Seeking help- why and when it’s okay!

There was once a girl who always carried a tied rope with her.

Everyone around her said she was brilliant — school topper, head girl, eloquent speaker. And for a while, she believed it too. But here’s the problem: she thought her entire identity depended on her marks. If she didn’t score well, she wasn’t just failing an exam — she was failing as a person. That belief gave her constant anxiety attacks before every test.

And the rope? It kept getting tighter.

She pushed herself harder — skipping meals, skipping rest — until one day, she fainted in the middle of practice. People said it was just exhaustion. But deep down, she knew it was more than that. She was holding everything together on her own, pretending to be fine, while the rope kept pulling at her.

That girl was me and maybe you, you and you

Well, this story is about past me who on a random Thursday decided to change it all with a simple trick- asking for help. She didn’t beg or cry but simply told her problems. And to her surprise? People didn’t mock her or called her a weakling but actually listened and helped.

In a society obsessed with hyper-independency and hustle culture, we are often told that asking for help equals incapability. Because think about it? It actually makes sense. If a task has been assigned to you, you should be able to do it right? That’s what makes us independent. Otherwise, we all are weak.

But that’s where we are wrong. We as humans are biologically, physically and psychologically designed to be independent. We even came from another human being! How can you expect yourself to be fully independent. We humans crave connections, belongingness and the feeling of loving and being loved. So, seeking help does not mean you are incapable. It means you are strong enough to let someone see your truth. Its like letting light into a dark room, its about sharing hope that everything is going to be okay.

What does independency actually mean? You might say living alone, managing all our chores, managing academics and your social life perfectly. But what it actually means is knowing when to take help. Knowing when to allow someone to walk with you. So the point of this talk is not some complex thesis on psychology and mental health but simply to ask help. Ask help when the rope feels to tight, when silence kills you more than words and when carrying it alone steals your peace. I thought asking help meant weakness. But I realized I wasn’t alone- according to WHO, 240 million people suffer from depression and majority of them never seek help. Imagine if even half of them did. Because sometimes seeking help doesn’t just mean about solutions but being seen and having to feel that in a world with 8.2 billion people, our struggles matter- we matter.

I couldn’t open this rope by myself. Maybe I am weak or maybe that’s the point of this talk.