Written by Stephanie Ellison

Have you ever noticed that people will tell you to ask for help right up until you actually need something? Not practical help. Not help moving furniture, watching your kids, or carrying groceries. The other kind of help. The kind that requires vulnerability. The kind that sounds like, “My feelings are hurt,” “I feel lonely,” or “I don’t need advice right now; I just need someone to sit with me for a minute.”

I’ve been wrestling with this question for years. Why is it so hard to need people? An even harder question I keep asking is, Why is it so hard to let people know we need them?

I wish I could tell you this is a new struggle, but it isn’t. If I’m honest, I can trace this tension through much of my life. I spent years learning how to just keep going, press into the pain, cry, keep working at it, get through the day, and keep checking my pulse to see if I’m still here.  Did I survive? I learned how to adapt, how to make myself useful, how to be grateful, and how to carry more than I would ever hope for anyone to have to carry. What I haven’t quite learned was how to need people without feeling guilty for it.

Even now, decades creating a family, people I love will occasionally tell me, “You need to be a little more selfish.” I know what they mean. They mean I should rest. They mean I should take care of myself, protect my time, set boundaries, and speak up about my needs. But here’s the part about stuffing it…I almost convince myself that sometimes expressing a very small emotional need feels harder than carrying the entire burden myself.

It’s not hard because people are cruel. Most aren’t. It’s not because people don’t care. I believe most really do. But emotional needs seem to make people uncomfortable. The moment we say, “My feelings are hurt,” people often rush to explain why. The moment we say, “I feel unseen,” they begin offering evidence that we are loved. The moment we say, “I’m struggling,” solutions seem to arrive before connection does.

I understand why. I can’t shame anyone because I do it too. We want to help. We want to fix things. We want to reassure the people we care about. But sometimes a hurting heart isn’t asking for an explanation. It’s asking for connection.

Lately, I’ve noticed something happening inside of me that concerns me. I’ve become quieter. Not because I have less to say, but because I’m saying less of what hurts. I’m less likely to tell people when something stings. Less likely to admit when I feel rejected. Less likely to explain why tears showed up unexpectedly. I tell myself I’m protecting everyone else. I don’t want them to feel guilty. I don’t want them to feel responsible. I don’t want them to think I’m needy.

If I’m being completely honest, I don’t want them to see the fear underneath it all. The fear that somehow I’m too much. Too emotional. Too sensitive. Too complicated. The fear that if people really knew how deeply I feel things, they might decide I’m exhausting to love.

So I get quieter.

And while that may create less conflict, I’m not convinced it creates more connection.

What makes this especially interesting to me is that research suggests this experience is not simply about being “too sensitive.” Scientists who study relationships, attachment, and mental health have found that feeling disconnected, unseen, or lacking emotional support can affect both our minds and our bodies. Studies have linked loneliness and emotional disconnection to increased stress, anxiety, depression, sleep disturbances, and emotional distress. Researchers even use the term social pain to describe the hurt we experience when we feel rejected, excluded, or disconnected from people who matter to us. Some studies suggest that the brain can process social rejection in ways that overlap with physical pain. For those of us with histories of trauma, abandonment, or emotional neglect, moments of feeling unseen can sometimes activate much older fears and memories, even when no one intends harm. Understanding that has helped me approach myself with more curiosity and less judgment.

Perhaps that’s why this struggle feels so confusing. The fear isn’t necessarily that I am unloved. In fact, I know I am loved. I have people in my life who care deeply for me. The struggle is something different. It is the tension between being loved and feeling connected. Research on loneliness suggests that loneliness is not always the absence of people; often it is the absence of feeling understood, valued, or emotionally seen in a particular moment. In other words, a person can be surrounded by people who love them and still feel lonely. Maybe that’s why this topic keeps resurfacing in my life. We don’t just want to be loved. We want to feel known.

That’s the part I’ve been wrestling with lately. Because I don’t think bitterness usually starts with anger. I think it starts with silence. A hurt goes unspoken. Then another. Then another. Until eventually we stop sharing our hearts and start carrying them alone.  I’m not certain that carrying things alone has ever been further soil for healing to grow.

I don’t know whether this struggle comes from childhood trauma, personality, life experience, or some combination of all three. I just know that I encounter it more often than I would like. I know that needing connection feels surprisingly vulnerable. I know that being strong for everyone else is often easier than admitting I need someone to be strong for me. And I know that community cannot exist if everyone is pretending they don’t need it.

The irony is that I’ve spent much of my life encouraging people. I’ve sat with hurting children, grieving families, overwhelmed parents, and friends walking through difficult seasons. I’ve told them they weren’t alone. I’ve reminded them that asking for help isn’t weakness. I’ve encouraged them to lean into community.

Yet sometimes I find myself struggling to follow my own advice.

Maybe that’s why this keeps resurfacing. Maybe this isn’t a lesson I’ve mastered. Maybe it’s one I’m still learning.

I’m learning that needing people is not weakness. I’m learning that expressing a need is not selfishness. I’m learning that being loved and feeling connected are not always the same thing. And perhaps most importantly, I’m learning that silence may protect us from disappointment, but it also protects us from the very connection we’re longing for.

I don’t have a neat ending or a simple answer. Just a question.

What if the bravest thing we do isn’t carrying everything ourselves?

What if the bravest thing is letting someone see that we’re carrying something at all?