Learned Helplessness/Demand Resistance

Started by spryte, September 30, 2014, 01:47:23 PM

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Kizzie

Tks Spryte and not to worry if you don't! I just thought I'd ask in that you seem to have the best grip on it.


Sasha2727

THIS IS MY LIFE!!!

unfortunately I have come to the conclusion that that some of my FOG and learned helplessness behaviors right now are actually possibly stemming from my romantic relationship. It seems as though if I get around a BPD women, I kind of go into fawn and forget who I am. I am at a crux, She is actually on board with seeking treatment but once the reality of what has been happening to me truly hit me... I am now terrified of her! It is sad because she may just have CPTSD like I do , frankly I think bpd is over diagnosed... my mother now she had BPD and was so crazy that pain and abuse really do feel right at home to me, I deff. have internalized the idealize devalue cycle and very much relate to sam varkins " inverted narcessit " type.

Anyway , once I showed my girlfriend the DSM about BPD she was like
" yes that's me " and unlike a lot of people in my life she actually expresses great sorrow over things she has done in the past, I noticed that she dissocates too and actually gets numbness of her body and all kinds of odd pains. Its bizzare we fall into scripts where I get " unreal " feeling like its all fake looking or unreal in some odd way, and she goes into dysphoria and somatic things. We are the war of the roses couple! At first she deff. was emotionally abusing me and slowly just heeping on unrealistic expectations... setting me up to fail, then mu passive aggressive side came out and I would just lie or agree to demands yet actively not do the things I had agreed too. eventually she raged on me, this was the trigger that deff set me back light years. anyway I was so foggy that I just checked out and luckily started writing notes and keeping a calendar to spot and cyclical stuff.

so now its just not good, I am like a war vet, she says that we will be talking and she will ask for me to make even a simple decision and suddenly she sees the scared child take over. its like instead of her being a soldier to the veteran , she is in that moment my mother about to hit me! I will start to cry a little or shake. thing is, we deff are both triggering each other. Im seeing a DBT therapist and she has agreed to get help but oh my its scary. I get scared of her and she thinks " oh no shes about to abandon me " and then shes triggered lol In my mind its like " ok this is a betrayal bond and you know what that means!" however I also believe that the right help can stop the cycle. we have similer things causing different outcomes...

Now I feel paralyzed , I have let my car go not getting it inspected, I let my bills go , my damn dog looks a mess because he needs to go to the groomer.. I have been unable to do any household cleaning and my work proformance is not good lately. She has actively stopped getting angry with me but I can sense her resentment and that makes me feel more fear!...its a bad time....

Kizzie

Sasha, would it be possible for you to take a time out from the romantic side of the relationship and focus on stabilizing things in both your day to day lives like getting your dog to the groomer, getting the car serviced and soon?

That can take a lot of pressure off both of you and get back a sense of control and some stability.  You agree to put the personal stuff on hold, reassure one another that you will come to it when you're both in a better place. 

And given you're both invested in therapy, it sounds like there is will on both sides to improve your relationship but there's just too much going on to get there just now.

Big  :hug: and hope things go better

Sasha2727

I think that is a solid plan, my pup is a pom/ ahpsa lapso so he needs mucho grooming. It's like everyday I wake up and get stuck, I want to take care of things but cannot explain why I'm just too in my head to live my life right now. Praying this therepist can break me lose! I haven't been like this in a few years.

Sasha2727

http://lifecoachplus.net/solutions-for-overcoming-learned-helplessness/

Sense I myself and others here seem to find self talk with all of our " parts " helpful this particular link seemed doable for myself anyway. If you can't get out of bed you can still talk to yourself! Time after time when I ask my pessimist part why I don't get things taken care of I get the response " because you don't deserve a car " I think this may be an old tape the mother within trying to keep me loyal or just simply a lifetime of fear surfacing.

For me I think of we didn't get this way overnight, it has to be slowly undone in the same fashion. I left my books in my car after work last night, so that I would have to look at it today and go outside if I want to read them! I'm a smoker so I'm thinking if I make a bill pile and leave my ciggs on it, I will at least get desensitized to seeing them! Then I can slowly start to open them!

How do you eat an elephant??? :D

whitecat

Spryte, thank you for your posts on this subject.  Honestly, you described it so well, you could have been talking directly to and about me!!

schrödinger's cat

Quote from: Sasha2727 on October 27, 2014, 03:26:58 PM
For me I think of we didn't get this way overnight, it has to be slowly undone in the same fashion. I left my books in my car after work last night, so that I would have to look at it today and go outside if I want to read them! I'm a smoker so I'm thinking if I make a bill pile and leave my ciggs on it, I will at least get desensitized to seeing them! Then I can slowly start to open them!

How do you eat an elephant??? :D

I had to laugh at your idea about the bills. Brilliant! I'm trying to coax myself into doing more, too. A few years ago, I thought I'd best tackle the problem head-on, and change my habits directly to what I wished they were. That didn't work. I'm now trying to just slooowly nudge myself in the right direction. Even so, it's just frustrating how slow this is... but you're right, we didn't get this way overnight. Thanks for reminding me.

schrödinger's cat

#37
Question to everyone: what do you think, could a part of this learned helplessness be a flashback? Triggers evoke not just feelings and thoughts, but also behavioural patterns, whole fake personas or states of being that we once created to keep ourselves safe. Couldn't passivity and demand resistance etc be a part of that? Not all of it, but a part?

The reason I think this: I was in a rather passive mood this morning, "bleargh, why even bother, everything is pointless". The lucky thing was, I happened to be journaling at the time, so I explored this and - what do you know, EF. This was how I used to feel as a teenager. It was a rather mild EF, and I caught it in time, so it was possible to deal with it. Afterwards, I felt more motivated.

Could be that I'm simply the last to catch on to something that will make the rest of you wonder how to break it to me gently that you kind of knew that all along. In that case: yay, I caught up!  :phoot: 

Bluevermonter

Hi guys.  Thanks for sharing all your experiences and thoughts.  I'd like to weigh in about my ex:

Her mom was the cause of her cptsd; her dad was the one who came along and soothed after the fact.  After reflecting on her stories and having met her dad, I have to wonder about his role in learned helplessness.

His two sons grew up to have jobs that supported themselves and their families.  They both choose college degrees that were useful.

My ex majored in art and chose a profession related to that degree that never paid well.  Dad paid for college.  When I met ex, her dad was giving her $500/mo to help make ends meet.  She was 45 and had a 17 year old daughter.

She defined herself as a person who had no use for technology, so had no clue how to use the wide variety of tech we use today.  Cellphones, gps, tv remote baffle her.  (I think her inner critic is so loud that should she use these and fail, she would feel a failure.)

She often asked me why people did things.  Why do people speed to a red light?  Why does someone lie?  Why do people break the rules of good behavior?  Once when she asked me a question like that, I even told her that she sounded like a teenager asking her dad about life.  She was over 60 at the time.

And when it comes to household chores, major demand resistance.  As the only daughter, her npd mom made her clean the house, with much criticism.  So fast forward 40 years, and my ex liked to do laundry but that, and occasional dusting in the living room, was it.

As I am retired and not working, I did the bulk of the chores.  Occasionally, I resented it and we talked about it--a bit of effort expended for a while, but eventually I let it go as an issue.

Demand resistance as a fb?  I think yes.  When we discussed, she always brought up how her mom terrorized her over chores.

Learned helplessness as a fb?  Yes, but is it about missing her dad?  Waiting for him to comfort her?

Toby

#39
QuoteThe Inner Critic delivers ALL forms of manipulations and attacks that parents used to do, plus "new and improved" variations added on.   With the Inner Critic, the abuser is INSIDE, STILL abusing.    Visualize an INTERNAL EMOTIONAL ABUSER.

~Rain

I agree but I want to add a little accomplishment for me. My inner critic is now my "Good little Soldier" that I gave attention too and appreciated for sometimes standing on guard against feeling the wrath of my heavy handed parents or x-abuser H.

Poor little soldier  :'( still has hypervigilance at times from all those years at duty. So in order not to be too critical of my inner critic (which is for me an redundant & futile exercise), I lovingly give her vacation leave, -or-tell her to stand down but with respect for her service.

After all, she might have barked orders at me, but she wanted to protect my inner child and my survival.


Rain

#40
Yes Toby, you are developing the healthy counter of the Inner Love in you, and personally I 100% separate the two so I have absolutely no confusion on that.

Toby

Rain, thanks for your take, tolerance and time.

I have Peter's web and book handy as well so I am not in dispute with semantics or styles at all. Whatever is healthy and works for the journey person is AOK in my book (expression)!  :yes:

It took me years in a 12 Step Program (CoDA) to be gentle to my perfectly imperfect parts. And I do hear you on the inner critic. I think I finally buried mine during CBT and through members such as yourself that encourage others. :bighug:

Whobuddy

Quote from: Sasha2727 on October 27, 2014, 03:26:58 PM

I'm a smoker so I'm thinking if I make a bill pile and leave my ciggs on it, I will at least get desensitized to seeing them! Then I can slowly start to open them!


In reading this thread, there are so many posts that are like reading my own life! I will have to go back and reread this great stuff. About the ciggs on the bill pile: I have actually taken receipts and unopened mail and burned it in a bin outside. I laugh as I think if something was important I will just say that I "lost it in the fire."

Seriously though, be safe if you do something like this...

Whobuddy

In reading about Demand Resistance I was wondering if any of you experience what I call Reveal Resistance. Whenever I tell someone about some success I am having I can no longer continue with it. Examples would be eating right, exercising, housework. I have to keep it a secret to be able to go on. Maybe some sort of self-sabotage??

alovelycreature

Hey Spryte. As some of the others have said, I think this is part of the grief process. I remember when I used to feel exactly how you were talking about. It first started when I moved out of my M's house too.

Do you think it is learned helplessness or depression? I have a friend who has some terrible learned helplessness and to me it seems more like he literally can't even think of helping himself get better or change. He knows he has CPTSD and he won't make any effort in any way whatsoever. He also doesn't appear to show any self-awareness.

To me, what you're talking about sounds more like depression because you sound self aware of what is playing into these moods/feelings. However, if you don't think it's depression just ignore the rest... When I was going through this phase in my grief, my step D gave me "The Road Less Travelled." It's an okay book. The part he made me read first was the chapter on depression though, which was only a couple pages. Mostly it said that depression (not chemical depression) is a grieving phase in change where you are giving up an old part of yourself to become a new more healthy person.

I had this horrible depression for years on and off, but it was worth experiencing because depression forced me to slow down. I'm very task oriented (as I'm sure many people on here are) trying to beat perfection to the finish line. Depression helped me see that taking care of myself was most important, and that I couldn't take care of anything else until I took care of myself first. I still struggle with this, but to develop a new understanding of yourself feels good! Feels like you hit a corner stone.

I think my biggest mistake at that time was not talking about it with anyone. I was very closed. I don't think I really knew any better tat the time honestly.

Do you try to do nice things for yourself? I used to try to make myself a cup of tea or take a bath. It really felt impossible. My best friend would make me count my blessings with her on the phone. I still do that still when I feel *.