For years, a blank sense of self made it hard for me to ask for help. How could I ask someone to help "me"? How can anyone help a blank? Not only that, but because I felt blank inside, I feared that the helper's identity and goals would easily overshadow mine. Asking for help might lead to me disappearing altogether. Above all, I felt that nothing and no one could ever truly help me, because I didn't even know what my true "problem" really was. If I couldn't help myself, how could anyone else? Compared to that main existential issue, every other problem in my life felt inconsequential, like it would be wasting everyone's time to ask for help.

Learning I'm autistic slowly started to reverse this. I know who I am and don't feel like a blank anymore. I have goals, and any problems in my life feel consequential. Increasingly, I know what things help me physically and emotionally. And if I ever need help from someone else, I know what I want the other person to do, why, and how to describe it.  For all of these reasons, I'm more able to ask for help now than in the past.

Share questions:

• Have you ever had difficulty asking for help? Why? 
• Do you see a link between self-esteem and asking for help in your own life? How about a link between sense of self and asking for help? Please describe. 
• In your own life, what kinds of things do you ask for help with? 
• Do you still have trouble asking for certain kinds of help? What are they? Why might that be? 
• Are there any connections between your experience of asking for help and being autistic? What are they?
• Any tools, strategies, or resources that helped you? 
• Anything else to add?