When 'let’s connect’ is code for ‘I need help’

Why you’re afraid to admit that you’re stuck

Everyone has challenging moments or days. When those moments stretch into days, you start to wonder if this challenge is your new normal and not just a phase. Some people are great at asking for help, even if it’s just a sounding board session with a trusted friend. Others find it harder to ask for help and instead intellectualise their challenge until it makes sense to them. It’s an effective way of deluding yourself that you’re in control when nothing has changed except your feelings about the situation.

The feelings get sidelined by the dominant and extremely compelling stories we tell ourselves and others about the situation. This is one of the weird, wonderful, and worrisome ways our ego defences work to avoid confronting tough truths and resist the change that is foisted upon us by the presence of a challenging situation. These are the same reflexes we see in interpersonal narcissism, where control and appearances matter more than truth. The status game here is composure at all costs.

I’ve noticed another pattern: pain disguised as offers of connection. It often sounds like these innocent expressions:

“You’ve been on my mind and I wanted to see how you’re doing.”

“Your work really resonates. I’d love to connect with you.”

“It’s been a while, let’s catch up.”

You might be thinking this is another case of Nathalie looking for things to unpack in non-things. I write about behaviour that intrigues me when they occur a few times in slightly absurd ways. When something grabs my attention because of its mild absurdity, I assume it’s worth exploring more deeply. That’s how I work, and so far it has paid off and helped many people make sense of things they can’t describe but sense something’s not quite right.

I recently received a string of private messages on business networking platforms that seem innocent. They’re not the covert envy-fuelled messages I’ve written about before. These are appreciation messages about my posts on the Scapegoating Playbook at Work, paired with requests to meet virtually and connect. What they share in common is that they come from high status helping professionals

They include organisational psychologists, learning and development leaders, psychiatrists, occupational health specialists, HR directors, governance and risk consultants, and lawyers, often from prestigious companies.

I’ve also had many other professionals, including CEOs, reach out to me to share their stories of scapegoating privately and book sessions with me. So this is not about status or reluctance to reveal too much before a proper introduction.

There is something about protecting identity and maintaining an image of competence that makes it difficult for these helping professionals to admit they are experiencing what I have described in my posts. Instead, they reach out as peers, offering approval of my work so that I see them as supportive colleagues rather than people in need. That’s well and good, but it is not the entire story.

When I look closely at these messages, I see a consistent pattern. They’re not direct requests for help but come wrapped in praise, compliments, and collegiality.

1. Credentials up front: Their title is highlighted in their profile or in their message. The role is seen or described up front so they can be seen as a peer with authority, not as someone in distress. The credential shields them from looking like they are asking for help.

2. Collegial framing: The request is softened into let’s connect or your work resonates, keeping the interaction at the level of professional exchange. This allows them to appear curious and supportive while avoiding exposure of their own struggle.

3. Offer of generosity: Instead of disclosing their difficulty, they frame the approach as giving something to me: their story “for my work,” their time, or their platform. The generosity masks need, and lets them maintain an identity as the one who provides rather than the one who seeks because they are dealing with their own challenge privately.

4. Testing the waters : Some will pose a question, test my framing, or gently challenge an idea. The move is a way of gauging how I respond. If I “pass,” they might consider revealing more. If I don’t, they can retreat with no loss of face.

5. Gratitude as cover: Nearly all end with appreciation or thanks. Gratitude makes a graceful exit possible. They can withdraw without revealing vulnerability, leaving me with admiration rather than their struggle.

Underneath all these moves is the same truth. They recognise themselves in what I’ve written but their professional identity makes it hard to admit it. To say they are struggling would mean admitting they don’t have it all together, which threatens the very image of competence they rely on. Approval, collegiality, and gratitude become safe proxies for honesty. The ego steps in to protect them from feeling fragile using status preserving manoeuvres to convince me and themselves that everything is under control. What looks like a request for connection is really a way to save face without revealing their actual need: resolution.

Here are a few examples of how they tend to play out in practice:

1. Vague outreach
   “Hi Nathalie, I’d love to connect virtually if you have time. Many of your posts resonate.”

   The professional title is clearly displayed in the profile, such as psychiatrist, consultant, or executive, but the message itself is light and noncommittal. The vagueness allows them to make contact while keeping their struggle hidden. It is a small status game, a way of appearing engaged while protecting their authority.

2. Credential first intro
   “Nathalie, I’ve been following your work and I’d love the opportunity to meet you, both in my personal capacity and as the head of organisational leadership at a global professional services firm.”
   

   The role is placed up front to establish competence and authority before anything personal is revealed. This preserves their professional image while skirting around the possibility of asking for help. It is a familiar ego defence of asserting superiority before risking exposure.

3. Offer of generosity
   “I’d love to have you on my podcast. I’ve recently become interested in workplace abuse and would love to explore it with you.”
   

   On the surface, this looks like an offer to me but is a cover. By giving me an opportunity, they don’t have to show their own helplessness in navigating their own challenging situation. The move keeps them in the role of giver, not seeker, which lets them preserve authority while avoiding vulnerability.

4. Testing the waters

   “I thought of your work on scapegoating when I shared a post this week about labelling people as ‘toxic.’ Here’s how I see it… What does your framework say?”

   This looks like an exchange of ideas, but it is really a status-preserving move. By putting their own view forward first, they hold on to authority while hinting that their framework is not working. The question about my framework is a safer way of saying they don’t know what to do, without openly admitting it.

5. Gratitude as cover

   “Thank you for your work, it has been so valuable for me and many others.”

   This might appear as simple appreciation, but it also carries a strong and superior posture. Gratitude positions me as an authority they can align with, almost as if we are comrades navigating the same dysfunctional workplace world. By thanking me in this way, they preserve the sense that they are still on equal footing, not someone in need of help.

What ties these variations together is the same struggle. These professionals reach out without admitting they might be experiencing what I describe. Their identity as competent, insightful, and composed has to stay intact. The message works as a safeguard against the insecurity that comes with admitting struggle and the deeper fear of identity collapse.

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

Ego protective narratives

For helping professionals, the greatest threat is not the challenge itself, but what the challenge implies about their competence and credibility. Admitting helplessness risks being cast into the victim role of Karpman’s Dreaded Drama Triangle. That role can feel intolerable for people whose authority rests on guiding others. To protect against the shame of being “the one who doesn’t know” the ego constructs status-preserving narratives that echo the defences expressed as interpersonal narcissistic behaviour:

• “I should know how to do this.”
  I’m worthless if my skills and training can’t equip me to manage this.

• “I’m the one people go to for help.”
  Who am I if I can’t hold others up when they need me?

• “There should be an opportunity in this situation.”
  I’ve failed if I can’t turn this challenge into growth or meaning.

• “I can’t be seen as helpless.”
  I’ll lose credibility if I can’t work this out or am helpless.

• “We know/do the same things.”

  I know what to do, I just go about it differently.

These are not just narratives. They’re micro status contracts with the self designed to keep the ego intact. They shield them from shame but also trap them in appearances. Instead of admitting they don’t know what to do, they send compliments, collegial gestures or offers of generosity. The message suggests a desire for connection, but is really a way to protect status and hide insecurity. They recognise themselves in my work, but they try to resolve their struggle without exposing the need that brought them to me in the first place.

Beyond ego defences

As someone whose professional identity is built on helping others navigate dysfunctional dynamics and toxic behaviour, it can be disorienting when I don’t notice red flags in my own situations or when I notice them and choose not to act. Instead, I plough forward, convincing myself I can manage it until the challenge itself stops me in my tracks.

Discernment is a lifelong project so it’s a work in progress. Sometimes the framework I need to make sense of what is happening does not yet exist. It has to emerge in real time, either through fumbling in the dark or adapting what I already know on the fly.

That state is unnerving. When I don’t want to make a misstep, I can slip into overcompensation. I come across as if I know it all, when in truth I’m clinging to certainty because I feel insecure, which is a defence, not a strength. In those moments, the hardest task is to be honest with myself and allow not knowing to be just as valid a state as having answers.

To avoid exposing a shaky identity, I sometimes try to level the playing field. Instead of saying, “I don’t know what to do here and I could use help”, I default to proving that I am just as knowledgeable and competent as the person who can actually help me. Demonstrating expertise is a defence against the perceived weakness of revealing uncertainty.

That impulse to protect status and avoid looking helpless is the same one I see in the professionals who reach out to me. They don’t announce their struggle directly. Instead, they lead in the ways I described to mask the shame of needing help in the very area where they are supposed to be the expert.

This is the burden of knowledge. It inflates the ego just enough to make admitting insecurity feel like a threat to identity. Instead of recognising that someone else might be better positioned to help resolve the issue, the ego resists. Rather than saying plainly, “I’d love to book a session with you” the safer move becomes, “let’s connect”.

Every time I read let’s connect I see how easily we slip into the status game of preserving the empowered helper identity instead of facing the helplessness that scares us most. The true invitation is to step into the Challenger role that transcends Karpman’s Drama Triangle, not as an aggressor, but as the one who disrupts shame-fuelled defences and surrenders control to enter the unknown. To do this is to dismantle the ego’s defences and allow humility to open the vast cosmic vault, a hidden chamber where new learning, innovation, agency and resolution wait to be uncovered. Even experts must be stretched into these depths, because the journey always leads to gold.

-Nathalie

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