Help.

I've received good deal of it over the years from various people for various things. I'm not great at it, though.

What I mean by that, is I'm not quick to recognize when I need help or when I finally get around to asking for it, I let it bother me.

There are countless examples, from minor things like getting help moving to working on projects around the house once I'm over my head to more serious things like borrowing money or going to the doctor when I need to.

What it all boils down to is pride and it's something we all struggle with in our own ways.

My battles with pride recently are insignificant compared to what others are dealing with as I learn about issues that came up at a food bank summit in Douglas County recently.

Need is on the rise, which is not surprising. What's interesting is how much people are struggling with the idea of merely accepting the help that's available to them. We're hearing stories about a mother accepting food donations only to have the father of the household later turn it down because he wants to take care of their needs themselves.

Representatives from several food banks shared numerous such stories with Douglas County commissioners at the summit, aimed at getting a better idea of what has to be done to meet the increase in need and the increase in donations. Basically, the system is exploding on both ends. Among the problems discussed at the meeting is this phenomenon of emotional and psychological barriers to accepting help by people who are finding themselves in a position of need for the first time in their lives.

When the book is finally written on this recession and this period in history, I'll be interested to see what role misplaced pride played in the whole thing. I can tell you now, it's more than you think.

If I were to write that book, here's my draft of the synopsis you'd read on the inside of the jacket:

"On the front end, greed (another term for pride in this context) built the house of cards that toppled into an epic foreclosure debacle and economic turmoil. On the back end, pride is what kept people from accepting the reality of their situations and putting all of this behind us quickly."

Of course, I'm not writing it because I'm one of the people who would need to read such a book. If I were faced with accepting help at a more fundamental level such as putting food on the table, I don't know that I'd react much differently than these new faces of need that are appearing today.

As I've thought about this idea for the last several days, I've realized there is a common theme to various scenarios where I've needed and accepted help in the past. I couldn't escape the fact that the options that made the most sense financially, emotionally or practically were also the ones that wounded my pride the most.

Want to know the real kicker? Making the pride-swallowing decision was the only choice I could really be proud of in many cases. I'm starting to think that there are more people in that same boat than any of us realize.

My holiday wish for these new faces of need this holiday season is not so much that they get the help that's available to them, whether it be food or clothes or Christmas gifts for the kids, but that the people receiving them grant themselves the day of amnesty they need to come to grips with accepting that help so they can move on.

Jeremy Bangs is the managing editor of Colorado Community Newspapers.