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There is no maximum number of ‘asks’ when it comes to needing help from a loved one, so why does it often feel uncomfortable to make yet another request? I explore what it’s like to feel like a burden when you need help and what to do about it in my new article for HealthCentral:

“I am a burden because I am sick.”

It’s an unwelcome and deeply sad moment when this thought sneaks into your head, often in a moment of pain or sickness. It tiptoes in late at night while you’re staring into the darkness, unable to sleep for worry. It pops into being when you have to ask for help from your spouse, family members, friends.

Burden. Such a heavy word. Such a heavy weight to carry.

We live in a culture that values independence, to the point that all of us — sick or healthy — have an aversion to asking for help, even when the task legitimately takes a team. Relying on others is anathema to our being, but then chronic illness appears and suddenly you have no choice but to ask.

My life with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) often has my mind firmly rooted in a particular category of worry: What do you do when you feel you cannot ask for help again and again, but very much need that help? What do you do when you can feel an exasperated sigh vibrating off of the person upon whom you are dependent, even if they don’t actually audibly sigh?

There is a story that the Inuit — indigenous people of northern Canada, Alaska, and Greenland — would put the elderly out to sea on an ice floe when they ceased being productive (in reality only very rarely practiced during periods of extreme hardship). But living with chronic illness can make us wonder: Do others view us as unproductive and a burden? Will our spouse leave us? Will friends stop calling? Will we wake up some day in the dark, on a metaphorical ice floe with no one left to bridge the gap?”

Read the rest of the article about feeling like a burden because of your chronic illness on HealthCentral.