Hello Steemians, this post is in rebuttal to my wonderful friend, @chelsea88 . She recently posted this blog about self-reliance which I was going to post a comment on, but as those that follow me know, I tend to run on at the fingers and don't know when to stop typing. LOL
https://steemit.com/life/@chelsea88/the-illusion-of-self-reliance
Her post raises an interesting point for me. In her article, she mentioned being first born as a contributing factor to extreme self-reliance and mistrust issues. I am curious about that. I am not the oldest of my siblings, I am second born. My oldest sister though was, difficult, as a child which only worsened as she got older. She did all of the classic teen angst things, drugs, boys, acting out, skipping school, she couldn't have been more cliche if she tried. I, on the other hand, was a complete bookworm/wallflower. A hundred years ago I would have been called a "bluestocking".
My sister has never been able to take care of herself. Not in any real sense of the word by societal standards. She fell in and out of relationships, on and off drugs, never held a job, ect... and I am fraid that she will never see what she has done to herself.
As for me, up until 2011 when I broke my ankle and spent 2 years in a wheel chair, I had never gone more than a week without a job since my first one in 1992 when I was 18. At times I worked 2 or 3 jobs to support myself and my grandparents and great grandmother who were all on Social Security that barely paid for their medications. My grandparents died in 2004 less than 8 months apart, by then I was married and had one child and another on the way.
When I was 9, my grandmother broke her ankle. Ironically not only was it the same kind of break as mine 29 years later, but the docotor that did my surgery trained under the doctor that did hers! Anyway, since my grandfather was an OTR truck driver, and my sister was unable, it seemed, to care, it fell to me to take care of her and my great grandmother who at the time was already using a walker to get around. This included all of the duties you would expect to have to do for someone in a hip cast for 8 weeks, as well as most of the house work, and 90% of the cooking. It wasn't that I was forced into that role, it was simply a matter of, if I didn't do it, who would?
What I learned in a lifetime of taking care of others was, just as she said, I learned that I did not ever want to be put in a position where I had to depend on others to take care of me. In essence, my circumstances put me in a position of being treated as the oldest, because the oldest was not capable of doing what need to be done for her own well being, let alone someon else's.
And yet, as a 38 year old adult with 5 young children, I was put in the exact same position as my grandmother 29 years earlier. I was relegated to the couch and a wheel chair for 2 years while the screws and pins in my ankle set. Followed by another year in a moon boot learning to walk again. I tried as hard as I could to not rely on my children to do things for me. I hated to have to ask my husband for help with little things. I would cry for hours because I never wanted to put anybody in the position I had been forced to take as a child. My doctor at the time said it was just depression, and it was normal for my pride or ego to get hurt or for me to feel helpless.
But I don't think anybody who has never felt that ingrained sense of self-reliance could ever understand that the tears don't come from ego or pride. They are angry tears. Anger at yourself for being a burden on your family. Angry because you can't do the simplest little things that everybody else in the world takes for granted.
It is one thing to do those things for another because you love them, but to need someone to do those things for you goes against everything a self-reliant person is supposed to be.
So I guess what I am trying to say is, "I get it." I understand where you are coming from, and I struggle every day still with the fact that I still have to ask for help with some things, and that I did have to learn to ask for help, no matter how much I don't want to.
Keep working at it, and I will too.And I am here if you need me♥
~Tabz
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