Defeatism, or "Learned Helplessness".

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"Learned Helplessness" - A condition in which a person suffers from a sense of powerlessness, arising from a traumatic event or persistent failure to succeed.  It is thought to be one of the underlying causes of depression.

I googled the term "Learned Helplessness", and learned of a series of (barbaric) experiments performed on dogs...

(Source: David McRaney / November 11, 2009)

I have a fair amount of learned helplessness going on.

I think it can be really hard to go through an extremely difficult rough patch and to know when you are ready to move on and try new things. Sometimes one briefly tries only to regress or to not succeed in that particular attempt.

Then a person can totally give up.

I guess I’ve learned that progress isn’t a smooth slope. It’s jagged with lots of ups and downs, but with effort, the overall trend can be up.

Some of the downs can be really scary for people who have experienced past traumas because then the current problem somehow becomes associated with past trauma.

Also, I think that lacking some emotional insight (as some of us do) can make all of this more complex because then you can’t effectively approach the problem.

Given the complexity, learned helplessness can be a really challenging thing to tackle.

Another factor that can keep people in this negative mindset is family members.

If you’ve got family members aiding and abetting you by saying: “Yeah, you can’t do that,” it can make climbing out of that hole even harder because it appears to confirm your beliefs.

The thing is that you can’t know that you can’t do something unless you try (and I mean really try), and if that particular route or path doesn’t work out, it’s always worthwhile to try something else.

I probably do have some of this. After growing up constantly being told that I wasn't trying hard enough, didn't care, or simply didn't want to do something when I failed to live up to NT standards despite the fact that I'd actually been trying my hardest (all people see is the fact that I fail, not the amount of effort I put in just to fail anyway), I think I've come to believe that my best is never good enough for anyone.

They always said I wasn’t trying hard enough when the social expectations were extreme to say the least, not easy for a person with typical social skills.

I wasn’t diagnosed until I was 30.

Mine is hugely in a form of guilt, attachment and forms of uncertainty than merely helplessness and dependence.

Overall, I'm aware of it. Yet when in such state, I'd lose sight of what's actually been happening.



I've been in a state where there's no unconscious voice advertising mistakes and failures -- not even the fear of death.
What held me back is the sentiment of not letting others down or accommodating others in general.

I don't have a negative household and community, I got a clueless and overly attached ones instead.
Yet a part of me, always looking forward to persecutors and persecute me, just to prove that I can be held accountable. It mattered a little that it contradicts with fear and not wanting to be persecuted.

I had already been aware that the world is not the issue, it's myself.
I get filtered with twisted messages of pride and shame, instead of gratitude and acceptance -- to resolve and move on completely.

So the goal in my case, is how to reach and hijack this apparently unreachable side of myself, that's been not been doing it's job properly and kept working against myself back away from my fullest potential.

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I would say I have problems with knowing when to quit a path. If I do it too soon I missed out on a achievable outcome, if I wait too long I missed out on time and possible opportunity. Once I have decided it is time to change course I get flummoxed figuring out what the new course should be. What I have described is not learned helplessness per say but executive dysfunction. Executive Dysfunction is both a teacher and a enhancer of what learned helplessness symptoms I have.