Mental Health Awareness Week | Day 6
- NeuroEmpowered Leicester CIC
- May 17
- 3 min read
Mental Health & Independence: Asking for Help Without Shame
Welcome to Day 6 of our Mental Health Awareness Week series with NeuroEmpowered Leicester CIC.
Today, we’re talking about something that can feel both necessary and incredibly hard: asking for help.
If you’re neurodivergent, you might feel like independence is something you’re constantly expected to prove — but rarely supported to actually achieve. And when the world tells you that needing help means you’re failing? That’s not just untrue — it’s harmful.
So let’s talk about what real independence looks like, why asking for support is a strength, and how we can remove shame from the process of getting the help we deserve.
The Myth of Independence
For many neurodivergent adults, independence is framed as “doing everything on your own.” Cooking, cleaning, planning, working, making phone calls, managing health and benefits — all of it. Alone. With no burnout. No mistakes.
But here’s the truth:
True independence means having the right kind of support in place — not going without it.
Needing help doesn’t make you any less capable. It makes you human. And for neurodivergent people especially, it’s often the support systems we build that allow us to thrive.
😓 Why Asking for Help Feels So Hard
You might struggle with:
Not knowing what to ask for
Fear of being judged, dismissed, or not taken seriously
Feeling like you’re a burden
Executive functioning barriers (e.g. starting, organising, remembering)
Previous experiences of being misunderstood or turned away
These aren’t personal failures — they’re reflections of a system that hasn’t been built to support neurodivergent people well.
🧠 Reframing Support as Strength
We’re here to say: asking for help is a form of self-advocacy.
Whether you’re reaching out to a friend, your GP, a support worker, or a professional — it means you are recognising your needs and taking steps to meet them. That’s not weakness. That’s resilience.
At NeuroEmpowered, we’ve created a range of tools specifically to make this process more manageable — especially for people who don’t always know where to start, or who find paperwork and conversations about needs overwhelming.
📚 Explore Our Independence & Advocacy Resources
Here are some of our free guides that can support you in building independence with support:
🟣 Navigating Support as an Adult: Step-by-step help with knowing who to contact, how to access services, and how to avoid feeling overwhelmed in the process.
🟢 Speaking Up and Being Heard: Helps you identify your needs, communicate them clearly, and advocate for yourself in health, education, and social care settings.
🟠 Filling Out Forms and Requesting Support Toolkit: Template letters and practical examples for writing to professionals, requesting support, and explaining your situation — without needing to find all the words yourself.
🔵 Executive Functioning & Organisation Guide: Simple strategies to help you manage tasks, plan your days, and reduce overwhelm while juggling everyday responsibilities.
You can find all of these (and more) here: www.neuroempowered.org/resource-guides
💬 A Final Thought
There’s no “right” way to be independent. And you don’t have to wait until you’re struggling to deserve support.
You are not less worthy because you need a different kind of help. You are not falling behind. You are building your own path — and that takes courage.
Tomorrow, we wrap up the series with Day 7: Hope & Community — and why you're never alone.
With care - The NeuroEmpowered Team
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