My kids have been on a space kick lately. Ever since the Artemis II launch captured their imaginations, we’ve been watching everything we can find about space travel. Recently we sat down together to watch Apollo 13, and there’s a scene near the end that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about.
If you’ve seen the movie, you know the stakes are almost unbearably high. The crew needs to restart the spacecraft and re-enter Earth’s atmosphere at exactly the right speed and angle. Too steep and they burn up. Too shallow and they skip off the atmosphere without enough fuel to try again. The pressure on the system is so precise that a single misstep in the sequence could cause the ship to exceed its voltage limit and explode before they even get the chance to try.
Kevin Bacon’s character, Jack Swigert the Command Module Pilot, is the one who has to do this sequence, and he’s been awake for days in a cold, oxygen-deprived spacecraft. As he’s getting the instructions from NASA, and taking notes, he realizes he’s not operating at full capacity. He interrupts Ken Mattingly (played by Gary Sinise) who is safely on earth, to say that he’s having trouble reading his own handwriting because he’s so tired.
This is a man whose whole persona throughout the film has been confidence, charm, and skill. And in the most critical moment of his life, he sets all of that down and lets it be known that he needs help.
The man he says this to, Mattingly, is the original astronaut who was supposed to be on that mission instead of Swigert. The only reason he wasn’t is because he was pulled at the last minute when a medical test flagged a potential illness. He had every reason to feel bitter, every reason to let the moment carry a charge of rivalry or resentment. Instead, he simply says: Don’t worry, Jack. I’ll talk you through it.
That exchange gets me every time.
Why We Tell Ourselves We’re Fine (When We’re Not)
When we’re struggling, there’s often a chorus of internal voices that work hard to keep us from admitting it, even to ourselves.
It’s not that bad. Other people have it worse. I should be able to handle this. What will people think? I can’t be the one who falls apart. I have to be strong.
And those voices don’t come from nowhere. Our culture reinforces them constantly. From “Just Do It” to “Keep Calm and Carry On,” the message is clear: endure. Push through. Don’t complain. Strength means not needing anything from anyone.
There are certainly times in life when we have to accept hard things or things we cannot change, and find a way to keep going. But accepting difficulty is not the same as pretending we aren’t affected by it. We are human. We are allowed to express a full range of emotions.
When Survival Mode Becomes Your Default Setting
Many of the people I work with have been running on adrenaline and cortisol for years, sometimes decades. They have developed an incredible capacity to function under pressure, to keep going when others might not, to survive circumstances that were genuinely dangerous or traumatic. In many cases, it saved their lives.
But those survival responses were never meant to be permanent. They were meant to be tools for extreme moments, not impenetrable identities to maintain around the clock. When we are stuck in hypervigilance, always trying to keep everything under control to protect ourselves and others it becomes unsustainable, and it can also become addictive. We might feel safe when we are managing chaos because it is familiar, and unconsciously seek it out jobs or relationships where we are expected to do that on repeat. It gives us a daily dopamine hit, but the problem is that this sustained mode eventually stops working for us and starts costing us something. Our nervous systems, our relationships, our bodies pay the price.
Recognizing that is not weakness. It’s wisdom.
Why Vulnerability Is a Strength, Not a Weakness
Swigert doesn’t fall apart when he asks for help. He doesn’t become less capable or less trustworthy. He does the opposite; he makes the mission more likely to succeed by being honest about what he needs in that moment. His self-awareness is the thing that saves them.
And Mattingly doesn’t use that vulnerability against him. He meets it with steadiness. Don’t worry, Jack. I’ll talk you through it.
That’s what asking for help can actually look like. Not collapse. Not defeat. A clear-eyed recognition that this moment is too important to get wrong, and we can ask for help.
You’ve Been Carrying This Long Enough
If you’ve been telling yourself that things aren’t bad enough to need support, or that you should be further along by now, or that admitting you’re struggling means something is fundamentally wrong with you, I want to gently push back on that.
Needing help doesn’t mean you’re broken. It means you’re human, and you’ve probably been carrying something very heavy for a very long time.
There is so much strength in being able to say: I’m having trouble reading my own writing. I guess I [am] a little more tired than I thought.
We’re here for exactly that.
Ampersand Counseling Collective offers individual therapy for adults navigating anxiety, trauma, life transitions, and more. If you’re ready to take that step, we’d love to connect.
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