Know the Difference Between Leaning on Your Friends and Treating Them Like “The Help.”

Life is hard. That's kind of a given. And sometimes, you just can't make it on your own. It's important to recognize that, but there's a second corollary to that. Learn the difference between leaning on your friends for a hand, and when you need a professional to help you. This can be any kind of help: moving a couch, borrowing money, asking for advice, anything. But, sometimes there's just too much load, and you need a professional. When you need to buy a house or a car, you need a bank. Sometimes you need to see a real therapist, and if that still isn't enough, maybe you need medication.

People want to help. If they care about you, they'll be willing, even happy, to help you as much as they can. But, there comes a tipping point. That's where the “as much as they can” comes into play. The average person only has a limited amount of resources: things like time, money, and patience, are finite resources. How about physical strength, a moving van, or specialized skills that take years to learn, like being a doctor or lawyer? The simple fact is, people are only human. They have their own lives to worry about, their own responsibilities, like work, their family, their hobbies. Sometimes, they just can only help so much, and that has nothing to do with them personally, or even has anything to do with you. It has to do with the scope of your problems.

It may cost you some money. It may take a bigger psychological investment than you first want. Maybe you'll have to push yourself, physically or mentally, further than you expected. Maybe you'll even have to make a schedule, rather than just call a friend whenever you feel like it. But you'll get a better result from someone whose job it is to do whatever you need help with, than doing it on your own, or just with someone who has a free moment to help you.

But the result, be it bigger muscles, skill with an instrument, or a car that works again, is only half of it. The first half is knowing that tipping point. If you reach it, you'll start alienating your friends, and they'll want to help you less. If you're going through some rough times, and you're calling your friends left and right, rehashing the same problem, sometimes they'll just start rolling their eyes, or start asking “what do you want me to do about it?” Even worse than that, if you don't realize how far you're going, you might go way past the line and start taking your frustrations out on the very people who want to help the most.

Life, when you get right down to it, involves a series of compromises. And no one's keeping score. You might “owe someone a favor,” but unless you're a mob boss, you're not going to write that favor down in some book and cash it in later like it was a savings bond. Friendship, even romantic relationships, is an informal series of good things you do, and good feelings you share. It's closer to making a soup than it is riding a see-saw with one action being followed by an immediate and equal reaction. But, when the weight is too much on one side, that feeling starts to creep in. It may be dramatic, such as laying down an ultimatum or even fully breaking up with someone, or it could be a little more subtle.

But you never want to have that phone call that goes “every time you call you, it's always about how terrible your life is! Do you even know what's going on in my life? Have you even asked?” You can be on the verge of killing yourself, and it'll snap you into realizing what an asshole you're being.

Maybe you've been dealt a bad hand in life. It could be your life circumstances, it could be the way your brain is wired, it could be anything. But just remember, you can't always get by with a little help your friends. Sometimes, you need some “Help!”