Man is a social being. He is at his best when he is assured of love, support, understanding and empathy from family and friends, especially when he needs it the most.
Reaching out is the need of the hour given the way stress levels seem to be working on each and every individual at different stages of life. In earlier times, joint families acted as a buffer and gave each and every member a feeling of oneness, support and a means to ventilate one's thoughts and feelings and thereby handle stress levels in a very efficient manner. Finding solace in the comfort of near and dear ones made it possible to find an amicable way to cope with the stress and also resulted in a strong family bonding.
But unfortunately as we enter an era of nuclear family structures, these positive aspects that helped find happiness within the family itself have turned around, often leaving a disturbed person in a helpless and distressed state. Further factors such as ego, mistrust & humiliation, both within and outside the family leaves the person totally distraught with little choice but to take irrational steps in handling the situation.
No problem can be labelled as average, moderate or acute. Each is unique to the person and to the situation. Let us take the example of a child whose peers constantly bully him and make his life miserable at school. The child may be going through very high levels of stress, which may in turn take its toll on his/her self-esteem causing a permanent damage in his development during the growing years. Most of us parents may ignore the desperate cries of the child seeking help, considering it to be a trivial issue and expecting the child to handle it himself, little realising the agony that the child is going through.
Fear of criticism
In case of adolescents the fear of being criticised and condemned by family or friends adds on to the miseries and he finds himself lost and takes drastic steps to cope up with his problems.
Similarly in adults, stress both at work place and home makes it extremely difficult to handle normal day-to-day happenings making space for misunderstanding, mistrust and agitation. Unable to cope, the person may get into high anxiety levels & further fall into depression when they find no means of ventilating their feelings.
These are but a few instances where a person looks for assurance, care and concern. Confusions and distress cloud his thought process and he finds himself unable to look at the options available to him. It is of utmost importance for a person at this level to reach out and seek help by sharing his thoughts and feelings to enable him to sail through such turmoil.
Where there is not much support and help available from family and friends, people have to without any hesitation reach out for professional help. Taking that little effort to overcome and reach for help is truly worthwhile.

The author is a counsellor and can be contacted at Sneha Counselling Centre - 9342133520