If there’s one thing that drives me insane it’s learned helplessness. And I know, I know it’s a stress response to trauma and a lot of people aren’t even aware they’re doing it, but unfortunately my childhood trauma is having to be the person who did everything because none of the adults had a handle on their shit, so unfortunately I have a short fuse when it comes to the kind of people who need a longer fuse and, well. You can see the conundrum this puts us in.
I wasn’t planning to go into this more because this was a personal vent post pertaining to a friendship conflict, but some of the replies made it feel necessary to clarify that learned helplessness isn’t a moral failing.
It is, as I already acknowledged, a trauma response. It’s what happens when you’ve been hurt too many times and your brain starts to go “why bother” because no matter what you do, someone hurts you.
On the outside, it can look like the person is being entirely unreasonable. It’s like telling someone to touch a cold stove top, knowing that it’s cold, and getting frustrated that the person won’t do it because it might be hot.
You’re telling them it’s off. You even put your own hand on it to show that it’s off. And they still won’t do it. And that’s frustrating.
But it’s also something I understand as a disabled person because so many of the things that are normal for so many people cause me debilitating pain, and yet people tell me all the time that’s impossible.
No one can live in constant pain like that. They’d go mad if they did. Here see, just do this, they’ll prove it. The stove top is cold—why won’t I believe them?
Just because the pain is mental for people with learned helplessness doesn’t mean it’s not pain. It’s a conditioned response. Someone has forced them to touch the hot stove top over and over—maybe they even made it look like the stove top was off to trick them into doing it.
It’s hard to trust again, after things like that happen to you. It’s hard to do anything.
The thing which those of us on the outside identify correctly as self-sabotaging behavior can feel like safety when all attempts to do anything in the past have resulted in profound hurt.
Does this make the behavior any less frustrating and maddening for me, a person who was forced too young to become hyper competent and independent to deal with the circumstances I grew up with?
No, absolutely not. I was also made to touch the hot stove top too often as a child. Not because people thought it was off, but because they needed someone else to get burned and I was there.
That’s my trauma and I do not have to diminish my own to make others feel better about theirs.
Ultimately, it’s a conflict of needs.
And perhaps once upon a time, before therapy, I would have seen it as my responsibility to help the other person because that’s what I was conditioned to do or face horrible consequences.
It’s a conflict of needs that requires communication.
Did the communication work last night? No. Sadly. It was taken in bad faith from a place of hurt.
Does that mean I need to tolerate that behavior because I recognize where it’s coming from?
Also no. I’m not their therapist.
I get to guard my emotional safety just as much as they do theirs. And if I continue to find the behavior untenable, I will make a decision about the longevity of the friendship based on that.
Neither of us are bad people in this scenario. We just currently can’t be healthy friends without triggering the shit out of each other and that’s fine.
Sad. But fine.
(via acquitarte)
