Why Asking for Help Is So Hard in South Asian Communities
For many South Asians, asking for help doesn’t feel simple or safe. It can feel like weakness or failure. Maybe there’s a fear of risking family honour or the thought of “log kya kahenge?”
From a young age, many of us are taught to have it all together. To be resilient. To manage quietly. To not “burden” others with our emotions. Mental health struggles are often minimized, spiritualized, or framed as something to endure rather than explore.
As South Asian therapists often hear: “Others have it worse,” “Just be grateful,” or “This stays within the family.”
These messages shape how we relate to help and why reaching out can feel so difficult.
The Cultural Pressure to Protect Family Image
In many South Asian families, reputation and family image are deeply tied to safety, belonging, and survival - especially for immigrant families navigating racism, financial stress, and systemic barriers.
As a result, emotional struggles are often hidden to:
Avoid shame or gossip
Protect parents from worry
Maintain a sense of respectability
Appear “successful” and put-together
Over time, this creates an unspoken rule: struggle quietly. Don’t let anyone know about your struggles!! People cannot know that you’re human, too!!
Even when someone is deeply anxious, depressed, burnt out, or emotionally overwhelmed, they may feel pressure to keep going because asking for help could be seen as exposing the family or failing at resilience.
Many South Asian adults grow up becoming:
The responsible one
The peacekeeper
The high achiever
The emotionally contained child
You may have learned that your role was to cope, adapt, and not make things harder for others. But when strength is defined this way, it can lead to:
Emotional isolation
Chronic stress and burnout
Difficulty asking for support
Guilt or shame around needing help
You might “function” well on the outside while feeling disconnected, exhausted, or overwhelmed on the inside. Sound familiar?
Messages like “Don’t talk about this outside the family” or “What will people think?” don’t always come from cruelty. Often, they come from fear, love, and survival. But over time, these messages become internalized as shame:
Shame for struggling
Shame for not coping better
Shame for needing support
Even when you intellectually believe in therapy or mental health care, emotionally, it can still feel wrong or selfish to ask for help.
Reframing Help-Seeking in South Asian Mental Health
What if asking for help isn’t a betrayal of your family? What if it is a step toward healing intergenerational patterns?
In South Asian communities, many people carry unprocessed trauma, migration stress, family obligation, and emotional labour across generations. Doing it alone doesn’t make you stronger - struggling in silence just makes it more difficult.
Seeking support can be:
An act of self-respect
A way to care for your nervous system
A step toward healthier boundaries and relationships
A way to break cycles of silence
You’re allowed to honour your family and tend to your own mental health. Groundbreaking - I know! But true :)
You can be capable and still struggle. Successful and still overwhelmed. Grateful and still hurting. Remember that two conflicting feelings can exist at the same time and both can be true.
If reaching out feels uncomfortable, it might just mean that you were taught to survive without support. But, healing often begins when you let yourself be seen, heard, and supported.
Looking for Culturally Attuned Therapy Support?
If you’re a South Asian adult in Ontario struggling with anxiety, family conflict, people-pleasing, burnout, or guilt around prioritizing yourself, you don’t have to navigate it alone.
At Mango Grove Psychotherapy, we offer trauma-informed, attachment-based therapy that understands South Asian family systems, cultural expectations, and intergenerational dynamics—without pathologizing your culture.
You don’t need to be in crisis to reach out.
Support is allowed before things fall apart.
Book a free consultation or learn more about working with a South Asian therapist who gets it.
