How to Survive a Tree Falling on You - Step 6: Ask for help…and accept it.

Your step-by-step guid on getting through one of the most rare, random, fucked up, and cartoon adjacent things that could happen to you.

Ok. This might be another step where you say “duh”. This might be a step where you start wondering if these steps are even helpful at all. Or this might be the step where you start thinking “I don’t know if Sadia is really the best person to be giving advice”. All are totally valid. Asking for help doesn’t feel like something that needs to be suggested explicitly. And since I was able to call out for help after the tree fell on me, it seems like it would be second nature. And yet, somehow, after that, it wasn’t. So if you want to get advice from someone else who had a Douglas fir fall of them, I totally support you. And I might actually join you because I’m sure there was a easier way of getting through this shit.

As I started reaching out to my people, my mom asked if I had reached out to Meghan, one of my closest friends since high school who happened to be an anesthesiologist and no stranger to trauma. It never occurred to me to reach out to her. Not that I wouldn’t have eventually called her to tell her what happened. I just didn’t think of calling her to ask for her medical perspective, advice, or support. I left a message letting her know what happened and it wasn’t long before she got back to me offering to help and also connecting me to another high school friend, Sarah, who was a neurologist and who told me I could consider her my personal neurologist during my recovery. I don’t think I felt overwhelmed by my circumstances at that point but when my friends offered their support, I felt a massive wave of relief.

Two more of my close friends from high school, Sylvie and Zack, had been texting with my mom - helping her find a bed that would fit in my dining room (since I wouldn't be able to get upstairs to my bedroom for months) and coordinating coming to stay with me after she planned on leaving. Another friend, Nicole (a random-stranger-at-2018-Outside Lands-turned-inner-circle-friend), offered to come stay with me and help out after my Sylvie and Zack left. Even though it was bluntly obvious that in almost every aspect of my life I needed major help, it took a few seconds before I could respond. I opened my mouth but I could feel the default “No. I’m okay” response being pulled back into my throat and replaced with a far more appropriate answer.

I wouldn’t say I had a problem asking for help. But I had carefully constructed my life so I wouldn’t need to. Change a tire? I got it. Too many grocery bags? I’m the one-trip queen. Purchase, load, unload, assemble, and move multiple pieces of Ikea furniture solo? I could teach a fucking class…blindfolded. Maybe it was being raised by a single mom who prioritized “standing on your own two feet”. Maybe it was decades of avoiding being a burden to people around me for fear of being “too much”. Or maybe I just heard Destiny’s Child on the radio in 1999 way too many times. But after the tree, my tower of self-sufficiency had been completely leveled. And a girl who couldn’t walk or open a package of hospital graham crackers needed help.

So I said “yes” to my friend’s offer to come stay with me. And I said “yes” to pretty much every offer of help after that…for a while (see?! I told you, this independence shit is ingrained in me.) But each time I did, it took a beat. I had to Ctrl+F and replace “I’m good” with “Yes, please”. I had to reprogram my brain to accept help. And accept the fact that I would be depending on people for a while.

And accept the reality that I probably should have been doing that way before the tree.

I wish I had songs that reminded me to ask for help. But since I never gave myself that option, I only have the songs that remind me of the moments when I should have been asking. So maybe these will help you ask for help sooner rather than later

I don’t know if there’s a more beautiful song about a help-needing headspace than Julien Baker’s Appointments.

When this 2014 track came out, I wanted to send it to all of my friends as a preemptive murmur for help when the time came.

One of my best friends, Jen, and I bonded over this song. And when I look at the key chain she made me for me with the words “We’re in this game together”, I know she’s someone I can always reach out to when I need help.

🫀+🎧

Thanks for reading.

Now go listen to some music.