Why is it so hard to reach out and ask for help? Not hard, impossible

ONCE a high-flying magazine editor in Dublin, living the classic, harried executive lifestyle, Kate Kerrigan swapped it all to be a full-time novelist and live in her idyll — the fishing village of Killala, Co. Mayo. But rather than being a sleepy existence, it’s been anything but for the 40-something mother of The Teenager, 13, and The Tominator, five (oh, and there’s the artist husband Niall, too). It’s chaos, as she explains every week in her hilarious and touching column...

AFRIEND of mine needed my help this week. Not as in ‘can you pick the kids up from school for me’ help, but real, actual ‘I am having a meltdown and I need your support’ help.

She didn’t ask for it outright. Women generally don’t — no matter how bad things get.

‘Sorry,’ she kept saying, through the tears, ‘ I’m really sorry for burdening you with this.’

That’s what we do. Apologise for our emotions, for not being able to cope, for being overwhelmed — even when what is happening to us is clearly overwhelming.

‘ I’ll be fine,’ she said, ‘ really. Thank you for being on the other end of the phone.’

As soon as we hung up I said to my husband, ‘She’s in trouble. I think I s hould fly to London.’

‘Go,’ he said, ‘I’ll hold the fort here.’

Fair play to him, he knows how to be a good friend.

I wasn’t being interfering. My friend had a problem that I genuinely knew I could help fix.

She’s a powerful w o ma n : a fixer herself. Lord knows, she has sorted me out enough times in my life.

However, now she was being confronted with the one thing I know more about than she does. I knew she would never ask or expect me to fly over and hold her hand. Never. ‘Help me’ is just not in her vocabulary. So I got onto Ryanair’s website, booked a flight, then rang her back and told her, ‘I am coming over on Wednesday. Like it or not.’

She let out a sob and I knew I had done the ri ght thing. I knew anyway.

Why is it so hard for us to reach out and ask for help? Not hard actually, i mpossible. I’ m not talking about popping around with a bit of shopping if I’m sick or any one of the many millions of favours I ask of my friends and family all the time.

Neither do I mean the many, many hours I spend moaning and complaining about everything from my kids, to my bad luck and my health to anyone willing to listen. I am talking about those times in my life when I have been genuinely despairing and at a loss for what to do. The times when I say everything is ‘fine’ and give the impression that I am coping when in fact I am ready to stick my head in the oven.

For most people, I think that coping and not- coping look very similar. Once you keep the hair and make-up reasonably up to scratch, nobody will know how close you are to the edge.

There have been one or two times like this in my life. Times when being asked, ‘Are you OK?’ was not enough. I’m lucky enough to have one or two friends who will look me in the eye and say; ‘I can see you are not OK. Please let me help.’

Once, it was a GP who prescribed me anti-depressants when I went in for a check-up for my young baby. He had the pad out and the pen poised as I was insisting I had ‘turned a corner’. Some instinct told him I was a lot worse than I was letting on. He was right. ‘Take them anyway,’ he said, ‘they’re non addictive. No harm.’ His understated insistence probably saved my life. When my brother died the people I most remember were the ones who came even when I told them not to bother travelling. My friend Johnny flew from Dublin to London. When I saw him walk up the road I collapsed with gratitude.

Friends I texted on the day saying, ‘too upset to speak’ who rang me anyway. The ones who called, uninvited, to the door, made their own tea and sat there with me as I bawled.

My friend has been there for me through all those big, bad times in my life. In our lifetime as friends she has protected me from bullies, taken days off work to collect me from airports and given me career advice that has changed my life. One time, she handed me unasked-for cash in an envelope.

There is nothing worse than a controlling busy-body sticking their nose into other people’s business and, truthfully, I’ve played that role a few times in my life.

I am also, I know (and other people have told me) a very bossy friend. However, s ometimes you have to read between the lines and act. At those times, the motives are so pure you simply feel that another person’s wellbeing comes before everything. Before waiting to be asked for your help. That kind of love is the love of a true friend.

And we all need one of those sometimes.