AIBU to ask friends for support during severe health flare-ups?

You may think it unfair that no one considers offering you a hug or cup of tea, but your family may actually fear that hugging you when you're in pain might cause you more pain, not alleviate your suffering. And if one of your solutions is to leave your house and children with their father and check into a hotel during flare-ups, who's going to bring you cups of tea or hugs then?

I think you've got two big problems here:
One is that your endometriosis is not being dealt with properly. For that, you need to be making more of a fuss with your healthcare professionals. Mine was severe and I made a fuss and ended up having a hysterectomy while still in my 30s and childless! You have had children, so if no other treatment is available to you and pain management isn't working, you certainly should be kicking up a louder fight to have a hysterectomy.
The second issue you have is some sort of insecurity that you probably need to address through counselling.

I wish you well in dealing with both.

I think what you’re asking is possible of a spouse (though it is still a big load on them) but not from anyone else. I think you are low and in pain and want sympathy, to be treated as a child and all the stressful nasty things removed. Unfortunately you are an adult, your spouse doesn’t want to do this and so you need to find other ways to manage this.

Yes, friends can give a hug and a cup of tea when you see them. If it’s always the case that they are the ones providing this for you and it’s not a two-way street, you will probably lose them.

Sending generic texts outlining what you need from people who are also very busy with their own lives are unlikely to be well received.

I don’t think that is what people are thinking. I genuinely don’t think that the thought process is that this is so distressing that I can’t perform an act of kindness. I think that many adults have poorly developed emotional regulation and they can’t sit with someone else’s distress. Your pain is intense, scary, and not something that anyone can fix. I think it is a very common response in other people to want to flee from that. I genuinely don’t think that comes from place of unkindness.

Many years ago, I had a patient who was dying a horrible death all on her own. I hate to think about this now because I couldn’t even cope with being in the room with her. I know I was very young at the time and I hope I would be better now, but it was truly unbearable not being able to do anything for her. Empathic distress.

I think you’re lucky to have experienced this kind of care in the past in your extended family, but I don’t think it is usual, and perhaps not culturally typical in Britain (just a musing, I don’t know). I’d love to have a massive but close knit family who did this for each but I don’t, most people don’t and we have to manage how we can. I don’t know if it is the fact that we don’t live in small close knit communities for the most part, that means that it is a common phenomenon to not be able to cope with pain, suffering, grief, and death.

You must realise that most people don't have parents who look after their children whenever they're working or ill? So you clearly do have amazing support already.
I'm surprised you want even more tbh as they are giving a hell of a lot already.

Kindly OP, that’s a helluva big ask. I have 3 chronic autoimmune conditions. With one of them I have to take drops every hour when in a flare. There is so much tech available that can help you. Set timers or alarms on your phone to remind you to take your meds or reset your heat pad. My friends think nothing of my multiple timers going off and just carry on whatever we’re doing while I whip the drops out (I can see I’ve got one due to go off in 17 minutes). Set schedules in your phone calendar with notifications. As a PP said, automation is your friend. I’ve got a robot hoover, robot lawnmower and an automatic feeder for dried food for the cat. I use all of these systems consistently, not just when I’m in a flare and that way it frees up a bit of time for regular self care.

It comes naturally to me to make sure my children are taken care of no matter what I'm going through. I think you're being quite spoiled and ungrateful here with your comment about not knowing soothing was hard and then complaining about your parents asking simple questions about caring for your child.
Do you not realise how huge it is to have that level of support? You have a nanny and housemaid on tap for when you have a flair. That's far above and beyond what anyone I know has. Its easier to have the capacity to sooth someone when you have lots of practical support around you.
Your parents are busy soothing your young child and taking care of your home so you can rest, as you've said in a previous post, that's burning them out. No wonder they don't have the capacity to sooth you.

As a fellow endo sufferer when I’ve had flare ups when I can’t sit still/lie down/vomiting with pain, there’s nothing anyone can do.
Housework is the least of my worries. My husband also needs to work and can’t be with me. I am trying my best to get this condition managed as best as possible so I’m not missing work.

Someone to look after my child (which you have) would be all I expect. My husband has epilepsy and we sometimes need people ‘on call’ to look after our daughter if he has a prolonged seizure or I’m at work and he’s alone with our daughter and his watch alerts those few people.

it’s not fair to ask friends to help but I know in an emergency they definitely would.
I don’t think it’s fair to send this message to people. It sounds very demanding.
It’s probably best to have a conversation with your friends face to face rather than a message like this.

Is this really related directly to your condition or that you are lonely and don't feel you have anyone that can step up in the way that a partner or parents might. Parents and partners step up in this way because its often reciprocal even if that reciprocity plays out over decades. It doesn't sound like you are offering any support to the other person so in the nicest possible way - why on earth would they. Maybe target the loneliness instead - realistically you dont need someone to take charge of you when you are ill even if its nice.

I understand if you feel like you are not getting this from your family it must leave you feeling sad, but I would recommend thinking of ways to self sooth instead. Nothing can replace human contact and care, I think people just get used to you being ill, clearly your family take care of the practical stuff, perhaps have a conversation with your DH about this.

I used to have extraordinarily bad period pains before I gave birth and DH always managed to be sympathetic enough to bring tea, painkillers, hot water bottles so while I do understand they may have just become accustomed to it it’s not as frequent as my periods and they should be able to show a little sympathy, DH managed it and he’s not a soppy person at all. I do also agree that your family should be able and willing to help when you are not able to get stuff done.

The thing that bothers me about this I suppose that I think to many of us this sort of request was clearly crossing a line in terms of what you can demand from friends. I don’t know how to phrase this but maybe reflect on whether your own perception of whats appropriate to expect is reasonable. It would never even cross my mind to ask this of anyone, primarily because I don’t really need soothing and because I understand that as an adult asking another adult to basically come around and mollycoddle me in some sort of play act (I don’t know how else to put it) would be perceived as quite strange and extremely needy.

Perhaps your perception of being neglected by your loved ones is not so accurate as you think it is? You seem to have very distorted expectations around what would be reasonable to ask from people.

You want a caregiver who will take over when your illness has flares and provide a lot of emotional support.

I think that's too much to ask of friends on a regular basis and at irregular intervals for days at a time. Nobody can drop their life for 4 or 5 days multiple times per year to be your caregiver, that's not a reasonable expectation.

There are a lot of people who can't deal with seeing someone in severe pain. Sorry, but you can't expect them to change a natural emotional reaction and it can be very upsetting. That's going to inhibit the emotional support you want. I think you wanting a sitter to be with you is not a reasonable request for family or friends.

Automate your life so it's easier during flare. Set up online grocery shopping with delivery if possible. Does your pharmacy deliver meds? Buy paper plates and plastic utensils so you don't the have to worry about dirty dishes. Robot vacuum.

You need to be in charge of your own care it's sounds like you want sympathy from everyone !!!
I know what it's like I have a chronic condition and I've actually been in remission since 2023 and I've been in a severe flare since February and I'm just getting in with it and I know when to rest and take painkillers your not a child !
I actually tend to isolate myself from people during these times because I DONT want people to see me like this . I don't want sympathy
Sorry if that's harsh u have to deal with it yourself

Hey, the title yes (which I ignore and read the content so fair enough - but does indicate people are not reading the actual post) but no, the post itself only mentions friends once in paragraph 5 but just to say they 'could' ask friends but it's assumed family/partner helps, then straight back to asking family ("they" is ambiguous but given the post mentions family, that's who is being referred back to).

Given the OP only mentions once that they 'could' ask friends, it wouldn't make sense if the rest were about them too because then where is the contrast? There's only a contrast if discussing family.

OP should clarify really. Maybe they ultimately meant both.

I'm not sure what you mean by being soothed. If someone asked me to pick the kids up or start cooking the supper because they were too ill, i would be happy to do it!
If i was asked to sit there going "there dear, can I get things for you or mop your fevered brow?" I wouldn't be too happy.

Hysterectomy doesn’t cure endometriosis. The majority of my endo was on my bowel

I really don’t think this should be a mass email. You’d be better to talk to individual people in detail about what they might be able to do - or not - to help you.

I think this is an outrageous request. You keep going on about how you would do it for other people but everyone can be generous with other people's time or money. Not so easy when it's your own.

If you need carers then you need to pay for them. But I don't even know what you want from people? Soothing and medication reminders is such a strange thing to ask people to take time out of their busy lives for.

It's quite concerning that the 3 people closest to you have all refused to provide the level of care that you think you should be getting from them. Makes me think you're asking way too much.

You need a hysterectomy.

You need it now.

Take out a bank loan ask parents to lend money etc. And pay for it privately if possible

Otherwise put all your remaining energy into getting moved up the NHs waiting list. And keep going back to a&e for morphine for the pain,

You can have it done in a couple of weeks.

Tackle the source of the problem