Do you own initiatives or do you lack agency?
Lack of agency?
https://www.reddit.com/r/CPTSD/comments/14dq9la/lack_of_agency_learned_helplessness/
Okay, this is really painful to talk about.
It’s about the bridge between who I want to be and who I manage to be.
I have a strong personality ideal, a strong drive to improve myself, to reach excellence in things, to keep believing, etc.
But. There is a gap. A skill gap, a lacking sense of self, relational skills. Massive gap.
It’s like I have a mentally active but practically very passive approach towards life. I am just not able to… Feel like I have options. To see the options I have, the opportunities. To give myself a direction. To believe in it and keep going.
I feel completely inadequate and inferior in terms of social skills. All the time. I feel like I just don’t know how to do things, like no matter what I say and how, I do it wrong.
I have many beginnings - projects, ideas - and no actual pursuit of things.
I feel like a part of me is missing that allows you to do this - a sense of agency, an ability to mold your own life, something is missing. I live in reactive not proactive mode.
I am unable to conceive being a credible adult. Or being appreciated by anyone. At max I feel like I can be tolerated - or idealized, alternatively. It’s like I’m unable to build my own person, so to speak.
Can anyone relate? I stuggle to believe this is just confidence, it feels more than that, like a sense of self / actual social skills issue.
I totally relate. A wise redditor said “agency is the enemy of abuse” abusers squash agency. I have noted in the learned helplessness stuff I have read- Seligman ’s study ended with the dogs lying helplessly crying expecting shocks, because they learned what was going to happen. Its important to remember that we learned this from a real situation. It did not help the dogs when they were told to jump into the next enclosure, it did not help when they demonstrated to the dogs that they (researchers) could jump into the next enclosure, WHAT FINALLY HELPED the researchers held the dogs up, with soothing words and patience, literally moved one foot in front of the other until the dog was over the partition. So telling someone something is possible, will not help. Demonstration that something is possible is not enough. You have to physically be supported step by step through the barriers and experience that the situation that caused the learned helplessness is no longer in force. This is not something you can talk yourself out of. Experience is the key! Another thing that I have noticed is- a bad teacher can ruin a learning experience mostly permanently. Be extremely careful with your choice of teacher as some seem to decide your limits for you. Also some are just ignorant I’m sure- try to find the most correct way to make the change to unlearn the learned helplessness. For example if you tried to learn math and each time you got something wrong you got hit, you are not going to enjoy math, and you are going to be extremely reluctant to try to do examples, because you now have a fear of getting it wrong, so you are in a catch 22, you can’t practice math you can’t learn it. Find a buddy who is going to praise you just for trying it, even if its wrong, and is so happy to gleefully explain it again. You now have a new experience of math.This is what helped me. Results may vary. Find agency and act it out. Focus on choices you have and say, I am independently making the choice to make my bed, and I made it. Look for fast feedback loops. This is such a great way to look at how we are, how we have been “trained” and how to re-train ourselves into who we want to become. It also made so much sense to me why therapy and medicine was not as helpful as I had hoped.
Your comment makes so much sense to me. I am capable but don’t feel capable, and any new thing feels so overwhelming even if I know I CAN do it. And maybe it does go back to support and just not having it. Usually it’s me just brute forcing my way through any of the scary things and learning the hard way I can do it, but as soon as it’s a new circumstance, it’s like all that experience evaporates. And I’m scared and overwhelmed, but alone and just have to do it. Do you have anymore examples of the fast feedback loops? Maybe I can try to expedite some of that re training
Cal Newport did what he called the MIT challenge, that’s where I learned about fast feedback loops, its on you tube. If that might be up your alley its very cool and interesting stuff he completed a whole MIT computer science degree using the free resources and took the tests and all, he purchased the required textbooks and video logged alot of the process, then wrote books about it. The feedback loop is being able to instantly or really quickly see feedback, so for instance if you do an online typing test theres a quick report of your errors. If you set your task- take out the garbage you can see the result- clean garbage bin right away. That’s why sticking with stuff like excersise is so hard because you only see results weeks into it, and your future self gets the benefit? Also if you Google deliberate practice there’s a good amount of information. I hope that is helpful?
I’m feeling this right now.
I can see all my potential. I’m bright and driven and have a lot of creativity and can come up with creative problem solving that employers value.
I’m an artist. I have skill and concepts. I think deeply on things. I’m at UCLA. I bring visuals and a style that stands out even at that level.
And then all of it gets locked behind this cage of inferiority and shame and flashbacks and having to work so hard to regulate myself each and every way because I know these feelings aren’t mine but go damn does it hurt and I feel so helpless sometimes.
This is pretty relatable, actually. It’s interesting because I also have a strong sense of self and independence in daily life, but when it comes to moving forward in meaningful ways I tend to flounder. I always blamed it on circumstance but I’m learning that may not be accurate. So, basically what you’ve said sums it up.
Recently, I lived life only in passive mode. I had obligations that I followed, I had some hobbies, I socialized a bit, but I had no personal goals for myself that I sincerely wanted to pursue for the future. This often has been my problem before. The thing is, if I think about it and if I am honest to myself, there are things I’d like to do, but because I lack confidence and self-efficacy my default assumption is that ‘somebody like me’ couldn’t achieve it anyways so I don’t dare to decide “I’ll try to achieve this” because I’m sure I fail anyway. Voicing that I want something and setting goals still triggers lots of shame in me, leading me to remain passive, always just saying “let’s see, maybe, not sure if it works, probably not” instead of developing any proactive ambitions and putting in efforts.
I decided to consciously make an effort now to always think about what I want and deliberately set goals. I noticed, as banal as it sounds, it pulls me out of that passive mode and gives me back energy and agency almost instantly. But it’s an constant effort to remind myself as falling back into the learned-helplessness state is just so easy and my familiar default state of mind.
Religion used to be the answer to your question. In these times….. Just find a cause that you believe in….The effort to contribute to something bigger than yourself will set right all of the other problems you are facing. You will learn about yourself the moment that you forget yourself.I swear, it doesn’t even have to be big. Just contribute somehow. It’s like spiritual exercise.