Having to choose something before it helps you is the whole point of having a choice. Your choices may not always get you to where you want to go, you always have them, and they're always meaningful. To say otherwise is to dehumanise.
I think you're making it too black and white. It's absolutely possible for people to be robbed of choice, sometimes to extreme degrees, both practically and especially psychologically.
If what you're saying is as black and white as you put it, it means cult members, those severely abused in relationships, the psychological tortured, severely addicted, and so on ultimately only have themselves to blame. I'd say that is more dehumanizing than the alternative.
Of course those are extreme examples, and of course in all of those cases some have been able to make choices. But I find it callous and presumptuous to argue that those who didn't choose to be helped somehow just... chose not to choose? didn't try hard enough?
In reality choice is a murky concept. Philosophical debates about free will aside, practically speaking the most generous and human assumption is that depending on all sorts of factors, we have various degrees of choice. And sometimes the best help we can give people is to, with as much respect and wisdom as possible, choose for them.
Going even further, I find the whole idea of independent choice rather murky. I think we have consciousness, and experience a degree of choice, and avoiding learned helplessness is important. But so much of what I consider 'me', is so obviously strongly affected by those around me who shape and shaped me, that I cannot help but conclude that I'm not even remotely a product of my own choices in more ways than I'd like to admit. And that's not even getting into the whole issue of the subconscious playing a significant role in much of what I do!
