Learned Helplessness
The Misconception: If you are in a bad situation, you will do whatever you can do to escape it.
The Truth: If you feel like you aren’t in control of your destiny, you will give up and accept whatever situation you are in.
In 1965, a scientist named Martin Seligman started shocking dogs.
He was trying to expand on the research of Pavlov – the guy who could make dogs salivate when they heard a bell ring. Seligman wanted to head in the other direction, and when he rang his bell instead of providing food he zapped them with electricity. To keep them still, he restrained them in a harness during the experiment.
After they were conditioned, he put these dogs in a big box with a little fence dividing it into two halves. They figured if they rang the bell, the dog would hop over the fence to escape, but it didn’t. It just sat there and braced itself. They decided to try shocking them after the bell. The dog still just sat there and took it. When they put a dog in the box which had never been shocked before and tried to zap it – it jumped the fence.
You are just like these dogs.
If, over the course of your life, you have experienced crushing defeat or pummeling abuse or loss of control, you learn over time there is no escape, and if escape is offered, you will not act – you become a nihilist who trusts futility above optimism.
Studies of the clinically depressed show that when they fail they often just give in to defeat and stop trying. The average person will look for external forces to blame when they fail the mid-term. They will say the professor is an asshole, or they didn’t get enough sleep. Depressed people will blame themselves and assume they are stupid.
Do you vote? If not, is it because you think it doesn’t matter because things never change, or politicians are evil on both sides, or one vote in several million doesn’t count? Yeah, that’s learned helplessness.
When battered women, or hostages, or abused children, or long-time prisoners refuse to escape, they do so because they have accepted the futility of the attempt. What does it matter? If those people do get out of their situation, they often have a hard time committing to anything which may lead to failure.
Any extended period of negative emotions can lead to you giving in to despair and accepting your fate. If you remain alone for a long time, you will decide loneliness is a fact of life and pass up opportunities to hang out with people. The loss of control in any situation will lead to this state. A study in 1976 by Langer and Rodin showed in nursing homes where conformity and passivity is encouraged and every whim is attended to, the health and well-being of the patients declines rapidly. If, instead, the people in these homes are given responsibilities and choices, they remain healthy and active. This research was repeated in prisons. Sure enough, just letting prisoners move furniture and control the television kept them from developing health problems and staging revolts. In homeless shelters where people can’t pick out their own beds or choose what to eat, the residents are less likely to try and get a job or find an apartment.
When you are able to succeed at easy tasks, hard tasks feel possible to accomplish. When you are unable to succeed at small tasks, everything seems harder.
Rats given the opportunity to escape electric shocks are half as likely to develop tumors than those who are forced to bear them. Rats already suffering from cancer will die faster if placed into the inescapable shock experiment.
Every day – your job, the government, your addiction, your depression, your money – you feel like you can’t control the forces affecting your fate. So, you stage microrevolts. You customize your ringtone, you paint your room, you collect stamps. You choose.
Choices, even small ones, can hold back the crushing weight of helplessness, but you can’t stop there. You must fight back your behavior and learn to fail with pride. Failing often is the only way to ever get the things you want out of life. Besides death, your destiny is not inescapable.
You are not so smart, but you are smarter than dogs and rats. Don’t give in yet.
You Are Not So Smart – The Book
If you buy one book this year…well, I suppose you should get something you’ve had your eye on for a while. But, if you buy two or more books this year, might I recommend one of them be a celebration of self delusion? Give the gift of humility (to yourself or someone else you love).
Preorder now: Amazon - Barnes and Noble – Borders - Book A Million
Links:
A zillion scientific articles on the phenomenon
Video of a learned helplessness activity in a psychology class
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Wow, this hit too close to home. I’m really glad I found your blog, thank you.
I think is not about being smarter than other species, is about the ability of an indiviudal to adapt, is all about Darwin
Fuck Darwin, and every other individual who worships him. This article hit way too close to home for me as well, but I’ve realised that a big part of the reason why is atheists.
I don’t care if it’s wrong. I *hate* atheism.
I can’t delete this message, but I apologise for having made it. Yes, there have been a number of atheists who I’ve received negative treatment from, particularly online…and their ridicule is one of the reasons why I don’t want to go outside, for the most part…but it isn’t appropriate for me to justify about all of them, and I shouldn’t have done so.
ridicule from atheists keep you inside? that’s like the weirdest thing i’ve heard in weeks, what the f*** are you talking about?
That was really childish and counterproductive of you to say. Atheists can be assholes just like anyone else. Purposely failing to understand this person’s perspective and being unreasonably negative towards them aren’t going to improve this person’s problems or outlook. Why did you even bother saying anything?
Big difference between atheism and nihilism. Atheists can be (and often are) humanists, at root.
I must agree with Kev. It doesn’t matter what you consider yourself or others.. We can all be fked up at times to ourselves and others. Those moments do not define us as ppl. We all have the love of humanity in our hearts… Petrus I don’t believe in the GOD that the bible pushes but I do believe there is a creator… This should not come between ppl as this is based only on faith and theories.. Anybody letting this come between them should rethink their disposition.
More to the point, why is Darwin being defacto associated with atheism? Can a theist or agnostic not also like him and respect or even believe in his theories?
Knee jerk reaction much?
I can relate and i understand the sentiments you put forth. As an atheist surrounded by hypocritical christians that delude themselves, *I* hate christianity. I do not take offense that you hate atheism, as everyone’s experiences and lives are their own and i cannot possibly hope to fully empathize with your situation…much like you cannot with mine.
Kudos to you Kev for realizing the differences between experiences.
Despite our obvious theological differences (which truthfully do not matter one bit to me), you are a fellow human and i wish you the best of luck in dealing with everything that you have to deal with….i personally have found therapy and talking to close friends more helpful than reading blogs….just my two cents, i hope it helps.
WE ARE ALL PEOPLE, WE ARE ALL ALIVE…AND WE ALL NEED HELP TO GET THROUGH IT ALL. In that sense, we are all the same.
seriously, i hate atheist for stepping down and thinking its impossible to fight for gay rights or womens rights or the rights of anybody but some celibate old molestor-protectors. For letting church’s cause most every war and genocide and civil rights abuse.
I just finished reading The Plague by Albert Camus and you can tell that he explored this idea in it; dealing with how society functions when it is ravaged by a plague and how hopeless it gets and how people just come to accept that they will die.
I don’t really think learned helplessness explains prisoners revolting, sorry.
Learned helplessness is about passive acceptance.
That’s was my thought too, the prisoners revolting is not explained by learned helplessness.
Ever go to prison?
The article didn’t say that learned helplessness is the cause for prisoners revolting. It explained that learned helplessness leads to them becoming passive and not caring about their life, leading to depressive states which, in turn, causes them to become sick and unhealthy.
I think he was referring to giving prisoners choices, lead to less revolts. He states at the end of the article that when we are faced with helplessness we tend to do things that we know we can succeed at. I would guess in prison (life) strangling someone is a lot easier to succeed at than escape.
Damn, I hope I won’t get too used to being lonely, right now I’m taking every chance I can to meet people. It would be rather sad to just accept loneliness and shrivel up in a corner.
take it from me, loneliness is a difficult funk to break out of once you get used to it. i would never wish that on anyone.
catching up on this newly discovered site. I love this poem and it seems appropriate here:
Oh Yes – Charles Brukowski
there are worse things than
being alone;
but it often takes decades
to realize this
and most often
when you do
it’s too late
and there’s nothing worse
than too late.
Even battered women have picked themselved up and moved on. Anything is possible. The thing people don’t realize is that they CAN change.
Unfortunately that is a painful oversimplification. When you’re stuck in a situation that feels helpless, and you’ve made COUNTLESS attempts to change your circumstances, but they keep falling flat, it doesn’t help for people to tell you that, “Things will get better! You CAN make a difference in life!”. Because it feels like you’ve already made significant efforts to change things, everything you possibly could think of, and the things suggested by those whose council you’ve sought, and that those people telling you that you could change your life if only you knew you could are privileged idealists. Here’s where we’re more complex than dogs–we can get knocked down a million times and get creative with our attempts to escape before we ultimately decide that it’s futile. And merely vaguely advising someone that, “You really can change your life if only you believed it!” surely isn’t going to change an outlook thick with futility.
Yes, but “You really can change your life if only you believed it!” is a very stupid statement – nothing happens if you simply believe. You need to actually act, and that is where the so-called effort shock knocks in. Things are harder than they seem, and thus it is easier to stay in your awful situation than to waste energy on a futile attempt to change something. But I don’t think that effort put into making your life better is wasted effort, even if you fail.
Think and Feel are two totally different things. You often think without emotion and most often times feel without logic.
All people can pick themselves up if they want to and “get a life”. It is a matter of choice to decide to rob someone instead of getting a job to maintain yourself and rise.
Prisons are full of people that make bad choices.
To some welfare is a way of life and easier then working. You can say the same about prisons. Both paid for by tax dollars of the workers. It’s a simple problem and has a simple answer.
What, execution? :|
Thought this was a very interesting article – but disagree with not voting = learned helplessness.
It’s called critical thinking.
It’s a self fulfilling prophecy. If everyone believes their vote doesn’t count, it doesn’t. If everyone believed it did, it would (think of all the people who don’t even consider voting for a third party because of this idea). It’s numbers of you sorts failing to turn out in droves that makes your defeatist idea work.
Shae, you’re engaging in some very common magical thinking here. One person’s decision to vote or not has only a very small effect on the outcome. Yes, a whole drove of people doing so has an effect. But each single person has almost no effect.
New York City is not crowded because of that one guy that decided to live there. To suggest that that one guy moving out of NYC to make it less crowded is an obvious dumb suggestion.
There’s probably two things at work here. First is the magical desire that voting be an effective process. We really, really, want it to work. Second is that we are probably wired for thinking that works for small clan groupings. Yes, in a small clan, my actions have major social consequences for the group as a whole. These small-clan intuitions completely fail to scale up for modern societies, however.
One person voting or not voting has a vanishingly small effect on the outcome of a nation’s future. Probably less effect than spending an hour volunteering for your favorite cause, or spending an hour honing some valuable skill. That strikes us as unfair, unfortunate, and socially counter-intuitive. And yet it is true.
True one vote has little to no weight, but in the hypothetical, that thought process is very common with us and has no dought a level of power in the voting process. In this case the lack of voters leaves the power to the people who actually vote. It can become a collective self fulfilling prophecy (not of the magical kind). But just not on the basis of one persons decision alone.
If you are not part of the group of people that have historically declined to vote, then, how can you determine what their motives are? How can you determine what’s in their hearts? Have you ever personally asked people from specific minority groups (for example) – who did not vote – why they failed to vote. I have. The answer is always “it doesn’t matter, my vote don’t count anyways” or something similar.
More than the vote question, I ask people of certain minority groups why they refuse to go to jury duty. The answer is always the same. If the answer doesn’t have something to do with other obligations, it is ALWAYS “they ain’t gonna pick me for a jury anyways” or “the system isn’t made for me.”
This is indeed a reaction to their socioeconomic and political SHITuations . . . I never knew how to define it, but “learned helplessness” is really on point.
Of course, this is my opinion. .
Why the HELL are all you idiots focusing on the “vote” line!? It was an example to help lead to his point! AND YES. THAT IS LEARNED HELPLESSNESS. (or can be, to an extent). Sometimes, people choose to vote or not. I’ll be honest. Sometimes, I’m a lazy bastard who just don’t give a flying fuck! Does THAT have anything to do with learned helplessness? No! God, NO! However, if I felt my vote didn’t matter and that ultimately I was just a number in the grand scheme of things, that only proves David’s initial point! If I, as an individual have come to accept this about the voting process than I have somewhere along the road of life have learned that I am helpless (as far as the voting issue is concerned)! I do not believe that there is any other JUSTIFIABLE reason to NOT vote other than laziness and the topic at hand! I mean, I’m SURE if I blew off my leg and was in the hospital, that could POSSIBLY be another reason, but there ARE absentee ballots so it’s not like I DON’T have the chance to do it, regardless! Also, @537——-, keep doin’ what you’re doin’ man!
There was an article a year or so ago that basically said you can’t learn if you don’t have a successful experience. Basically, if you try something and fail, you haven’t learned how to succeed. At most, you have learned that one of an unmanageably large number of possibilities was not correct. And though we may be smarter than dogs and rats, you can’t just magically think yourself successful.
Also, while not voting may be, in some cases, a form of learned helplessness, critical thinking informs us that a single persons vote is some tiny fraction of a percent of a large public aggregate motion, which at best confirms or denies a proposition or election. Electing a particular individual is a vague action, meaning you have no idea what the outcomes of doing so even might be, as politicians generally make promises they don’t intend to or are incapable of keeping, and no one has any idea what they may actually do or be able to do. So basically a vote is a gesture at a gamble. This is noble and worthwhile why?
From “Why Vote?”
“Why would an economist be embarrassed to be seen at the voting booth? Because voting exacts a cost – in time, effort, lost productivity – with no discernible payoff except perhaps some vague sense of having done your “civic duty. ‘As the economist Patricia Funk wrote in a recent paper, “A rational individual should abstain from voting.’
The odds that your vote will actually affect the outcome of a given election are very, very, very slim.”
(I do vote.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/06/magazine/06freak.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1312222032-/MbgODnXaECph23Vr38Y8A
Hope.
In the case of the POTUS not voting can simply mean a person understands how the electoral system works. A conservative casting a vote for McCain in Washington state in 2008 could still accurately predict the electoral votes in Washington would go to Obama. Now if a person doesn’t vote on any issues
oops (continued). If someone doesn’t vote on any issues AT ALL then we could say that’s a kind of learned helplessness but it could be indifference.
But learned helplessness and depression definitely seem to apply to things like addictions or compulsive behavior. I get how it applies then. But for voting more often than not in history the problem wasn’t learned helplessness so much as all the people who weren’t allowed to vote to begin with. I wonder if there could be a study on voting rates vs citizens. What if the frequent opinion pieces about lower voter activity doesn’t account for things such as who was and wasn’t allowed to vote to begin with? Is it possible that the number of people actually willing to vote in elections has not fluctuated? I have never bothered to study this but I wonder if another myth that is useful in politics is to claim that the number of voters keeps declining as a way to mobilize voters. Every election I get spam from people saying THIS election is the most important one ever and it ends up being the boy who cried wolf spamming my inbox weekly.
Just because it happens to be right doesn’t mean that it’s not learned helplessness. In this example you have learned that you are helpless when it comes to voting in elections, and you therefore stop trying. That’s learned helplessness. Perhaps if one never voted at all that could be called “reasoned” helplessness. The article might be less confusing if “Do you vote?” were changed to “Have you stopped voting?”
Cognitive biases of the sort featured here exist precisely because they work (or once worked) most of the time.
I just hope the kids will forgive us the mess we left them to deal with.
I am sorry, but this is precisely the instinct that prevents more people from taking the ultimate escape route. We are not perfectly rational creatures, and this is a very good thing in this instance.
I don’t really think that accept is the right word for the statement in “the truth.” If you in fact accepted the situation you were in you’d be happy with it. Learned helplessness develops into depression. Humans beings do not accept not being in control. It is this feeling of not being in control to the extreme that forms anxiety and depression. It is in fact not accepting the situation but knowing that you can do nothing about it that forms learned helplessness.
Shiney, you’re a dumb bastard! “Acceptance” is not the same as “happiness”. Human beings are notorious for following the mold. The best example one could give would easily be the Nazi regime! Depression does not exist due to learned helplessness. Learned helplessness IS depression. Depression is just a clinical word that allows people do differentiate between treatable and non-treatable illnesses. AND, to add, in the most EXTREME of situations (Death camps could be another example) there are stories upon stories and example upon example about how the human spirit tends to triumph such horrendous encounters! It IS mere acceptance of the situation because all situations, regardless of how bleak and awful it may appear, CAN change! Shine, you proved David’s point. It is in theory that anything is ever fact! Because what I “know” may not be correct to what any one else may say they know. So – to ever “know” anything, truly, would be to safely assume, at least with matters of the human condition. So to say one “knows” how predictable a situation may turn out to be, there is no definite way to know ‘absolutely’ that that may just be the case! Unless one tries ALL the different approaches to change any situation, one can never really ever know absolutely.
First of all insults are the refuge of a weak argument, so I applaud you on not only coming off as weak, but as immature. If you’re going to make the argument that learned helplessness is depression, then you are not making your case stronger by any means. Depression can result in suicide and if an individual attempts suicide they certainly ARE NOT accepting the situation. What’s more in the condition of learned helplessness you are not trying to be productive or to meet challenges because you’re not doing much of anything, because you’ve learned that no matter what you do you won’t succeed. Those individuals that would fall into learned helplessness or depression during the Holocaust probably would have been shot. It was only those individuals that were resilient to mental disorder that would survive. When you’re accepting the situation, you’re not in a state of learned helplessness or depression, DUH! The point with knowing, you’re right, but it’s those individuals that take a positive perspective that everything will be ok that are able to pull through, and these individual are not suffering from depression, which is a rather debilitating disease. Thank you.
Well, let me then extend the hand of sincerity and say that I was wrong in hurling insults. I apologize. I was so taken by the nature of the beast that passion for this post had ultimately consumed me and I was at the mercy of that. I apologize, Shiney and you are absolutely right! Insults ARE the refuge of the weak and do admit to levels of insecurity and immaturity as well. However, I maintain that in a case like such, “depression” is often a thing, I find, to be solely relatable to those who have obtained it. A frame of mind that’s ultimately similar to learned helplessness. Maybe a side-effect? I don’t truly know. But I can say, personally, that in this opinion – I believe strongly that it’s all about a state of mind. If you want to progress and truly find happiness, you will. I don’t believe that calling unhappiness depression changes that. I think depression is a powerful word that a lot of youth today and generations above rely on to express the sincerity of their emotions. There is nothing wrong with unhappiness and I find that as key. If you misuse the word, the word itself changes and differs from it’s initial intent. Being “sad” is not merely enough, in that case and everyone has to find reason to win in all conversation. For example, that one guy/girl nobody likes talking to because they ALWAYS have some type of relatable story OR how they’ve had even worse situations, you know?? In this case, more often than not, depression tends to be a word that ill-learned minds use to stroke their own egos and yet, all the while, they also manage to fall victim to it. It’s a strange, vicious circle after that point. Do you understand? I do not ask because I believe you to be dumb or anything of that matter anymore, I did not in the first place. I ask sincerely because I believe that maybe I could use some clarification on the matter. Thank you, Shiney.
I’ve understood this for quite a long while before you brought this up. People tend to throw the term depression around when they feel that they are suffering profound sadness. But it’s more than just profound sadness that one has to experience in order to qualify for depression. The condition has to be a significant hindrance to an individual’s life. This point is not to downplay an individual’s sadness it’s about taking a scientific approach to psychology that will allow those individuals to get help that really need it. Depression is more than just unhappiness, that is key, yeah. You don’t accept the situation in learned helplessness and depression. If you are able to accept the situation and move on, then you’re not suffering from depression, because on another level accepting the situation would not result in a significant hindrance to an individual’s life. Accepting the situation would be seen as the individual carrying on and being productive enough to not experience a hindrance in his/her life. It is this inability to do so, that is characteristic of learned helplessness and depression.
But is acceptance always “moving on”? Rather, couldn’t acceptance also be the false realization in that there is no escape, and in simply realizing that, has one then accepted? I think what’s most important in this idea is not so much accepting and moving on but accepting and doing nothing to move on. In which case, where exactly IS the fine line between depression and learned helplessness? OR is learned helplessness simply a catalyst to that idea??
If we look at a situation and the individual develops symptoms in response to that situation, the individual does not accept that situation. If they felt they were accepting the situation, they would not develop such symptoms. You can’t accept something unless you have a choice. The formation of depression is precisely that of non-acceptance. Learned helplessness is analogous to depression, if you’re referring to the kind that Dr. Seligman happened upon.
actually people canaccept not havingachoicebut itwon’tresultindepressionlikeitdoeshere, whichisindicativeofnotaccepting
“You are not so smart, but you are smarter than dogs and rats. Don’t give in yet.” <– Love this sentence!
Thank you for closing with this statement, it helps so much to have ANY encouragement. I had been reading this article as a means of justifying my lack of motivation for anything in my life now after 2 1/2 years of unemployment. Great blog, keep ‘em coming!
If people had the ability to put aside ego-centricity and self-justification, this ENTIRE POST could change the world. If people could learn to say things useful instead of finding a crack to slip their fingers in, the world would have no war. If people had the ability to be truly just and fair in all aspects of their own life, we might have had just one universal language. I believe that this post is a very good start to that…
What I said was indeed useful, the term accept wasn’t the right word. People like you who think that it’s ok to throw insults at people that isn’t correct. In saying such a thing it seems that you have to justify yourself and that YOU are ego-centric. In being rude and impolite, you’ve not followed your own advice, it’s respect that will make the world a better place, and you certainly don’t show respect for the ideas of others.
,that*
Throw in some Spiral of Silence, and we’re all in a little bit of trouble.
this is extremely Darwinian, the only thing that separates man from the other animals, is our free will.
I know about learned helplessness and I agree with the facts you put. I didn’t check thoroughly but I guess this blog doesn’t really aim to give answers either but what I wonder how to get out of this learned helplessness state. Are there exercises? Or what else can be done?
I found some concrete steps to take here: http://www.emotionalcompetency.com/helpless.htm
Karen, thank you lots, I will read it and hope it helps. :)
Thanks again!
Every single person I’ve seen on the show I Survived (I’m not a 100% Sure that’s the right name) said the same thing. They decided THEY WERE GOING TO MAKE IT! They were going to live they were ‘t going to die. I think sometimes your will makes all the difference.
That is just one block in the wall of “i am”.
How does one overcome this? Seriously. Just saying “don’t give in yet” is not enough to me. Please, I really need to know.
Read Dr. Seligman’s “Learned Optimism”. It gives you concrete examples of how to work towards overcoming “Learned Helplessness”.
Hmmm… This might change the way I deal with a particularly frustrating class at school. Our “professor” shows up unprepared and is unable to convey the material effectively… And we’ve just been taking it. Sure, we vent and curse AFTER class–out of earshot. But we haven’t actually taken any action to correct the situation. Sounds like learned helplessness to me. Time for action?
Winning is a habit. So’s losing.
This article is way more accurately describing me than I’d like to admit. Thanks.
You’re not the only one, hang in there.
What an awful experiment they did with those dogs! They must have suffered so much!
I hope this man suffered as well later in his life!
No, he wrote a not-very-good self-help book.
Why did this just show up in my RSS feed?
If having and exercising choices relieves the helpless feeling, it may be a good (partial) explanation for “retail therapy”, in which people go shopping in order to improve their mood.
Ha, ha. I always feel better when I can live within my means and don’t envy anyone, and then go shop for something I want.
I did a three-panel comic about this subject called “Do The Impossible”. I hope it’s somewhat inspirational, and it involves uppercutting a shark:
http://toblender.com/comic/do-the-impossible/
just because you accept blame for your situation does not you a loser make. If you analyze where you went wrong, and try again, you will succeed where those who make excuses, fail. You shouldn’t believe evrything you write in your book.
good enough buddy. but if you fail enough times you won’t want to do anything. i had balls and brains and attitude and all that shit. good plans. no plans. winging it, being serious, being un-serious, etc, you name it. all of it went to shit. not only that but i actually got set back and it can take years to get back to where you were; which was zero to begin with. you have to struggle to get back to the start. don’t kid yourself about will and all that, it will break you.
There’s a difference between what you’re saying and what the article did. Accepting responsibility for your failures and using it to make yourself more productive is a completely different concept.
Using the test example:
With what you’re saying a well adjusted person would say “It was my fault I failed the exam because I did not study enough, so to do better next time I will devote more serious effort to this.”
What the article is talking about is what a depressed person would say “It was my fault I failed the exam because I’m stupid. I will never understand this. It was foolish of me to even think I could do well in the first place.”
The second mentality can be just as detrimental to success as someone who always blames others for their failures.
David, great content; by the comments you really resonated with a lot of folks. I REALLY appreciated your encouragement at the end — thank you for that.
Thank you David.
Underwhelmed. This “dumbs down” Dr. Seligman’s work. I’d read the original – considering some of the incorrect statements in this blog alone.
People living in impoverished conditions can experience the same lack of control. This the Republicans seems not to understand.
“Do you vote? If not, is it because you think it doesn’t matter because things never change, or politicians are evil on both sides, or one vote in several million doesn’t count? Yeah, that’s learned helplessness.”
I haven’t missed an election in years, even ones for dogcatcher, but frankly, I sort of believe all those things. *Sigh*
Yeah, why did this show up in my RSS reader?
I don’t vote because I don’t believe in unqualified democracy.
Hello. Super interesting blog. I read a review of your book somewhere online today and made my first visit. Also some good comments, so I’ll pipe in too.
Regarding helplessness and voting. Voting is one act the process. I will go Pollyanna and point out that elected officials have staffs to take down comments from constituents every working day. If you call them or write to them, you can tell them how you feel about whatever issues matter to you. It will make you feel like you’ve done something, because you have.
Oh, to have the faith of an atheist. What are they going to do when they find out that there is no God?
Crushing defeat? Pummeling abuse? Loss of control? That describes the first twenty years of my life. I later learned to trust in optimism, however. It’s not easy. But it’s logical.
Someone whom I hate referred me to this blog so I know they are reading this. They told me that I need to understand that I am not so smart just because they have philosophical and spiritual differences than me and are willfully ignorant of the salvation that the blood of Christ provides. Just because I am a Christian who takes the word of God literally and not a Gnostic luciferian this person who runs the vigilantcitizen.com website is out to get me. Yes, I may have even openly admitted to suffering from depression but that doesn’t make me a self defeatist. Sometimes the depression is so strong that I don’t leave my home and I have panick attacks. Those can be explained by chemical imbalances and have nothing to do with being self defeating. I think this article is insufficient and just tries to make people feel stupid for having emotions.
I hope things have improved for you since you posted this comment. It sounds like you’re having a hard time, and through no fault of your own. You’re right – biochemical processes in our bodies can fail in ways that shake us to the core, so it’s not some moral or character flaw that you’re depressed.
Don’t give up. Find victories where you can. Find happiness where you can.
Beautiful. Thank you for saying this.
Thank you, you really are changing my mind set. It has had a profound effect.
Reading your Blog and your book just makes me happy :)
Thanks so much for your writing this article. I’m twenty one years old and have had this learned helplessness for about 3 years. I recently learned that the concept exactly described my condition, and I was looking for some help. It was more than a definition of the symptom that I needed. Some adaptive solutions and something that cheers me up from the inside, these were what I needed. Well, yeah, I’ve been avoiding taking responsibilities. Now I clearly see one of my problems. I’m so glad I found your post. Thank you.