I didn’t know how to ask for help, I fought every day against the words “please help me” coming out of my mouth because I wasn’t the one struggling with depression, I wasn’t the one with the gates of hell gaping after me, I was just the one watching it all happen. I was the one that was supposed to stand for the person I loved, I was their rock and their support, I was the person who was supposed to have it all together and to be okay, so how could I be asking for help? What help was I supposed to be asking for anyway? I couldn’t ask the people in my life to face hell, it felt like there was only room for one in that hellish doorway, and a part of me feared that if anyone else stood in that place for me, that I would no longer be needed, that my place in his life would be lost. And I also had no idea how to ask for someone to back me up, how to get a support system lined up behind me to help me when hell got too scary for me to handle. And even harder for me was when it wasn’t hell, but it didn’t feel quite right either. When it wasn’t about him walking out the door and me not knowing if he would come back, but when it was just the little things, the lack of connection, me so badly needing a hug (him not in a place to supply it), but not knowing how to ask for it because I didn’t want to scare anyone.