Asking for support around my creative work doesn’t come easily. It never has. Not because I lack confidence in what I’ve made, but because asking feels raw in a way that’s hard to explain unless you’ve lived it. Sharing creative work is not the same as promoting a product or a business. Creative work is porous and intimate. It begins in the privacy of the mind, often shaped in solitude, then slowly coaxed into form through attention, intuition, and emotional labor. When a piece of writing or a project is ready to share, it carries the imprint of my interior world: my thoughts, memories, hopes, and dreams.

So when I ask someone, “Can you read my blog? Can you share it? Can you see me?” I am not simply asking for a favor. I am asking them to care about what I’ve shaped from silence. I’m asking them to witness something vulnerable, not just in content, but in context. I’m asking them to pause and participate in the tender economy of attention, which differs significantly from the transactional economies that govern so much of our everyday lives.

This kind of request goes against the social contract most of us are conditioned to follow. Especially in American culture, we are trained to keep things efficient, surface-level, and self-contained. There is an unspoken rule that we’re supposed to be fine, always. Not just fine, but thriving. The stories of the “independent woman,” the “self-made artist,” the “girlboss who never asked for help” are seductive myths. They tell us we will be more lovable and admirable if we never show need. But these myths also isolate us.

The pressure NOT to ask is even more intense for women. Especially women raised within the emotional codes of white, Christian, middle-class, patriarchal systems. In these spaces, we are taught to regulate our wants early on, directly, or by observation. To be kind but not assertive. To be impressive but not boastful. To support others but not center ourselves. To give endlessly without asking anything in return. We are taught to perform “make things look easy” even when we are exhausted, to shrink our ambition into digestible portions, and to never, under any circumstance, appear as though we are trying too hard.

This creates an impossible bind when it comes to asking for creative support. Because saying “Can you read this?” or “Can you show up for me?” goes directly against that training. It invites the possibility of being perceived as needy. Or worse, self-important. Even in progressive or feminist spaces, those old scripts linger. They exist as internalized voices that whisper, “This is too much,” or “No one wants to hear this,” or “You’re making it about you.”

But the truth is: I am making it about me. Full stop. Not in a narcissistic way, but in a profoundly human one. I’m saying, “This is what I made. It matters to me. I hope it matters to you.” That shouldn’t be radical, but it is because women aren’t socialized to claim that kind of space for our interiority, especially not publicly. We can advocate for others. We can support causes. But naming our own needs around visibility, support, and emotional resonance? That still feels like trespassing.

The irony is that so many of us crave community. We talk about wanting to build networks of mutual support, especially among like-minded creatives or politically aligned women. But we falter regarding participation, in the real work of showing up for each other’s labor and emotional vulnerability. We scroll. We “like.” We lurk. But often, we don’t engage. I am guilty.

Part of that is structural. Everyone is tired. Everyone is inundated. But part of it is cultural, too. We’ve learned to expect the illusion of connection without the risk of intimacy. We consume other people’s work as content, without caring. We treat the creative labor of friends as something we’ll “get to eventually.” And we tell ourselves that silence isn’t rejection. That everyone’s just busy. Again, I’m the same way.

So when I press “post,” I’m not expecting everyone to drop everything and turn toward me. But I hope the people who say they believe in mutual aid and community-building will pause long enough to notice. They will understand that this isn’t about the ego but about survival. Emotional survival. Creative survival. Visibility for artists isn’t a bonus; it’s the purpose of our struggle.

So I’m saying this now: I’m not breaking down when I ask for support. I’m breaking open. I’m pushing back against the cultural scripts that say I should do this alone, be grateful for what I have, never ask to be seen, and NEVER make people uncomfortable.

Because a real community begins when someone dares to ask for more than performance. When someone says, “I need you to engage with me,” someone else replies, “I will.” It’s not about constant reciprocity or obligation. It’s not about agreeing. It’s about the willingness to be present with someone else’s life.

So, thank you to everyone who has responded to that call, even if it was just with a comment, a click, or a message that said, “I see this.” That matters. That’s how we start to dismantle the shame of needing each other. That’s how we build something different.

And I promise: I’m here for you, too.