Riding Dependency Toward Truth

By Wilbert Greenfield II

My Journey Overcoming the Fear of Asking for Help

I built my identity on self-sufficiency.

I believed needing nothing was the highest form of strength.

If I could carry it alone, I was winning.

If I didn’t have to ask, I was in control.

If no one saw me struggle, then I was still… me.

That belief didn’t just guide me—it ruled me.

I didn’t know it at the time, but I had made independence my identity. Then ALS began to quietly unravel everything I thought made me strong.

I didn’t ask for help when things first started changing.  In those early years—before I fully understood what was happening—I lived in the unknown. I wasn’t educated about what was coming, and maybe a part of me didn’t want to be. As long as I could still move, still function, still pass as “okay,” I told myself I was fine. But I remember the stairs.

Stairs used to be nothing. Just steps between where I was and where I needed to go. Then one day, they weren’t. I found myself choosing sides—not based on convenience, but on survival. I had to position myself near the rail, calculating every step, making sure I had something to hold onto. One hand gripping tightly. One step at a time. No rushing. No missteps. And even then… it didn’t feel secure. My body knew something before my mind was willing to accept it. But I didn’t ask for help. Because asking would make it real.

I refused help when my body made it undeniable. I can still feel that fall. Falling backward.  My legs giving out in a way I couldn’t control.  My knees bending in a direction they were never meant to go. The pain was immediate. Sharp. Overwhelming.  I was stuck—helpless in a position my body couldn’t recover from. I remember screaming, not just from the pain, but from the shock of it. From the realization that I couldn’t fix this on my own.  I lay there on the floor, trapped in my own body, calling out until a neighbor heard me in the hallway.

That moment should have changed everything.  But even then… something in me resisted.  Because accepting help meant accepting the truth I wasn’t ready to face. So, I refused it—not always outwardly, but inwardly.  I minimized it. Explained it away.  Told myself it was temporary.  I wasn’t ready to accept the diagnosis.  And I definitely wasn’t ready to accept what came with it.

I resented help until I could no longer avoid it. The shower.  Of all places—that’s where my independence finally broke.  I fell. Completely vulnerable.  No way to brace myself. No way to recover.  And in that moment, the words came out—half panic, half disbelief:

“I’ve fallen butt naked… and I can’t get up!"

It sounds almost funny now. And truthfully, there is humor in it looking back. But in that moment, there was nothing funny about it. I had no control.  No dignity the way I defined it before.  No way out on my own.  My friend had to call the fire department to get me out of the tub.  Strangers lifting me. Seeing me at my most exposed.    

And what I felt in that moment wasn’t just embarrassment.

It was grief.

It was anger.

It was the crushing weight of realizing my life had changed in a way I could no longer deny. 

I resented needing help.  Because it felt like I was losing myself. Emotionally. Spiritually. Mentally—I was tired.  And underneath all of that was a lie I had believed for so long:

“If I can’t do it on my own… then I am no longer strong.”. Until I finally asked.  Not people.  God. Because when everything else was stripped away—my strength, my control, my independence—I was left with a choice: Keep fighting alone…Or surrender. And surrender didn’t look like defeat the way I thought it would.  It looked like honesty.

“God… I can’t do this by myself.”. And in that moment, something shifted.  Not in my body.  But in my spirit.

What did asking for help feel like? 

At first—it felt heavy.  Like swallowing pride I had carried for a lifetime.  Like stepping into a version of myself I didn’t recognize. But then… it felt like release.  Physically, I stopped overexerting myself trying to prove something.  Emotionally, I stopped carrying the weight of pretending.  Spiritually, I stopped resisting what God was trying to teach me.

What did it do to my pride?

It broke it.  But not in a way that destroyed me—In a way that rebuilt me. Because pride had me isolated.  Pride had me exhausted.  Pride had me believing a lie. And that lie was this: That I was only as strong as what I could do alone.

What I learned…

Strength is not independence. Strength is surrender when surrender is required.

What I became…

A man who still stands—but not by his own power.

A man who understands that receiving is not weakness—it’s trust.

A man who found deeper strength in letting go than I ever found in holding on.

What I choose…

I choose to ask.

I choose to receive.

I choose connection over isolation.

I choose truth over pride.

To anyone living with ALS…

I know how hard it is.  The hesitation.  The fear.  The quiet voice that tells you to hold on to who you used to be.

But hear me:. You are not losing yourself when you ask for help. You are finding a version of yourself that is deeper, freer, and more aligned with truth.

My body may have weakened. 

But my spirit…

My spirit has learned to lean.

To trust.

To surrender.

Because I’ve come to understand something I didn’t know before:

My strength was never meant to come from me alone.  It comes from God. God is always with me and comforts me when I feel alone.  I submitted myself to Him.  Not halfway.  Not when it’s convenient.  But fully.  And now, every single day I wake up, I begin the same way—with a prayer that has become the foundation of my strength:

“Lord, not my will, but Your will be done.”

Those words didn’t come easy.

They came through loss.

Through surrender.

Through learning to release the life I thought I needed to hold onto.

But in that surrender, I found peace.  The kind of peace that doesn’t depend on what my body can or cannot do.  The kind of peace that holds me steady, even when everything else feels uncertain. 

My body may be failing.  But my spirit is soaring—held up by the unshakable promises of a God who loves me unconditionally.