TW: why do I have constant fear of bothering others with my issues, despite people telling me I can come to them and call them at any time (in relation to depression and suicide)?

32 comments

  1. Go to a hotline, not your friends. This may be a tough pill to swallow, but everyone is dealing with their own problems. You should be sharing your issues with your friends based on how much they share with you (less or equal to). Seek therapy, find a hotline. I’ve been in a similar situation. You will lose your friends in the long run if you overburden people with your struggles.

  2. I know that my fear of bothering others comes from my family telling me that I’m overreacting. I always have been a little emotional but whenever I would be upset I was ‘overreacting’. Now I bottle it all up until I explode at someone, not the healthiest

  4. Yeah, I’m the same way. I realize it’s because my parents weren’t very supportive and didn’t encourage me to talk to them about anything really. So for me, it’s letting go of the years long narrative that I need to just deal with stuff on my own. It’s a process 😟.

  5. Shift your perspective: you are so awesome that you will make their day if you interact with them.

  6. Personally I feel like people say that to be nice or whatever and from what i experienced only a couple ever mean it sincerely

  7. Most people don’t understand what you’re going through and sadly a lot of people will just tell you to get a grip, which is bollocks off course.

    In life you realise the people you can trust and go to for help and the ones that you can’t

  8. All that negativity isn’t coming from people, it’s coming from your brain. Fix your opinion of yourself first.

    Then you can walk up to anyone and strike up a conversation because you will feel like talking to them is a gift from you.

    You have low self-esteem and low confidence. Until you learn to improve those things you will be a slave to your own mind. Your mind is what you tell it to be and how you train it to react. Right now you are stuck in a shame spiral feeding yourself low value information. You need to seriously make a list of all the wonderful things about you and hammer that information into your brain every day until your mind let’s go of all your self-doubting, limiting beliefs about yourself. Read up on training your ego/mind and eradicating limiting beliefs.

  10. Most likely because as a child you were made to feel like you were a burden for having needs. So that part of you that asks these questions and searches for wisdom is going to have to help that part of you who was hurt like this to feel loved. If you can do this work with a therapist that would be wonderful. In the meantime, we are all here to support you. I mean that. You can DM me anytime. You are not a burden to me, ever, and I would be grateful for the honor of participating in your recovery.

  11. I have the exact same “fear” and it’s due to my OCD. Some people with OCD tend to go reassurance seeking to ease their anxieties and I would absolutely go out of my way to not bother people, while also asking them if I’m being a bother despite them telling me I in no way bother them.

    This is also a trait of general anxiety, not just OCD, but thought it would be worth mentioning.

  12. When I’ve reached out to friends in the past, regarding similar issues, I’ve found that they just aren’t able to really help, and so they sort of drop off over time. They try, but after some time, they get annoyed at how you’re still having such a hard time, and run out of words to say, so they just sort of fall off.

    The only thing that’s actually helped me was therapy. I was skeptical at first, as I did therapy when I was kid, and didn’t have a good experience, but boy was I wrong. I’ve only been going a few months, and I already feel a lot better. If you can, please try to seek professional help. They’ll be more able to help, and you don’t need to worry about burdening them, because that’s what they’re there to do.

  13. *I am sorry that you are going through that fear and I also have the same fear and it can be 100% overwhelming amongst other stressors that cause emotional stress and pain.*

  14. Yeah I can relate my older brothers don’t like being bothered listening to anything that won’t benefit them or their families. It’s ridiculous

  15. I’ve been told I talk too much, so I try to not talk at all. And when I do talk, I say stupid shit. And the reason I say stupid shit is because I don’t socialize enough. 🙁

    I feel ya OP. It’s rough out there. I hope you find peace and happiness.

  16. Cause generally people say that to be nice, but don’t actually expect you to do it. I’m the same way, I feel like a burden when I bother people with my problems so I just bottle it all in. It’s not healthy but until the social stigma of not wanting to hear other people’s problems goes away, that’s what a lot of folks will do.

  17. I can absolutely relate to this. I don’t even want to call businesses for fear of bothering them. It’s so irrational.

  18. Same. I feel like no matter how much I tell them, they’ll never understand. They just won’t get it. Also when I tell text them about my problems or about how I’m feeling, they just text “okay”. That’s why I don’t text people anymore.

  19. First of all, if they are really your friends then you should never think that. Otherwise what are friends for? When my friends come to me with their issues, I openly talk to them and try to help them with whatever they are dealing with. Vice versa. It brings me great joy helping them and being there for them, as I know I’m making a difference in their lives and because I care about them I want them to see them thrive. I want to help in any way I can. That’s what being a true friend is. You also have to consider people like to feel needed. They are your friends so they should care about you. If they don’t and you have clear evidence of that, then they are not a real friend.

  20. For me asking that question was the first step in learning that I had a generalized anxiety disorder. If you happen to know that that runs in your family or if you’ve even thought about it before I would recommend taking to a psychiatrist and see what they think.

  21. Yesss!!! I do not approach or ask people for help because i have horrible social anxiety and **i feel like i am** **sounding friendless or desperate** if i do call someone or approach them first. talking about your depression and suicide thoughts, please do not let the latter take toll on you. you are awesome you can talk to us, your reddit friends 🙂

  22. The last time I contacted someone to tell them about me being suicidal the reply was „stop“ and that’s it

  23. My guess is that someone, who should have given you the unconditional love that was your birthright, instead told you, over and over again, by words and deeds, that you were a bother.

    Eventually you heard that lie often enough that you internalised it and came to believe that it was true.

  24. Would you want someone calling you to talk about their suicide and depression? Likely no. You are smart enough to realize that, which is why you don’t. Your family would only do that for you because they love you. People only do things they really don’t want to do out of love. Maybe that’s what you don’t get?

  25. Maybe you feel that they don’t genuinely care and that you’ll just be a burden upon them.. but I think you should reach out to them and you might end up realizing that they’re actually willing to listen out. Sometimes venting to someone can help release a lot of tension or emotions.

  26. Are you working with a therapist? Is not id suggest u find one and het to work. These things root in childhood.

  27. When you finally gather the courage to tell them, you are brushed off, ridiculed or worse used against you. And then you become a master of bottling up your feelings. Atleast that is what happened to me.

  28. Man idk, for a lot of people it’s because of their parents, mine were always very supportive. For me it’s because most of the time when people ask me about something that isn’t along the lines of, I feel really bad I need help, like can you do x for me because in essence I’m too lazy, I actually feel bothered. So when I actually would need help, from my view, if someone else did that, they would be bothering me.

    But that depends on my mood. Yesterday I was studying with an acquaintance at the library and some foreign girl needed help finding a book, took like 30 minutes and a bunch of asking around but I think we found it in the end but it felt good. I know if I didn’t help her or was complaining the entire time, the poor girl wouldn’t have ever asked anyone about anything ever again so I felt like I had to

  29. A lot of- probably most- people aren’t actually willing or even able to help you. It’s the polite thing to say you can go to them and they’ll sit there and listen but if you need anything more than a shoulder to cry on or cookie-cutter non-advice then most people are gonna no use to you. If you tell them anything other than ‘thanks, this helped’, people tend to get defensive and make the conversation about how you telling them they didn’t help makes them feel. That’s emotionally draining on you, on top of not helping you with your original problem at all.

    Really, whatever is wrong, the solution will probably not be easy to find or else you would probably have already found it. Just keep searching, eventually you’ll find someone with actually useful advice or some kind of practical, *material* help they can give.

  30. You dont love your self enough or even not at all. You have to embrace the world and bothere some people. Make sure it is in time and place and no one will be upset about.

  32. As a person being at a friends suicide. And when I say at it, I mean like heard the shot ring out, there. And then was the human who kicked in the door to find his body.

    I tell you no lie, if you are contemplating suicide, first, it is the most selfish thing a human can do I have been told. Not sure I completely agree with that. But please consider those left to morn you and or find you.

    Let the fear of me finding you outweigh your fear of telling a friend/elder/therapist your pains. It’s no fun in that moment to also be told by the police this is a homicide investigation until they concluded otherwise. After already being scoped through an AR because neighbors called that shots had been fired. Police called in reinforcements because a neighbor was chopping wood, that noise sent the one shot that did happen into overdrive for the police. A shot gun at short range to answer too wasn’t fun either. And please people for the life of you ALWAYS know where you are at. My call to 911 from intermittent cell reception, I had no way to conclusively tell police where on the street I did know I was on.

    Furthermore, I was there to try and help in the depressing parts that they had let go way too long to be able to help.

    Please vent as life happens so you can enjoy your life, everyone has depressing moments, all work through~able imo with the right help be it friends, be it counseling or therapy chair, be it a religious guidance, be it medicinally, be it physical activity, be it a creative creation development. There are options if you want there to be.

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