What If Helplessness Is Real?

[Friday]

 

[Ed Norton]

Friday, that montage had me pissing in my pants!!!

 

[Friday]

@Ed Norton <grin> It's a good one!

First snagged it at my old hospital. And the copyright on it was "Please. Disseminate as widely as possible." Love that.

 

[desiderata310]

A dear friend sent this to me a while back when he learned how bad things had been.

 

[Eleanor]

The difficult truth is that it is not a one size fits all world. And those cartoons are SPOT ON in all the worst cases where people really need HELP.

It would be easier if it was all one way or the other. But there ARE some people who can do better and choose not to - I don't think there are nearly as many of them as people think. But there are some. I think there are far far more of those who politely bleed to death on our doorsteps.

 

[desiderata310]

The one thing that my therapist has said and keeps bringing back up when I get angry with myself for my hyper vigilance, my depression and my flashbacks is that yes, this IS a brain injury. No, it's not blunt trauma, it's not oxygen deprivation, but the things that have happened over and over had cause certain pathways to be carved deeper and deeper into my brain. This includes things like 'helplessness' in some cases we were forced into situations where we learned that if we tried to get up we were going to get smacked down again so we learned to stay down and only get up if someone put out a hand and even then, we learned to fear that hand as much as we depended on it.

The amygdala is smaller on folks with PTSD, our brains react differently to stimulus. It IS a brain injury. Now, just like any handicap, I can get up and do certain things and if I REALLy push hard I can do things that make it seem as if I can function normally. And I often do, but I can only keep it up for a certain length of time before I crash and burn because that facade takes more effort and more energy than it would normal people.

Does that mean I don't fight against it? No, I still fight my inclination to hide, to give up but finding ways to make my brain 'carve new pathways' is really hard on my own. Bad example: going to therapy. I have spent 8 months having a fear response associated with therapy we have worked very hard over the last 3 months (ok really over the last 11) to try to change that. I was successful last Monday in having a session where I was almost no afraid at all! Friday when I went in, I got triggered before my session and I fell right in the fear rut and no matter how hard I tried (and I tried mightily!) my brain was determined to make sure I stayed on high alert and was convinced that I was going to be attacked. That pathway is carved pretty deep, that helplessness is carved pretty deep too.

Goddamn it, give me a stick and help me carve my way out of this damn jungle in my head and make a safe path.

 

[sun seeker]

Now, just like any handicap, I can get up and do certain things and if I REALLy push hard I can do things that make it seem as if I can function normally. And I often do, but I can only keep it up for a certain length of time before I crash and burn because that facade takes more effort and more energy than it would normal people.

Great point. I've tried to explain the same thing but you did it much more eloquently. For me, this makes me feel like two separate people (and I don't have DID). One that can cope and seem almost normal so only the most observant would know (there are some things I can't handle no matter how hard I try). But I can't keep it up for very long. It makes being around people so exhausting. Sounds like I'm not alone in that.

 

[Tinyflame]

hey don't give me the level of energy and optimism that would be necessary to make major changes in the stressors that are holding the depression in place, like financial insecurity and messed-up family relationships. Lastly, when things are really bad, taking care of myself so I can keep on keeping on, is a full-time job. I'd really like to see some of the people who say depressed people are just lazy

No I don't think for many laziness is the issue. Perhaps despair, turmoil, & constricted thinking. I agree with @Eleanor about that, that it can be a deceptively destructive mindset, often beliefs even more than thoughts, & that's the trouble. And really, one can totally give up on themselves, or even their right to live.

I like @Desiderata's cartoon (picture). (The other one also makes me laugh of course).

I think with ptsd these aren't always worst-case scenarios but fairly common. It's hard to hide that.

One thought @sun seeker , for years I chased the depression symptoms but ultimately only addressing it from a ptsd perspective have I been able to improve or remove anything.. just a thought. :hug:

 

[Tinyflame]

One good thing about the other (suicide) thread, it shows me people can be potentially way off base when they speak of what they're not personally familiar with. Therefore I am going to also be most careful to not think I understand or draw conclusions about others unless I too have 'been there' or 'get it' at least. I try not to anyway, to the best of my ability.

 

[sun seeker]

for years I chased the depression symptoms but ultimately only addressing it from a ptsd perspective have I been able to improve or remove anything.

You mean by treating the depression as a symptom of trauma instead of a separate condition? That makes a lot of sense.

 

[Tinyflame]

Absolutely. It never quite 'fit' & never addressed the cause. It itself was just a symptom.

 

[Eleanor]

I've been reading a bunch of stuff by the affective neuroscientist Jan Panksepp. He thinks that a significant amount of depression is under activation of a very old brain area (SEEKING system) that is the basis of our "eagerness for life." He says:

"You are going to address mood disorders by going straight to the source?

We plan to go smack into it. We think that depression is an underactive seeking urge that has been made underactive by too much psychological pain. We know that all the neural systems are still there, so our goal is to invigorate the primitive seeking urge to provide a positive affect to fight the negative pain. That’s what we’re gonna try."

Most depression treatments are aimed at much higher levels of processing. So @sun seeker your impulse to philosophize and investigate is spot on, and might well be the best thing you can do to alleviate some of the depression. When you "unstick" the SEEKING system, (or whichever is stuck) the depression ... might well lift. If it doesn't.... then it is something else:sour:.