By Alicia O’Grady, Director of External Relations
I think it’s true to say that a lot of us are wired to avoid asking for help. There can be several reasons: perhaps we feel that there’s somebody worse off who needs the help more; and our culture in general can make us feel that asking for help is perceived as a sign of weakness.
In fact the opposite is true, because asking for help can be such a hard thing to do. It can also be a massive relief.
As staff members at the University, we’re really fortunate to be able to seek help via the Employee Assistance Programme (EAP). It’s important to know that you can use the EAP for a whole range of things including independent financial or legal advice, and of course, wellbeing and mental health support.
I took advantage of the EAP following the death of a family member. I realised that circumstances had left me at less than my best, and it was great to be able to offload to somebody who wasn’t involved. Also, when you’re dealing with emotional issues, it’s hard to step back and be objective, and I felt I needed a conversation to help give me some perspective.
Getting that perspective can help you reframe a situation in a way that makes it easier to cope, and can better equip you to help any other people who might be involved. In my case, we discussed some tools and techniques to help me tackle some difficult conversations with family members over practical matters. I came away with some good points, and some ideas that were useful in dealing with family tensions that, naturally, were worsened by everybody’s grief.
All of this enabled me to say to myself: ‘Okay, I’m not going crazy, and I can deal with this.’ That’s an incredibly useful thing.
Needless to say, you can find valuable help in a number of places; many of them are listed on a page on SharePoint. From my own experience, I can highly recommend the EAP. It gives you free, easy access to professional, expert advice and opinion, either online or on the phone.
It’s easy to be sceptical and to think: ‘Surely I should be smart enough to figure this out for myself.’ But just having someone to listen can do more good than you might expect. And it never hurts to get an external opinion; whether you take the advice or not is up to you.
Not only is asking for help okay, it’s actually one of the smartest things you can do.