize and not many people realise. There are lot of cases where kids were left under the care of grandparents or other relatives, for significant amounts of time. The parents say: “well, it’s my mom, my sister, a close relative”, BUT the child doesn’t understand familly relationships or genealogy. When the child is very young, those grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins ARE strangers. They cannot substitute the child-parent relationship. Therefore leaving them with another relative, while potentially safe, feels like abandonment.
Complete independence from others is a form of protection, typically emerging from a lack of parental attachment. Full counterdependency is more complex and involves rejecting also personal (emotional) attachment like love. I’ve met such a person in real life and the manifestation is sometimes extreme.
Receiving help could also generate a feeling of shame or make them look incompetent. Therefore, it is a self-esteem issue. This can be tied to a dysfunctional relationship with parents expressed in absence, lack of encouragement or simply ignoring the child (another form of absence). And let’s face it, children are experts at shaming other children for almost anything, including the absence of parents.
Corner cases
There are also cases where gifts got associated with an early (childhood) abuser, therefore rejection of help now comes from a mental blockage.
People who thrive off others’ compassion, pretend to ask for help. They simply complain. They fake needing help or honestly consider they don’t need any help, because if they would accept it they would not have a reason to be pitied. A central theme of their existence would disappear.
Narcissists can also be counter-dependent (although often they are codependent), because accepting help would hurt their image of self-sufficiency and projected superiority. However, their overall picture is much more different. You can read about narcissists here.
All in all, the root cause, can be a mental block or a refuse to change.
What can You do?
Now that you know the root cause, it’s obvious that a long-term fix would be proper therapy. But sometimes, help is needed on the spot.
You could try to expose that person to relevant information, but DON’T push it into their face, as in “hey read this, it’s about you”. Just leave it at hand. An open page on the laptop, an open magazine on the table, you know 🙂
Trade with people who refuse to accept help. Tell them you’re not offering help, but instead you want to make a deal, even if disproportionate. Example: I will help you with a significant problem, if you promise to help me with something else, should it be the case (and most likely it won’t).
Explain that your help will actually help them help others, so that they are a vector for your help, not the target of your help. Example: The person refusing to accept help is having financial problems but has a familly. You can ask for that person’s help to deliver a gift for the rest of the familly and justify your gesture as a sign of appreciation for their qualities.
Another method is to explain that some people get satisfaction out of it. So by accepting your help, they are doing you a favour. To apply this, you just need to be more mature than the person who refuses to accept help.
Conclusion
Understand you can’t truly change anyone from the outside. Change is always interior. So, until that person will find the inner motivation to change, things will stay the same. At least now you know where to look for the root cause.
If you have enjoyed reading this or know someone who needs to hear all this, please go ahead and share it with your friends. Thank you!
