Learned Helplessness

Hi,

I'm new here. I've had PTSD since I was 12 (I'm 56). While none of the symptoms are exactly a walk in the park, right now learned helplessness is especially a problem.

I've suffered from learned helplessness for most of my adult life. I've let it go -- sort of a mental/emotional vacation -- but now it's getting in the way. I've been unemployed for 5 months and can't seem to motivate myself to do anything. Oh, I submit resumes every few days (I have several posted on the itnernet), and go on interviews when recruiters call, but I really don't care about getting another job. I need one, not being independently wealthy , but I can't seem to muster up any enthusiasm for anything. This has been the pattern whenever I've been unemployed, for as long as I can remember.

I live in Southern California and hate it. I'm from Michigan, originally. I want desperately to have my own house in the exurbs and live where the seasons change, again. The only way to do that is to make enough money to put a down on a house and make an out-of-state move -- something I can't afford to do when I'm unemployed half the time. I feel REALLY motivated to have my own business, of some sort (to have more control in my life), but haven't been able to decide what kind of business to have. This has been a problem for a dozen years (meanwhile I've taken numerous entrepreneurial courses).

What I'm saying is that I'm frozen. Can't seem to make a decision or take action. I've tried SO many things and worked SO hard for any kind of success, all without results. I'm just burned out on ambition and doing hard work with no payoff. So, I've fallen back into learned helplessness. Meanwhile, days, weeks, months & years go by and I only grow older - no closer to what I want (that house in the country).

I've been in & out of therapy since 1989, but no therapist has helped. (They all say they think the best thing they can do for me is to listen and be supportive. I have friends for that!)

Has anyone read any good articles about learned helplessness? Or know of any good (cheap) therapists in the Los Angeles area, who can handle this problem? I'm tired of being lost.

Hello Ohlostme,

Welcome to Psych Central!

You say it is learned helplessness, but it sounds to me like you are TRYING to help yourself.......and then getting stuck at a certain point.

Sounds like you have a FEAR of actually achieving???

Have you figuared out why that is?

I think it would be worth you looking into finding another therapist. There is one out there for you somewhere, not just to listen but also to challenge you, work out why you get this block and what you can do about it.

Good Luck.

Hmm, have you heard of learned optimism? The concept cames from the same person (Martin Seligman) who thought of learned helplessness, and basically he's saying if you can learn one, why not learn the other? There is a book http://www.leadershipnow.com/leadershop/1911-2.html and a whole organization that has sprung up around the learned optimism concept, or the Positive Psychology movement http://www.ppc.sas.upenn.edu/

Maybe you will find something useful there. There are also life coaches, who focus on motivating you to succeed rather than dwell on the obstacles. They aren't required to have the training that therapists do, but there are therapists who are life coaches too. You'll find lots of them if you do a search. See what you think.

Wishing you well,
Rap

Welcome. You posted under PTSD and admit to suffering from it...why not seek a psychologist who is expert in treating this and go from there? Who gave you the dx's, I wonder? Perhaps what you are struggling with IS PTSD. TC

“Sounds like you have a FEAR of actually achieving??? Have you figuared out why that is?”

Thanks, Pegasus. I don’t know if I have a fear of success. That’s possible, I guess. It could just be me sabotaging myself due to low self esteem. There are lots of possibilities. I’ve read mountains of self help books, over the decades. Haven’t focused on that problem yet (fear of success – in my gut, I don’t feel like that’s the case. But it could be, I suppose). Perhaps I will one day.

Yes, Rapunzel, I’ve heard of Learned Optimism. I’ve been learning about Seligman lately. I’ve got “What You Can Change and What You Can’t” on my coffee table now (along with the other self help books). Haven’t started it yet. (I put down “You Can Be Happy No Matter What” to start “Ask and It Is Given.” I’ll work my way around to Seligman eventually) Yes, I know there are life coaches. I need work to have enough money to pay them to help me. Something else for the “someday” list. I went to the local junior college career counselor, instead (she’s free). Got some suggestions, but nothing I could really act on. I was told I should be a writer. I AM a writer!!! Since that’s not paying off, at the moment, I need ANOTHER suggestion (or 2 or 3). She gave me others, but they were things I've already done.

Thanks, Sky, for the suggestion of finding a therapist who specializes in PTSD. I’ve asked around but haven’t found one yet. One day I will, I expect. (When the student is ready…)

Meanwhile, I’m dealing with depression and fear of the future – I’m too old to be smack in the middle of nowhere. And alone. No spouse, no family, no job, no holdings…and no clue as to what to do with myself. I’m like those mice who starved because they learned that nothing they did would get them food, even though it was just beyond their noses. They just gave up trying. I’ve tried so many things for so long with (little or) no result – learned helplessness is my way of giving up, I guess. Just too pooped to keep struggling for nothing and totally out of inspiration. Sigh…

How old would you be if you weren't smack in the middle of nowhere? sigh sorry.

"giving up" is a coping mechanism...

You can check at the APA website for PTSD trained psychologists, I think. I'm sure there are plenty in LA! Good hunting... it's worth it...you're worth it.

PTSD doesn't go away, and it doesn't get better over time. PTSD doesn't let us match up logic with our feelings... ugh did I say that?

(((hugs)))

Welcome Ohlostme to PC, this is a very warm and caring group of people...... I feel your pain... I wish there was something I could offer you...... I have been in a simular situation.... you take good care and know we are here for you..... Altheia

http://www.capitalcounselors.com/tes.../a/therapist/0

I found this person, try using your web browser for PTSD therapist in whatever city you live in.... I hope this was helpful....Altheia

Hi Ohlostme.

I just wanted to welcome you and let you know that I hear you.

I understand.

The avoidance and numbing nature of PTSD adds to the feeling that nothing can be done, that we can't do life any differently. This is one reason you need someone to "walk" with you and indeed "sit" with you when walking feels impossible. Small, baby steps... often repeating the same steps until a different result arises... helps to show us that things can and do change. It is very slow... imo... and add to this my inability to recall stuff (including any improvement) and it's why I need to see my psychologist so often .

How are you today?

Thanks for the input and support, everybody. What a great forum I found!

I will look on that link, Althea. I really did hunt for PTSD counselors, years ago. I asked everybody I knew, looked up the AMA on the internet and emailed people there to ask...I did everything I could think of, then. No results. Of course, if I could find someone now, I'd have to find someone who has an "ability to pay" program, since I'm unemployed. Therapy can be expensive and I'm living on unemployment, at the moment.

Thanks, Sky, for asking how I'm doing. I always do better on Saturday. I worry about everything (making money, my future, my learned helplessness, etc.) during the week, but give myself a day off on Saturday. There are gardening shows & cooking shows on tv all day, where I live. When I have nothing else to do (like a class to take or some chore), I sit and look at my new catalogs (I'm a catalog junkie), watch the cooking & gardening shows, maybe cook or clean up my place a bit, take a nap, if I can (I'm a terrible insomniac). I vacuumed today (in spite of a strained back. But the cats are shedding their Winter coat, so it's gotta be done...) I'm allowing myself some no-pressure time to just sit, read, whatever. It helps.

Next week I have surgery to focus on (skin cancer). But that's not until Friday. So I have to at least make an effort to look for work during the week, even if I'd have to have the 16th off. It's a juggling act, but I feel too guilty if I don't at least send out resumes, go on interviews (if there are any). It's not career stuff, it's about paying rent. But it's got to be done.

I just wish I knew how to get unstuck and make some kind of decision as to what to do with myself, career-wise/lifestyle-wise. The worst guilt is about the wasted time. If I were 25 it wouldn't be so bad. I'd know I (probably) had time to make decisions. At my age, time is a commodity that's slipping away. It's a luxury I don't have.

This isn't about learned helplessness, but it's PTSD related, so I'm going to mention it here...

I called parking enforcement and had a car ticketed that was parked in our apartment building parking lot, where it had no business being. (We have a 14 unit building and 3 parking spaces. No room for visitor parking) I know the woman who parked there saw me park behind her car and take the groceries out of my car and schlep them upstairs to my apartment. I have a strained back and no one to help me. That's why I snapped when I saw her park there (I wasn't in the proximity to tell her there's no visitor parking). I called parking enforcement and had them ticket her car. Now, I'm waiting for retaliation. I've had problems with people in this building and the one next door being hateful and retaliatory in the past (can't afford to move).

The thing is, bullying (people making me a scapegoat my whole childhood) is what gave me PTSD. Now, I'm waiting to see if more people are going to act out their anger towards me. Gawd. It's so tiresome.

Well, at least I have something else to focus on besides my learned helplessness...

Yes, IMO you've figured this reaction of yours out... but now wouldn't you rather learn to not allow such things affect you so much? Therapy can help with that. Knowing things is one thing, incorporating them into our lives (with PTSD) is quite another imo.

I'm glad you are able to take Saturdays for yourself. That shows great progress... once you are able to do that each day, then your life will be easier. TC!

I mentioned about calling parking enforcement and having someone's car ticketed for parking where they didn't belong, in our tiny, 3 parking space lot (at my apartment building last weekend). Someone (I assume the neighbors) came knocking on my door twice that day, but I didn't answer. Well, I went out to my car today (it was parked on the street) and I had a flat tire. I had bought these tires new last October. The other 3 were perfectly good. I have no doubt how it got flat -- the Neighbors From Hell got their petty little revenge by vandalizing my car.

Part of me wants to write it off. Part of me wants to cry and curl up in a little ball (I spent my whole childhood being victimized and scapegoated - which gave me PTSD. This kind of thing is REALLY a trigger for me). And part of me wants to go out and get a baseball bat and start smashing skulls. I'm TIRED of being made the victim, the bad guy for just pointing out when someone's done something wrong.

In my last apartment building I had a psycho upstairs from me. She moved in and started vacuuming at 12AM, 1AM, etc., with a vacuum cleaner that sounded like a 747 taking off. I let it go on 3 or 4 times and then decided that it wasn't going to stop, so I complained to the (crooked) management company. They talked to her and she started retaliating. She - literally, now - would climb up on the kitchen counter and jump off , to make noise to harass me (when she could hear me in the kitchen). I have PTSD! My nerves couldn't take that!!!

Once I moved to this building, after two years, I had upstairs neighbors stomping loudly on the floor from 4:30AM to 7AM, to harass me. I complained and the management company told me they wouldn't do anything about those people, but I could move to another apartment in the building, if I wanted (two were vacant, at the time). I moved from downstairs front to upstairs back. Once I moved I found another problem -- the obnoxious people in the building next door (a whole building's worth of them) thought that it was appropriate to do their laundry at 12AM, 1AM 2AM, 3AM, 4AM...right under our bedroom windows. Slamming away. I lived with that for a year before I complained to the building owner. That started THEIR retaliation (slamming their front doors at 3AM every night, slam dunking their trash in the dumpster [my apartment is closest to where their dumpster is, so I heard the worst of the noise]). It went on for months. (They still slam dunk, from time to time)

I'm unemployed. I can't afford to move. And I'm SICK of being everyone's scapegoat. GAWWWDDDDD!!!!! I've lived in 4 apartment buildings in 35 years, and I've been driven out of all but one of them by hateful, obnoxious neighbors. Mind you, in all that time, no one in any building EVER had to complain about my noise, or behavior or destruction, etc. But if I say anything, it's open season on me. And these hateful psychos think it's perfectly all right to behave that way.

I really feel very close to another breakdown...

I'm sorry for all the stuff you've had to put up with. Yes, PTSD does make it more difficult I think.

I'm not sure why you KNOW some of their actions are merely to tick you off... even if they told you that, they might have been lying to you?

Yes, living in this society takes a lot of decision making about what is worth the responses you might get. Sometimes you have no choice, but when you do... the long run and what is BEST FOR YOU is where you have to respond. It isn't ever easy, imo.

((TC!)))

I have lived in appartments of all kinds and have learned the best way to handle things with unruley neighbors is to first get to know them. for example I once lived in an upstairs appartment and at 3 am music would come blaring. Id wake up hear some stomping and slaming around and the music would shut off after about an hour. So one day I happened to see the neighbors outside on their porch. instead of going up the stairs and into my appartment I took time out to introrduce myself and politely asked them if they were having trouble with any of the neighbors blaring music and stomping around at night. I didn't accuse I just kept it as a general getting to know my neighbors and offer help if I can type attitude. The guy said no but he has been getting a bit rowdy at night as he's getting woke up and ready for work on the split night shift. Since he now knows he is waking the whole house he will try to keep it down to a dull roar. I lived in that appartment with him under me for 2 years. sometimes he would slip up and get rowdy but because I didn't come at him like rambo chic and sicking the manager on him he was more then willing to accept resposibility for his actions.

I now live in a downstairs appartment. From time to time I will get a bath in the middle of the night and find that my ceiling is dripping water. Because this is directly doing damage to my appartment which I would be held resposible for (peeling paint and water stained ceiling) if I did not report the damage at the time it happened I have no choice but to notify the manager. But first I always get dressed and knock on the neighbors door and let them know that I have a water leak in my ceiling so I will be calling the manager and maintence to come and check out the pipes and plumbing to make sure the plumbing inside the walls and ceiling has not sprung a leak. I don't go in rambo chic accusing them for all I know they could be in the middle of a drug deal or other illegal activitys. WhenI notify the manager I dont send accusations against my neighbors when reporting either. I keep it simple - I was taking a bath and noticed a leak in ithe ceiling could someone come check it out.

the same when I am reporting noise when I have no choice. I keep it non accusing and general - call the manager and say there ahs been music and so on going in the complex late at night around such and such a time and I felt I should report it in case someone needs help or others in the complex are having the same problem.

By keeping it general and not accusing even when I know the culprets keeps me safe from the times the reason behind the unruley behavior is illegal and dangerious situations and it also provides for a good relationship with my neighbors. Who knows those unruley neighbors may have to come to my rescue. In fact it was my neighbors that I did not know very well that came to my rescue on many occasions when my child was living at home and when I became dizzy and almost passed out at the mailboxes while checking my mail one day. It was my neighbors many of which I would not normally have associated with and some were the noice makers in the complex that rallied together and provided me with meals and so on when I found out I had cancer and was under going treatment and so on.

If I had come on as rambo chic accusing and reporting and so on each and every neighbor I did not like and had trouble with their behavior I would have missed out alot of help that I needed in some very rough and dangerious times in my life.

Theres a saying - great now I cant word it right but the gist of it is if you want to attract sweets and pleasure its better to use honey instead of vinagar.

Take time to get to know your neighbors and work problems out with them BEFORE letting things escalate to the point where official intervention is needed by the managers and hold the temper and they may just do the same by accepting you as a good neighbor who they value and trust and want to do right by you no matter what.

take care.

Thanks for the stories, myself. You have MUCH more grace and style (and probably wisdom) than I do. I don't tolerate rudeness well. I also have a history of being abused by bullies. So, I'm not as patient, kind and rational as you sound. I take things personally.

In all fairness to me, I do wait to see if people's behavior will change before I report it. For a year I put up with the neighbors in the building next door doing their laundry in the middle of the night before I said anything. But I don't make a good doormat and I hate feeling helpless (when there are obnoxious people around who will mistreat you).

Beacuse I was the victim of so many bullies, growing up, I learned to fight for myself. I wasn't wanted in the home, so no one was fighting for me. I knew, at an early age, that I had to fight or die (there were WAY more of "them" and only one of me). Being a whimpering coward just wasn't in my genes, nor was it an option (I was a ghetto kid. Cowards don't live long in the ghetto). I know no other way to be. I certainly don't set out to be a "Rambo chick," but, after so many bad experiences with neighbors, I do get a bit heavy handed, these days. And respond quickly and defensively. I make no apologies for that. Take enough abuse, and certain personality traits are established. That's who I am now (for better or for worse).

Hang in there. I am not always this rational when dealing with bullies and so on. LOL I may not get into it with the neighbors but when backed into a corner I DO come out both barrels loaded rambo chic style. the only thing is I don't ever remember doing it. Some times DID is a pain cause situations like when I backed a lawyer into a verbal corner after he attempted to bully me is something I sometimes wish I could remember. Oh well all that matters is he is no longer my lawyer. LOL.