Learned helplessness

Trauma often leaves us helpless and powerless and while our response comes from the autonomic nervous system, as in we have no voluntary control over it, there is such a thing as ‘learned helplessness’. We then learn to default to this conditioned state when we perceive threat, even though actual danger/threat might not be present.

Because of learned helplessness, we can cede our power over to people, particularly those that society calls experts, or those we feel have more authority than us. But there are no experts, there are only people with expertise*, the difference between the two in my opinion, is that experts think they know everything there is to know and in that arrogance, try to set everyone straight. People with expertise on the other hand realise that just like everyone, they’re always learning. With an expert you’ll feel less than, with a person who has expertise, you’ll feel equal to. We need guidance, but what we don’t need is to be told what to do or what it is we need, we know that already on some level and a good practitioner will guide us back to that knowing, if we’ve lost trust in it.

St Declan's cliff walk, Ardmore, Co. Waterford, Ireland

Trauma informed care is important. What it means in reality is that someone has been trained to work with trauma or someone has been trained to recognise the signs of trauma and refer on. Many things help us on our journeys through trauma, if it has helped you, it counts, whether it’s yoga, walking, meditation, painting, swimming, reading etc. By utilising whatever it is, you are not saying it is the panacea, you are saying that it is making your life that bit easier and more pleasant. It really can be the ‘small’ things that can add up to the big things in life.

Maybe we’d like aha/breakthrough moments more often, or even just once ;-) and maybe even a magic wand wouldn’t hurt once in a while. Or maybe we do have aha moments and go forward 10 steps only to take 3 steps back. None of our journeys are linear, they look more like the back of a tapestry; a bit of a mess. But we forget that on the front of our tapestry, we’re creating our own unique picture.

We need to remember to count the good in our lives so we get to actually view the real picture every now and then, this will help us through the difficult times by inspiring us and giving us much needed hope and a bit of a break from trying to fix ourselves all the time. This is not a false or forced positivity but a genuine acknowledgement of the good in us and our lives. I think without this balance, we can easily despair and feel hopeless.

* I first heard of the distinction between expertise and experts from a lecturer I had in university.