Overcoming Learned Helplessness

[InChristAlone]

Yes on the cyproheptadine! It puts a stop to that helplessness so well. You then feel ready to take charge of your life (even if you do feel pretty drowsy at first).

 

[whodathunkit]

I sooo understand and honestly think the healing process takes years...gulp, excuse me if that doesn't help. Sending encouraging good thoughts for you @whodathunkit

Thank you, Lisa.

And as far as the "gulp" ...I realized a while back that the process of recovery for the really metabolically damaged/challenged could take a decade or more. IMO that's what makes real healing tough on most people...most of us seem to have a built in time limit where we decide if our therapeutic measure doesn't work by whatever our inner time limit is, it's not going to work. My observation is that for a lot of folks that time limit seems to be about three months. Upper limit is six months. That's just generally speaking. Obviously not everyone is observing those time limits or none of us would be getting better. But for most people it seems that unless extenuating circumstances force them into a longer mental timeframe, that's where they stay. And seems to be where most of us start, until we've learned a few things. My personal mental timeframe is like a bread dough that's been pummeled and rolled and stretched almost into infinity. Emphasis on the pummeling. Shame to use a wheat-based analogy on a Peat forum, but that's pretty much it.

Anyway, it's already been three years and although much improved I'm nowhere near done yet. I'm in it for the long haul. :) I try not to spend any time regretting that I didn't start down this path earlier, but it's hard not to.

FWIW, I'm cautiously optimistic about methylene blue for lifting serotonin brain and learned helplessness. I've been using tens of mcgs (not mgs) for a few days and yesterday afternoon was the best day I've had in a long time. Mood stable, very resilient, and temps up. O'course that could just be hormonal fluctuation and not MB, but the improvement has lasted into today, and I feel more motivated to do stuff around my house than I have felt in a couple of years. This is fairly significant because my house is a BIG source of learned helplessness for me, for a lot of reasons. Loooooong boring story. For a long time I've said "I fought the house, and the house won." But today for a change I'm going to kick its a$$ a little bit instead of the other way around.

Gonna ride the wave and see where it washes me up, I guess.

 

[Makrosky]

Yes on the cyproheptadine! It puts a stop to that helplessness so well. You then feel ready to take charge of your life (even if you do feel pretty drowsy at first).

How long did the drowsyness lasted for you ?

 

[whodathunkit]

What do you mean ? Do you understand the concept of learned helplessness ?

I understood what she meant.

Learned helplessness in large measure is a mindset of victimization. That is not to say it's imagined; it's not. A very real set of circumstances usually has to happen when a person becomes stuck in the pattern of learned helplessness. Very often they are helpless for a while. The problem comes when they are no longer bound by enforced restriction but can't move out of the mindset of victimhood and enforced restriction.

The concept of social justice is currently being corrupted into weaponized victimhood. Advocates for the "victims of society" are using the compassion and sense of the need for justice on the part of the rest of us to silence or bully into submission any little thing they (the advocates) don't agree with.

So, for example, one current social justice meme goes that if you don't like Obama the politician or his policies, you're a racist. Your dislike of Obama might have nothing at all to do with the color of his skin, but in order to silence what may be your valid criticism of policy, because the social justice warrior is pro-Obama policy and is invested in silencing his opposition, s/he has to turn Obama into a victim of race, regardless of the fact that Obama is a very rich man who got elected POTUS by a majority of hundreds of millions of voters of all races, and is in no way a real victim of racial prejudice.

See how that goes?

 

[Makrosky]

I understood what she meant.

Learned helplessness in large measure is a mindset of victimization. That is not to say it's imagined; it's not. A very real set of circumstances usually has to happen when a person becomes stuck in the pattern of learned helplessness. Very often they are helpless for a while. The problem comes when they are no longer bound by enforced restriction but can't move out of the mindset of victimhood and enforced restriction.

The concept of social justice is currently being corrupted into weaponized victimhood. Advocates for the "victims of society" are using the compassion and sense of the need for justice on the part of the rest of us to silence or bully into submission any little thing they (the advocates) don't agree with.

So, for example, one current social justice meme goes that if you don't like Obama the politician or his policies, you're a racist. Your dislike of Obama might have nothing at all to do with the color of his skin, but in order to silence what may be your valid criticism of policy, because the social justice warrior is pro-Obama and is invested in silencing his opposition, s/he has to turn Obama into a victim of race, regardless of the fact that Obama is a very rich man and is in no way a real victim of racial prejudice.

See how that goes?

whodathunkit,

Sorry, I accidentally posted that answer but then I retracted. Because I'm half-baked on that. I yet have to think more about escaping the situation, you just can't. Some days I think learned helplessness is called like that because you can't escape it without aids, no matter how much you think about it. Like you can't pull yourself out of muddy waters pulling your own hair.

But other times I think it's more easy to get out of it than we think. Just a mindset change can do it. For example, look at the study haidut just posted about remission of major depressive disorder without medical intervention no matter how the duration of the episode was.

So I don't know what to say...

 

[whodathunkit]

Sorry, I accidentally posted that answer but then I retracted. Because I'm half-baked on that.

Eeeee. I hate when I'm editing and someone's already read my post and is answering!!!!

IMO my half-baked moments usually are caused by fluctuations in serotonin brain. Maybe a little estrogen. If it's okay with you we can chalk up to that and move on. It'll probably happen to me again tomorrow.

 

[Pointless]

I sooo understand and honestly think the healing process takes years...gulp, excuse me if that doesn't help. Sending encouraging good thoughts for you @whodathunkit

The entire process may take years, but we can make major strides in the meantime. Lifelong symptoms can disappear in a matter of days or weeks, and we can find encouragement along the way. Keeping a journal here or otherwise can help you look back on how it was before, because sometimes we forget even over the course of a few months how bad off we really were.

 

[Makrosky]

Eeeee. I hate when I'm editing and someone's already read my post and is answering!!!!

IMO my half-baked moments usually are caused by fluctuations in serotonin brain. Maybe a little estrogen. If it's okay with you we can chalk up to that and move on. It'll probably happen to me again tomorrow.

Yeah, I often change the way I think because I keep adding new information and connections and experiences. Sometimes it's just because this or that particular day I wake up and see things in a different way. I don't have any problem with that since I'm a firm believer that there no such thing as a definitive answer exists so.... it's ok ;-) I think it's a bit exhausting anyway. I wish I could have an univocal way of seeing things.

 

[lollipop]

Thank you, Lisa.

And as far as the "gulp" ...I realized a while back that the process of recovery for the really metabolically damaged/challenged could take a decade or more. IMO that's what makes real healing tough on most people...most of us seem to have a built in time limit where we decide if our therapeutic measure doesn't work by whatever our inner time limit is, it's not going to work. My observation is that for a lot of folks that time limit seems to be about three months. Upper limit is six months. That's just generally speaking. Obviously not everyone is observing those time limits or none of us would be getting better. But for most people it seems that unless extenuating circumstances force them into a longer mental timeframe, that's where they stay. And seems to be where most of us start, until we've learned a few things. My personal mental timeframe is like a bread dough that's been pummeled and rolled and stretched almost into infinity. Emphasis on the pummeling. Shame to use a wheat-based analogy on a Peat forum, but that's pretty much it.

Anyway, it's already been three years and although much improved I'm nowhere near done yet. I'm in it for the long haul. :) I try not to spend any time regretting that I didn't start down this path earlier, but it's hard not to.

FWIW, I'm cautiously optimistic about methylene blue for lifting serotonin brain and learned helplessness. I've been using tens of mcgs (not mgs) for a few days and yesterday afternoon was the best day I've had in a long time. Mood stable, very resilient, and temps up. O'course that could just be hormonal fluctuation and not MB, but the improvement has lasted into today, and I feel more motivated to do stuff around my house than I have felt in a couple of years. This is fairly significant because my house is a BIG source of learned helplessness for me, for a lot of reasons. Loooooong boring story. For a long time I've said "I fought the house, and the house won." But today for a change I'm going to kick its a$$ a little bit instead of the other way around.

Gonna ride the wave and see where it washes me up, I guess.

This is awesome! I can feel that shift...you GO @whodathunkit

 

[Amazoniac]

- Exercise, Learned Helplessness, and the Stress-Resistant Brain