"The disgust you feel when someone asks for help may be guarding a request you were never allowed to make."
If this resonates with you, what follows may help you see something about yourself.
SeekerThere’s a guy on my team, Marcus. Every small thing, he’s in my inbox. “Can you walk me through this?” “Do you have a sec?” It makes my skin crawl. I don’t even know why it’s this strong.
GuideWhat does the crawl feel like, when it hits?
SeekerLike disgust. Like watching someone who won’t stand up on their own feet. Just do the work. Figure it out. Nobody’s coming to hold your hand.
GuideNobody’s coming. You say that like it’s just a fact.
SeekerIt is a fact. That’s how it works. You’d find him exhausting too, honestly. He’s a grown man.
GuideI might. But I keep landing on how much heat is in it for you. Exhausting is a shrug. This sounds closer to contempt.
SeekerFine, contempt. He should be embarrassed, asking for that much. I would be.
GuideSay that part again.
Guide“I would be.” Embarrassed. To ask.
SeekerBecause… I handle my own stuff. If I’m stuck I sit with it until it breaks and I solve it. I don’t go begging around the office.
SeekerYou know what I mean. Asking. Whatever.
GuideThose aren’t the same word, though. He’s asking. You said begging.
SeekerOkay, that’s, that’s just how I hear it. Doesn’t mean anything.
GuideMaybe it doesn’t. From this end I’m just noticing the thing he does freely is the thing you won’t let yourself do at all. And it disgusts you at exactly the spot you’re most locked down.
SeekerThat’s a reach. Him being needy and me being competent are not the same problem.
GuideI didn’t say competent was the problem.
SeekerNo, I did, because it’s not one. It’s the one good thing. I don’t lean on anyone. People can count on me and I count on me. That’s not a wound, that’s just how I built myself.
GuideHow you built yourself. When did the building start?
Seeker…I don’t know. Early. I asked and I couldn’t ask, so I stopped. It was easier to just not need anything.
GuideSo the kid stopped asking.
SeekerMake it sad. It’s not sad, it worked. It still works. I get more done than anyone I know.
GuideI believe you. I’m just sitting with the possibility that when Marcus asks, some part of you that isn’t allowed to ask you see it in him. And you have to slap it down fast.
SeekerThat’s… no. I don’t want to be him. Sending five emails, waiting for someone to come save me.
GuideI don’t think you want to be him. I think there might be something he has that you don’t, and it’s easier to call it pathetic than to want it.
SeekerI’m not doing this. If I let that in, what, I just start needing people? I don’t even know how that goes.
GuideYou don’t have to do anything with it right now.
SeekerYeah. I’m not gonna. I need to get back to work.
If asking for help stopped meaning you'd failed, what would you let yourself ask for first, and what makes that hard to picture?
What actually shiftedContempt for people who ask for help often guards a need the person shut off in themselves. For some, self-sufficiency was the price of staying acceptable, so their own wish to be helped got buried and now shows up as disgust when others ask freely. The heat may mark the exact spot where asking still feels forbidden.
Keeping the direction yoursIf you read back the conversation: notice where the guide quietly became the one who knows — naming things, settling them. That feels normal because it happens so often. It's also where your own sense of direction can go quiet. SelfChatter adds a second voice that just makes those moments visible, so the direction stays yours.