Key Takeaways
- The first step to getting help is figuring out what you’re feeling.
- Writing in a journal can help you understand your emotions better.
- Describing your emotions makes it easier for others to help you.
Do you feel like you need help and don’t know where to turn? If you’ve hit the point of wanting to ask for help or the thought “Please help me” keeps running through your mind, it’s likely that you’ve hit some sort of crisis point in your life and don’t know how to deal with your situation.
If this is the situation you are in, know that there are steps you can take to get the help you need and to start feeling better.
Figure Out What You Are Feeling
The first step is to ask yourself exactly what you are experiencing in the moment. What feelings or thoughts are coming up that have left you feeling this way?
If you can get clear about the emotions you are experiencing, then it will be easier to explain to others what you are going through. In turn, this will make it easier for others to help you or give you direction.
“No one is a mind-reader,” explains Hannah Owens, LMSW. “While it might be outwardly clear to others that you are struggling, they can’t really help you unless they understand what you are struggling with.”
Here are some possible painful and challenging emotions that you might be experiencing that have left you feeling as though you need help from someone:
If you aren’t exactly sure what you are feeling, try writing in a journal about what’s going on that has left you feeling this way. Try not to overthink it and write as things come to you.
Keep writing until you dig deep enough to get at the emotions that you are experiencing or how you have been feeling about what’s going on. Once you have a better idea of your emotions, you’ll be able to describe them to someone else when you ask for help.
Consider What’s Wrong
Beyond being able to articulate the emotions that you are experiencing, it might also be helpful to describe to someone what has caused you to feel this way. While you might not always be aware of the reasons for how you are feeling, other times, there might be a clear trigger or situation that is causing your concern.
Some difficult situations that might cause you to feel like you need someone to help you include:
These are just some examples of things that might be causing you to feel as though you need help. If you haven’t already, take a moment to write down everything that is creating this feeling in your life.
Having a list of what’s wrong or what your feelings are will make it easier to focus on how you can start feeling better.
You could also rate each area of your life on a scale from 1 to 10 to see which are lowest for you and potentially causing you to feel as though you need help.
Hannah Owens, LMSW
It’s always best to be specific. Breaking down your challenges into bite-sized pieces makes them less daunting to tackle.
— Hannah Owens, LMSW
Where to Find Direction
Once you’ve identified the emotions you are experiencing and the potential triggers or causes contributing to them, you might wonder how to get help, advice, or direction.
While Googling your problems might be a good first step to finding answers or finding others who have been through something similar, there are many more options for reaching out for help.
Friends and Family
An obvious place to start is to tell a friend or family member about how you’ve been feeling. Just being able to vent your frustrations or get them out in the open might be enough for you to start feeling better.
If you do find that you are feeling better, make a point of talking to someone regularly so that you don’t keep feelings bottled up. Isolation can make negative emotions worse, so it’s best to avoid isolating yourself.
Listening Services
If you don’t have anyone close to you who will lend a listening ear, or you’re not ready to talk to anyone, you could consider using a listening service such as 7 Cups. While the listeners on the other end are not professionals, they are trained to listen and respond in a way that helps you to work through your frustrations and problems.
Crisis Lines and Help Lines
What if your situation is dire or urgent? In these cases, your first step should be to reach out to a crisis line or help line. In the United States, call 988 for free and confidential support if you are in distress or crisis. If you are experiencing a medical emergency then you should call 911 or your local emergency number.
Support Groups
Are you struggling with a problem for which there are support groups to help? If so, consider joining one of these groups to talk with others who have gone through the same things as you.
Being able to talk about your problems with others who understand will help you to feel less alone with your struggles.
Professional Help
In some situations, you may find that reaching out for professional help is appropriate. For example, if you are looking for help because of physical or psychological issues that aren’t related to an identifiable situational trigger, you might need the help of a professional to discern what is going on.
If you do have a diagnosable physical or mental health condition, receiving treatment in the form of therapy or medication could be the one thing you need to turn your situation around. If this is your situation, reaching out to your family doctor is usually the best first step.
Your doctor will ask questions about your symptoms, including their nature, duration, and severity. They may then make a referral to an appropriate specialist if needed.
Community Groups
If your need for help centers around a feeling of loneliness or not having anyone to talk to, joining a local community group could be helpful. For example, you could find a local club to join such as a book club or knitting club.
You could also attend a local church or volunteer with a non-profit organization. The key is to keep showing up and spending time around the same people; eventually, those people will start to feel more like friends.
Mentors, Teachers, or Religious Leaders
Another option for asking for help is to reach out to a religious leader, teacher, or other potential mentor whom you already know or with whom you already have a connection.
While it might feel awkward sharing your feelings, know that these individuals are in these positions because of their desire to help. At the very least, they can likely point you in the direction of where to receive more help for your specific concerns.
Introspection or Meditation
What if you are not ready to reach out for help? Or what if you feel as though you’d like to go it on your own a bit longer? This might mean practicing meditation, journaling about your feelings, or completing a self-help workbook.
This option is best suited to problems that are not urgent in nature. It’s also best if you have a good ability to think deeply about what’s troubling you and also a motivation to work on solutions.
How to Feel More at Ease
In addition to reaching out for help from others, you may want to consider coping strategies that you can use on your own when you’re feeling out of control.
While you can’t control what happens to you or your underlying propensity toward mental health issues, how you live your day-to-day life can have an impact on how you feel.
For example, if you react to anxious feelings, this often creates more anxiety than if you simply ride out the anxiety like a wave reaching shore.
Below are some ideas of actions that you can take or self-care strategies you can put into place to help prevent that feeling of being overwhelmed.
Take Time for Relaxation
If your need for help is combined with a feeling of anxiety and panic, then you’ll want to do things to help calm yourself down. Ideas include practicing deep breathing from your diaphragm, making yourself a cup of chamomile tea, and listening to a relaxation meditation recording.
Find Distraction & Enjoyment
Sometimes, when your mind has run away with the worst-case scenario, it can be helpful to distract yourself or do something you enjoy, if only to get some perspective or distance from what is bothering you.
Below are some ideas of things you could do as a distraction or for enjoyment. Obviously, you’ll want to choose activities that are enjoyable to you or that will help you to take your mind off your current situation.
- Watch an interesting television series or movie
- Read a fictional book set in a faraway place
- Meet up with friends at a new spot
- Play a game of badminton or another sport you enjoy
- Try your hand at a new form of painting
- Listen to some uplifting music
- Go for a walk to somewhere new
- Write a short story, poem, song, or novel
- Try your hand at drawing
Prioritize Healthy Habits
If you struggle with your mental health, one of the best things that you can do is to practice healthy habits. These are things that help both your physical and mental health, and help to regulate your brain chemistry to keep you feeling good. Below are some ideas for healthy habits that you could start to practice.
- Take a multivitamin or supplement (see your doctor to assess whether you are deficient).
- Get outside in nature (e.g., go for a walk; sunlight helps to provide Vitamin D and reduce the risk of depression).
- Get regular exercise to raise your endorphins and feel better (e.g., 30 minutes, three to four times a week).
- Stick to a regular sleep schedule and practice good sleep hygiene (e.g., no screen time one hour before bed, no devices in the bedroom).
- Eat a nutrient-dense diet.
Keep a Regular Schedule
If depression is causing you pain, then sticking to a regular schedule as much as possible will be helpful. This includes eating regular meals, showering regularly, being productive every day (whether that means going to work or some other task, no matter how small it may seem), and maintaining a sleep schedule.
Overcome Negative Self Talk
It can be tricky to decipher whether your situation is causing you pain or if your thoughts about your situation are the culprit. Often, it’s a combination of the two, but in many cases, your thoughts are the only thing you have control over.
Watching your self talk and monitoring it for negative thinking patterns can be a helpful self-help strategy for managing negative emotions.
For example, you might have a pattern of believing that because you experience a particular emotion, it must mean that there is something wrong or that you should feel a certain way. This is particularly true if you live with a mental health condition like depression or anxiety that can cloud your judgment and make it hard to see beyond your anxious or depressive thoughts.
Remember That Thoughts Are Not Facts
One thing to remember is that your thoughts are not necessarily accurate and they do not define who you are or how you choose to react. You can, in fact, choose to view your thoughts as products of your mind that you, as a detective, can be curious about and ask questions about.
This means doing a bit of work such as writing down your thoughts when you notice that you are having a negative emotional reaction, looking for distortions in your thoughts, and reframing the situation using more realistic thinking patterns.
While this can take some time to do, over time and with practice, it will become easier and feel more natural to catch your negative thoughts and replace them quickly.
Express Your Feelings
Another self-help strategy that can be helpful if you struggle with a lot of negative emotions is to find a way to express or release your negative emotions, such as sadness or anger. Creative pursuits such as playing an instrument, painting, or writing poetry can be one way to let out sadness. In the case of anger, more physical pursuits such as sports or exercise may be effective for releasing adrenaline and pent-up feelings.
Practice Gratitude
It can be easy to slip into the feeling of never having enough in your life, particularly if you are struggling with problems that are weighing you down. However, learning how to practice daily gratitude will go a long way toward making you more appreciative of what you do have that’s good. This type of practice will serve you well even when you no longer feel as though you are drowning.
How can you incorporate gratitude into your daily life? Here are a few ideas:
- At the end of each day, write down three things that you are grateful for. Go into detail and write some of the reasons you are grateful for them. You can also write about three things that went well that day.
- Before bed each night, imagine waking up the next day with only the things that you were grateful for the night before. Watch how this causes you to quickly run through a “gratitude rampage” where you list everything that you would not want to live without.
- Each morning when you wake up, ask the universe (or whatever spiritual body you believe in), “Show me how it gets better.” Then, your job throughout the day is to be on the lookout for how things are getting better.
Choose Acceptance
Another way to move beyond your problems is to accept them fully. This doesn’t mean that you accept your circumstances or that you don’t try to solve problems.
Rather, it means that you accept and acknowledge whatever problems you are facing, but understand that they do not define who you are or what you can accomplish.
Be Mindful
Are you struggling with staying in the moment or being mindful when you feel as though you need help? Practicing mindfulness exercises such as imagining your thoughts as leaves floating down the river can help.
In general, stopping several times a day to be really present in the moment instead of thinking about the future or the past will help you to be more mindful.
Optimize Your Physical Environment
Often, your physical environment will be a reflection of how you are feeling on the inside. However, you can also work backward and clean up your physical environment so that it starts to make you feel better.
This might be easier said than done if you are struggling with a mental health condition like depression. However, just doing a little bit each day can add up to bigger changes than you might expect.
Get a New Perspective
Sometimes, the thing you need most is a change of scenery or a change of perspective. While this might not always be possible, if you can, try to change something in your life to give yourself a break or see things in a different light.
Below are some potential ideas on how to change things up or get some perspective.
- Ask for a leave of absence from work
- Take a class to learn something new
- Go somewhere you’ve never gone before
- Make new friends or expand your social circle
- Move to a new place or take a vacation
- Dress differently than you normally would
Make New Connections
Finally, if you are truly struggling and feeling like you need help, it’s likely that you are in need of more social connection. This could also mean that you need more physical connection. If you don’t have a significant other in your life, even having a pet like a dog or cat to keep you company and snuggle with at night could make a difference.
Oxytocin is released when you bond with someone (or even a pet) that you love. This hormone helps you to feel calm, secure, and connected to others.
If you do have people in your life but haven’t connected with them in a while, a simple hug could go a long way to making you feel better. And if distance or other obstacles prevent this from happening, you can get the same effect by sending them a gift.
When to Seek Help
Talk to your doctor or a mental health professional if you experience any of the following:
- Depression symptoms (including low mood, loss of interest, fatigue, and feelings of worthlessness) that last longer than two weeks
- Changes in your sleep, appetite, or activity levels
- Mental health symptoms that interfere with your ability to function normally in your daily life
- Psychological distress that makes it difficult to cope or function
- Reliance on unhealthy coping skills to manage stress
- Emotional symptoms or behaviors that disrupt healthy relationships
- Self-harming behaviors
- Suicidal thoughts or behaviors
Treatment Options
If you decide that you need professional help to manage your symptoms, there are a number of different options available. The right intervention depends on factors such as your specific diagnosis and the nature and severity of your symptoms. In many cases, your doctor or therapist may recommend psychotherapy, medication, or a combination of the two.
Psychotherapy
There are many different types of therapy, and the approach that is right for you may depend on the symptoms you are experiencing. Some types of therapy you might consider include:
Medication
Medications may also be prescribed to help you cope with specific symptoms, such as anxiety or depression. Some of the most commonly prescribed psychiatric medications include:
In most cases, help is available on an outpatient basis. If your symptoms are severe or pose a risk to your well-being, hospitalization is also an option.
