I've had relatives and clients who fall into the rejection of help category. I know whereof I speak.

The situation is this:

You are in trouble for one reason or another. It may not even be your fault. You need help. You ask for help. Your plea is rejected, either by non-hearing, or by refusal, or by inadequate effort.

You are in trouble a second time for one reason or another. It may not even be your fault. You need help again. You ask for help again. Your plea is rejected, again, either by non-hearing, or by refusal, or by inadequate effort.

You are in trouble a third time for one reason or another. It may not even be your fault. You need help again. You ask for help again. Your plea is rejected, again, either by non-hearing, or by refusal, or by inadequate effort. By this time, you are identified as "trouble", at least in your own mind, and sometimes by others, especially if you have asked for help from the same people.

The earlier in your life this cycle starts, the more deeply ingrained it becomes in your heart. It takes a lot of effort to identify this, and more effort to overcome. It's the kind of problem that, unlike blindness or a whithered arm, is invisible. Without help, it doesn't happen.

Moreover, after a sufficient number of rejections, you begin to reject someone first, before they can reject you. A pre-emptive strike in the social sphere. This is especially true of adults who were neglected or abused as children.

People are different. Some people take a long time to recover, if ever. Perhaps they don't have a certain kind of resilience. Perhaps their problems are steeped in deep forgetfulness. The lucky ones encounter one special person at a crucial point in their lives, and they seem to escape the cycle on their own, but they weren't really without help.

It's easy to get fed up, because the bigger the backlog of rejections, the longer it takes to overcome. It's almost like a test, clearing the backlog, building that trust. Point for point, rejection by rejection, they get cleared away, just like temporary files when you run disk cleanup on your computer. You can't build trust with a bunch of coming-and-going strangers in white coats that come in to stick a thermometer up your butt and a needle in your arm. It has to be one person, or a small group of known, regular players. They have to help not just to help, but to help you, a unique person, the one people didn't help before.

It's also easy to say it's their fault. It's their responsibility to work through their fear and pain, but it's not their fault they are that way. It's not our fault they are that way either (though in some cases, when the hurt was deliberate or criminal, the fault does belong to somebody). And it's our responsibility, as their brothers and sisters in a larger sense, to hold out that hand as many times as we can, and then once more, because we know that somewhere, someone we love or will love is being offered the chance to face their pain and fear, to fall, and to, finally, be caught.