How do you respond to offers of help?

That is beautiful!

Oh, I know.

You're clearly someone who values her privacy. I understand, and I agree. I wouldn't want people roaming around my house; either.

I just wish I'd had more people show moral support. That would have been nice.

exactly.!

Indeed. But to the initial Post - odds are they’ll either gossip to everyone they know, or suffocate me with good intentions. 🙂

And a southern girl needs to get her good loungewear on and do at least minimal ablutions before
Receiving 🙂

"...odds are they’ll either gossip to everyone they know, or suffocate me with good intentions."

Or both!

Hope no one gets the wrong idea by my post,
I will accept, and appreciate, help when the time comes ..when I NEED it. I Just don't want company when I don't feel well or help when I don't need it.
Just having cancer and being uncomfortable is not enough for me to accept help...yet.
It is nice to know that they offer to help, just wish they would wait until I ask and stop insisting that I need them now.

We live in the UK. My husband had a stroke last year. We did eventually get 6 weeks of help from the team of stroke nurses and they were great, but no help from anywhere or anyone else. I have learnt that when the chips are down you are very much on your own. In my time I have been there for so many people in so many ways, it was hard to take that there was no one there for me.

I have a confession to make. There are some people, like me, who have a very hard time accepting any kind of help. I am not proud of this. It is a big problem for me. I love helping others, finding special things I can do for people, but I never want anyone to do anything for me, unless I can pay them. I also love giving gifts, and go out of my way to find special gifts that will really mean something to the recipent, but I do not like to get gifts myself. I acknowledge that this is crazy and I have offended people with this problem. I know I need to figure out what my problem is, but I just wanted to mention this, in case you have encountered someone like me. Just know that it is not you..........it is [me], or someone like me.
P

I think it is about accepting that not only do you really need help, but that you deserve help. Those of us who ordinarily give help to others are givers, we are not takers and sometimes it is hard to reverse the role.

Why it's so hard to approach and accept another person with whom you only have One common interest -- after all there's no one losing face, only mutual win?
It could be as simple as playing a hard Sudoku or 'wordle' game in the New York Times. Once there, we can open up to the other about What Else we enjoy, or bothers us.

We are going back to living in one place as we did a generation or two ago. Why not think up what I call, Spontaneous Friendships, where even if we are in a new place for a few weeks or months for work, what is the Harm in exploring a mutually rewarding human connection?

From a Minister of Loneliness in UK to the Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, who ended up writing a book, Together, because when Obama asked him to fix the overdose deaths issue, he soon found the problem is lack of social connection among us.
Unfortunately, we tend to see our need for friendship as if we (especially men) are not successful enough, indeed a loser. Yet we all know I cannot be friends with someone unless that person is Equally interested in the human need. This is One need that no one can do anything about it Alone!

From depression and anxiety to a plethora of other diseases are attributed to our deficit in this need. The ancients knew it: Cicero said, Life without a friend is not worth living; Aristotle concurs.

Sometimes one wonders how the easiest, quickest, and cheapest solutions we ignore despite colossal damage. Yes, it was the former Head of the NIMH, Dr Insel, who said he was told by a psychiatrist who works with homeless addicts that what is needed is 3Ps: place (home), people (friends) and purpose.