I am so sorry you are feeling so discouraged right now. I have been there many times in my healing process.

I agree that it is true you were helpless as a child and those who were there to protect you while you were helpless fell way short of their job. But did he teach you how to reverse this helplessness habit so you can once again feel empowered to take care of yourself and your inner children? If not then HE also fell short of doing his job (IMO).

I had to work closely with my inner children to teach them that they are no longer helpless. That they can fight their way out of anything. The human brain is amazing as it allows you to rewrite memories. In my mind I worked with each one of my inner children and gave them the power to get out of the abuse. I gave them the power to kill the abuser (in my mind of course) and they all became empowered as they did so. They were able to kick or push him off of them and run away. It was liberating, healing and very empowering.

Of course you are inwardly focused. Why wouldn't you be? With the abuse you suffered through the only way you could survive was to go inwards or dissociate outwards. Those were the choices at the time. Now that he has stated this fact is he teaching you how to change your focus from inward ot outward? It can be done. For me it happened in stages and I am not quite done yet. There are still some triggers that will have me turn inwards again but now I recognize this and work very hard to reverse it when it happens.

As a therapist he is there to tell you the truth and state the facts but it is also his job to teach you how to reverse what needs to be reversed. I pray he is doing that with you.

Hang in there Cecil... you will get through this in your own time and in your own way. You will heal.

Several times you've mentioned your therapist saying you're inward focused. I don't understand. How could it be otherwise with so much stuff coming up from inside you? But more to the point, how does he advise you to handle it? Does he offer some techniques?

I understand learned helplessness. Learned powerlessness. Watching my husband, I'm amazed at what balls, persistence and a sense of entitlement can get you in this life. But how the hell do you conjure that up if you don't have it? Not to mention, it helps to be male.

Sorry if this comment is not helpful .... just putting down my reactions.

I has been a horrid couple of weeks. The inwardly focused conversation keeps coming up because I can't focus on stuff I need to. For instance I pulled out in front of an SUV the other day. I also walked across a street without looking but maybe I did look...all I know is that 2/3's of the way across I realized where I was.

We do talk about how to keep myself in the present. He tends to let me lead. It is a frustrating balance sometimes. he wants me to ask for what I want. he wants me to have a voice but that is so hard for me. I spend all day advocating for others but can't for myself.

Odd thing. I didn't even remember posting this. I clicked on it because of the title and though...ohhh...maybe I will learn something...lol.
He said we could work on DBT if I wanted. He is letting me decide how to proceed. I told him when I first started I didn't want to do DBT. I said that because I read it was for people with borderline personality disorder and as ignorant as it sounds I didn't want to think that was my diagnosis. I don't even like to think of myself as bipolar 2 which is the diagnosis I was given. I don't mean any offense to anyone. For some reason a diagnosis of any kind makes me feel more helpless.
Even
the idea of learned helplessness makes me feel bad about myself...like I am defective or it is all my fault. I know I'm not being rational.

I was exactly as you describe when I was in my pre-teens/teens. I had lived most of my life in the safety of my own mind then... my mother realized it and nagged me until I got outside my head. Every chance she got she would say "You need to pay attention to what is going on around you. There is a whole world out there that you have no idea about. What will you do someday when you are driving and you get lost? You won't know how you got to where you are and you won't know how to get home. What will you do?? Get out of your head!" I remember it like it was yesterday. Ugh. This nagging went on for a few years until I finally joined the world if for no other reason than to shut her up.

Want me to record a nag track for you so you can play it over and over again until you rejoin the world? Lol! Or I could come for a visit for a week and sit beside you and say it constantly. Trust me, after a week you will do whatever you need to do to shut it off. :-)

I love my mother..... I love my mother....I love my mother..... Ugh!

Ha...Lucky it would not be safe for you to come out and nag me :-) I have been in my own world since I can remember.

When I am interacting with people I am fine. If i am doing something that requires mental focus of enough intensity ( and maybe some kinetic focus) but any other time I slip away. This morning I slipped away almost as soon as I opened my eyes. I wasn't even out of bed yet. I told myself to stop and come back. I did just that. I came back. I felt a deep pain inside....sadness and grief I think. It was quiet in my head. It hurt. I wanted to cry. Had the brief thought I would be better off dead.

So much for reality.

Well, we initially learned to avoid reality due to it sucking, yanno?

But getting through that grief and into the aliveness on the other side is worth it.

Warning: Whiny Baby Moment ahead

But why does life have to suck??? Why???? I don't like pain, sadness and all that other crap. I don't want to look at myself (figuratively and literally) and see how ugly, ignorant etc I am. Is it too much to ask that I can just feel a sense of peace when not actively engaged???? If i had more energy I would stomp my feet right now.....

Stay strong and work with your therapist I did for a long time feel helpless and now that I am in therapy i am fighting through this feeling. You are not at the end and we are all here for you to get through this feeling. Hugs to you.

I'd have to know you to say if you actually DO show signs of learned helplessness. But you have to remember there are TWO meanings for that.

The one people think of is the "poor me, I need a rescuer" syndrome. The people that pretend to be helpless to manipulate others and get comforting.

BUT there is also learned helplessness where we feel so beaten down by life we feel there's no point in even trying. Many survivors exhibit the 2nd sort, I know I have at times in my life.

If you feel invalidated, are you thinking only of the 1st sort?

I don't think I am needy of attention...at least not the negative kind. Do I enjoy comforting on occasion , yes. My therapist described it as the second kind. I pretty much had non responsive parents. I asked for help and they couldn't give it. I asked several people for help actually. I had a reality check at the age of 8 . I knew I had to take care of myself and I did the best I could.

But no....I don't do the whole drama scenes. I like to be invisible. I do come on here and vent though :-)

I just feel stuck. Trapped. Unable to make any long lasting, meaningful change.

I can relate. I've been "stuck" that way for a good chunk of my life. Someone in an AA meeting once put it the best I ever heard. She said something like "When every change you ever had was from bad to worse, it's hard to keep looking for changes." That's probably an example of why the 12 steppers say to take it one day at a time, looking ahead to the future gets intimidating.

Add to that the feeling people with our background have, trying to deal with a huge problem that adults can't imagine, and dealing with it when most people are still trying to master bike riding, we can be overwhelmed. We don't feel comfortable asking for help, so we don't have people in our life that COULD help. We never even bothered to look for anyone who could, it seemed like we would have been hunting unicorns or bigfoot.

I'm a big fan of self help books. That's what I used to muddle through. A common theme is to learn to live in the RIGHT NOW. I mean, right now, look around you. you're safe. Nothing's going wrong RIGHT NOW, right? So this minute right here reading what I am saying, everything is fine.

And in a few minutes, look around again. Everything safe? If so, you can relax, since IN THE MOMENT everythings fine.

You're going to therapy. Reading between the lines I think you don't have people in your support network much. What else are you doing to help yourself heal? And I won't criticize you if you say "nothing." I'm just taking inventory of your assets as you recover. It always helps to know what tools you have to work with.

Main point is, you'll heal. When you're ready. It's a process, there are steps, and as long as you focus on being safe RIGHT NOW you'll have the strength to make it.

Ever learn about mindfulness?

One should be careful reading between the lines :-) I have some pretty wonderful friends who are there for me but some of the stuff I feel is pretty intense and I don't want to burn out my friendships or make it all about me and my pain. I am so thankful for the laughter I share with them. We all need laughter.

Mindfulness is something I am working on.

My objectives at the moment are to get the feelings back (anger, fear, shame etc) I have the memories but not the emotions...but they are coming back. I need to look at those and put them in their rightful place while at the same time going about my day to day life.

CecilB:

-----" I have the memories but not the emotions." God, can I relate! I used to have that same thing - memories of what it felt like to feel. And in comparision, I just felt dead inside - a void where once there was the full range of emotions. I would sit and think about where those emotions were - where they could have gone and why. But, again, with lots of therapy and the correct medication I was able to "rediscover" the emotions that I had all along - I think it is another protection that our wonderful little grey cells have for us. Once I recovered my memories, they were just "pictures" of what happened - little to no feelings. If I had an emotion it was usually a negative one - fear, anger, guilt, shame, etc. But the happiness and just the feeling of contentment was not there. Eventually the emotions came back - the full spectrum. It took a lot of time and patience, but they did arrive. Then they went everywhere - I started showing signs of Bipolar emotional shifts. I would cry over nothing and laugh hysterically at the most inappropriate moments - my parents just knew I was using drugs, and in a way, I was. Drugs that my brain was producing and slacking off on in waves.
But, before I was diagnosed as BiPo, the "waves" started slacking off and my psychiatrist said he thought that all the emotional strain I had been through had caused the imbalance. Eventually I got as to where it was able to "maintain" and since then life has just been leveling off and stabilizing.
I find it odd that something that happened so many decades before was still able to throw my body into shock when I was processing it. But, our brains are so complex and we know so very little about them yet.
I hope that you will find an easier road back to your feelings. I have no regrets about what I went through, but it did take time and a lot of effort.
All my best CBJ,
Refuse2quit

I think it depends on your perception of what learned helplessness is.... I'm probably going to really bore you now but the term was developed by a psychologist called Martin Selligman - they did experiments with dogs... basically they gave the dogs electric shocks intermittently.... with no cause and effect element... so the dogs didn't know when the shocks were coming.... hence they felt quite "helpless".... after doing this for a while they began giving the dogs shocks but they opened the doors of their kennels... the dogs still remained in them and did not try to leave..... this was their "helplesness" - they learnt that nothing they did could control the shocks they were given

(interestingly he did a follow up book called Learned Optimism which has helped me greatly and I would highly recommend to everybody)

so my younger days were full of learned helplessness... I had a rageful father who was rather cruel.... no matter what I did most of the time I could not placate him..... I too learnt I was helpless in changing/managing the situation and this is very damaging to such a young developing brain... I then learnt that I was helpless in stopping any of the abuse when it happened..... just like Seligman's dogs I felt I had no control and no escape

fast forward to adulthood....I feel no way as inclined as I once did..... working through issues in adult life has empowered me.... unconsciously I know I still feel helpless but the positive thing is if it is learned it can be UNLEARNED.... we can grow and be stronger and not live our lives being helpless and that on it's own is empowering

not sure if this helps Cecil... sorry if I'm off track..... I've felt stuck too... am getting better at it... the book I mentioned really helped... it's easy to read and has wee exercises to show you where the problems lay.... it helps change pessimism into optimism.. and as I was the most pessimistic person in the world... it really is a gem of a book

Hi Ruby :-)
I am familiar with Martin Selligman . Actually that was how my therapist explained it.