Mental Illness

Learned Helplessness Pt. 2

Posted on by Lady CAS

I wanted to expound a bit on learned helplessness. Philly and I had a discussion about learned helplessness in an indirect manner. I realized that he as many of us do in some manner or at some point in life suffers from it. He suffers much more than most and his is from dealing with many negative situations that he believes he just ‘deals’ with and says it’s life and moves on with. When in actuality they beat him up leaves hard scars and he voices his feelings about them often because they still bother him.

I never mind hearing about them, but when someone voices their feelings about something frequently, it does bother you and most definitely you are not living life, over it, or any of those other phrases people like to say they are. Now Philly has used a few of these phrases but I am speaking now to the masses here so understand that. I merely use him as an example to get my point across.

When you become accustomed to life, a situation, or a person constantly beating you up you can forget that this is not normal in life and it can become your normal. You begin making every excuse as to why this is YOUR life and applying it to all the exceptions to your life as well. Such as all your shortcomings (gender, race, age, weight, health, education, social status, etc…).  You being saying why you cannot find the positive situations and it alienates others from you. It becomes hard for others to be around you because they find it hard to constantly pull you out of the negative loop you have created.

The Saboteur

Every new person you meet does not know your past. You have a chance to recreate yourself. To show them a new you. To begin fresh. Yet because you are so conditioned to the negative past you refuse to show them that new you, you believe they will treat you like all the bad exes, so you begin testing them and sabotaging the relationship. You become suspicious, or you are half interested.

The Rude/ Mean Person

You throw out rude mean comments and clear them up as a joke once you realize you may have hurt the other person’s feelings. Your friend/ partner may laugh these things off initially but eventually they will realize this is not cool and that you are in fact not a nice person. They may be superficially interested in you and once this phase wears off they will say even more hurtful things. Sometimes the hurtful things are never about you, but about others and this may also be a sign. They are lashing out. They are constantly finding everything wrong with the world and everyone else. Nothing is good about the world EVER, not even when you point things out. This can be a hard pill to swallow for a person who is really nice and cheery (optimistic). You will find yourself needing outlets and a social network just being around this person (they will rarely if ever uplift you). You will find that you will consume yourself trying to do that for them and have little of yourself left.

All in all people who have learned helplessness are considered mental health individuals. They have been through 1 or more negative experiences that have triggered a behavior to react in the manner in which they have. It is very hard to overcome.

  1. The first step is becoming aware of the behavior and reaction. Coming from someone who has had learned helplessness late in life this was hard to do, especially since the behavior was due to fear.
  2. Once you are aware of the situation, you have to want to change it. This means knowing you reason for it and having a solid reason at that (one that is positive- usually one that is just for you).
  3. Then you have to make a plan to change it
  4. Then execute that plan
  5. And modify/ re-evaluate if needed
  6. smile because you made a change you can be proud of

 

 

Learned Helplessness

Posted on by Lady CAS

Learned helplessness is when people feel helpless to avoid negative situations because previous experience has shown them that they do not have control. In this lesson, we’ll explore some of the causes and effects of learned helplessness.

Seligman’s Learned Helplessness Theory

In 1965, Martin Seligman and his colleagues were doing research on classical conditioning, or the process by which an animal or human associates one thing with another. In the case of Seligman’s experiment, he would ring a bell and then give a light shock to a dog. After a number of times, the dog reacted to the shock even before it happened: as soon as the dog heard the bell, he reacted as though he’d already been shocked.

But, then something unexpected happened. Seligman put each dog into a large crate that was divided down the middle with a low fence. The dog could see and jump over the fence if necessary. The floor on one side of the fence was electrified, but not on the other side of the fence. Seligman put the dog on the electrified side and administered a light shock. He expected the dog to jump to the non-shocking side of the fence.

Instead, the dogs lay down. It was as though they’d learned from the first part of the experiment that there was nothing they could do to avoid the shocks, so they gave up in the second part of the experiment.

Dogs who had previously been shocked did not try to escape the shocks in a subsequent experiment.
Learned Helplessness

Seligman described their condition as learned helplessness, or not trying to get out of a negative situation because the past has taught you that you are helpless.

After the dogs didn’t jump the fence to escape the shock, Seligman tried the second part of his experiment on dogs that had not been through the classical conditioning part of the experiment. The dogs that had not been previously exposed to shocks quickly jumped over the fence to escape the shocks. This told Seligman that the dogs who lay down and acted helpless had actually learned that helplessness from the first part of his experiment.

http://study.com/academy/lesson/how-seligmans-learned-helplessness-theory-applies-to-human-depression-and-stress.html

Anger Vs. Anxiety

Posted on by Lady CAS

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Look at the two pictures above! You may have seen the movie Pixar Movie Inside Out. It’s about emotions and internal thoughts. Well from first glances the 2 characters could be reacting the same way or the same situation. However, if you saw the movie, you would know that the character on the left is Anger, and the on right is Fear (anxiety). Each get to run certain aspects of our lives. However, you do not want any one in emotions to fully control all aspects of your life. Thankfully this has not been the case for me.

However, I have had a tough time differentiating between some of my emotions as of late. There are times that they seem to give off false senses of effects or symptoms that are very similar to those of my anxiety from the past and I have misinterpreted them. For example being so angry that my heart rate begins to beat rapidly, I start shaking, I get spots before my eyes, and may even get short of breath and begin sweating.

But I realized later that upon calming down that the shortness of breath may have been because I was either holding my breathe instead of breathing calmly instead of a panic attack. I was trying to prevent myself saying something I should not (in mot cases). Then from all the stress and reactions I usually end up with a nice size migraine later. It’s all very magical later when I see halos and feel like I have gone a few rounds with a boxer.

I am sure that my anxiety kicks in when I believe that I am having an anxiety attack; however, this is only when things have gone way too far (very rare). Yesterday for example, I became so angry it took me hours to calm down. Once I finally did I finally realized the difference between my anger and anxiety.

I believe the reason it has taken me so long to find this separation/ link it because I have never really allowed myself to openly become angry. I feel it is so taboo to become angry and to lose my cool since gaining such a handle over it in towards the end of college. I worked hard on myself then and now I am quite embarrassed when I lose my cool. So it is hard for me to come to terms with the actual triggers, ‘symptoms’, and effects of it. And of course later I feel like I have been the bad guy because it’s not like me to be this way; though I always wonder if the person who caused the anger ever feels that way?

I always wonder this as usually people who are naturally negative or angry people ever feel like I do–Super embarrassed, ashamed or remorseful for being angry or being quick to anger. I feel that anger is an easy out and one should try their best to stay cool, calm, and collected to be able to see all sides of every situation and offer valuable insights and contributions to any aspect/ situation. But I feel like the negative or angry person could care less and I just feel really bad for them and wish I could help them see this is not the answer in life because it narrows their thinking and of life.

Now I am not saying you can never become angry;  however, being angry all the time or wallowing in it is not good. One must learn to do so in a healthy way. I have learned that the way I did so yesterday was obviously not the best way. Also bottling it up is not healthy either. You can write, come back and talk about it later (once things are calmer), go to counseling (anger management), go exercise, and so on. Now that I have pinpointed that this was anger for me I am able to handle what triggered it and address it. Now I can back to joy and more varied emotions!

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SENSELESS

Posted on by Lady CAS

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Staring into the emptiness

No thoughts no words no dreams in the day

Catatonic

Lips stitched together with the invisible sinew of the pharaohs

Crying out for an explanation

For something anything that makes sense

The world folds in on me in a labyrinth of contrasting light and dark

I sit blinded, unable to adjust

Wishing to get up but an anchor weighs my heart and body to its spot

The captain steers me

My head turns, my teeth appear, and my lips turn upward at the the corners

I nod my head toward someone and move my hands over a flat surface and screen

Then the captain takes me into a room and he lets water run down my face

The Dam Breaks (She Wept)

Posted on by Lady CAS

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Daydreamer dreaming about dreams

Dreaming about life

A life that has escaped her

A laugh-less house

A house void of the pitter patter of litter feet

A house that never became a home

Built on cracked glass waiting to burst into a shrapnel

Impaling and then poisoning every aspect of her life

Believing that she have nothing left to give

Nothing left do

She can’t meltdown

Crying seems an abstract thought, she is beyond that

She is angry

Days go by, weeks, months

Then she is calm, too calm

She is thinking about the hurt that was caused

The missed opportunities, past and future

She must start over

But time is not her friend and she honestly does not want to

She blames herself for everything

She finally allows the demon in

It reaps her soul and ravages her very being

So She WEPT

 

Raw

Posted on by Lady CAS

Flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood

I have been flayed slowly one layer at a time

Each piece seemingly to happen over an eternity of tears and curses

Bleeding and praying

Watching my heart pulse, quiver, and sputter

You pull another layer away each time you open your mouth

I watch my brain synapses jump, light up, spark, crackle, and fizzle

Another layer is peeled away as you refuse to share

Finally my remaining muscles are stripped of nutrients and size as I sit waiting

Because the last layer is snatched off the bone because love is lost

 

Myasthenia Gravis And Writing My ART

Posted on by Lady CAS

I have learned lately that writing and Myasthenia may not always go hand and hand but the tricks to making them work are learning the advantages and capitalizing on them. I know for instance that my muscles in my fingers will fatigue and wear out on me after a bit of typing and since I have to type for work and for leisure and now for writing which is a bit of work and leisure I have to find a way around this hurdle.

So I type closer to the time just after taking medication, in the middle of the day when I am stronger, and I utilize my Dragon speech tool so I can give my fingers a break when I can and use my voice when it is stronger at times. I trade off since sometimes my voice may not always be strong.

I also have issues with vision having ptosis or droopy eyelids. This is another symptom of my Myasthenia Gravis and the strain from staring at the computer or up or just stress can cause my one or both eyelids to become heavy and droop. This is extremely annoying when you are on a roll typing. I mean I do not really need to see the keyboard all the time but sometimes it is helpful to see the screen, LOL. I also need to see the screen to make edits.

It can be a long editing day it I have ptosis, in fact I usually give up after a few minutes because the symptoms are usually only going to get worse until I can rest AND get medication.

My biggest ally in all of this is rest. This is a hard notion for me as I tend to like to burn the midnight oil when I am on a roll. If I feel like I have something going I do not want to let it go until I have completed that thought or section. But with MG, sometimes it will let me complete those thoughts and sometimes I will complete the thought and go back the next day to read it and it reads like a drunk toddler got hold of my laptop.

This is why I believe I have become more rushed and sensitive of my work. I want to get it done when I am feeling well in one sitting and have someone’s attention. Or I want to wait until I will be better in a few days/ week’s time to create a work that may have fewer errors. Granted grammar has never been my forte and I will tell anyone beforehand what my weaknesses are well BEFORE MG EVER started but when additional errors occur because of it sometimes I tend to take somethings to heart though I would never tell an editor that because I do not want them to feel sorry. I want them to do their job and I will sort out my feelings on my own! As long as they are respectful and giving me constructive criticism I will never ever fault an editor and I never have. I always get past my feelings for the improvement of the art that is my work.

27 Questions Blacks People have for other Blacks

Posted on by Lady CAS

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So I saw an amazing video I believe from Buzz Feed that was titled Questions Black People Have For Black People the reason I loved it so much it because these are some of the very questions I have had all my life and have even blogged about many of them. I just do not understand how many black people in the black community can behave, speak, and think this way and then find fault in how black people like myself have a hard time relating to how to ‘act’ black. I act like a human and keep it moving.

Do not stereotype me and place me in your idealistic box and glue me there as if I must stay in whatever picture you have envisioned for me. That is not how my life works and will not be made to work to make/ keep anyone happy.

I just adore this post because it was done tastefully but it said it all. Are there other cultures that deal with such issues? Is so please share. I am quite interested.

Writing laterally-Help!

Posted on by Lady CAS

SO last week I hit a writing hurdle. I struggle with dialogue. I can describe a scene in great detail like you would tell an actor or give them direction (almost like a screen play perhaps) but I am not great with creating dialogue. I know how it should go but when I have to actually write it I become to repetitive and lose vocabulary creativeness and feel muted and frustrated. I hate constantly saying he said, she said, I said, They said. etc. I see why there are more modern books that write a whole chapter from the point of view of one character, then the next chapter is from the other/ another character’s POV. It’s easier to be a bit more creative.

So when I hit this wall it made me feel a bit more unexcited about how to make my book flow naturally and I began doing more research which I must do anyway instead of keeping the true creative part and writing chunks of my book. I have begun a lateral process instead of moving forward.

Moreover, I have struggled with telling my reader the story 99% of the time instead of showing them the story. Once again it’s like you want to put people in the scene with you and not assume everyone around you knows what is going on without giving so much detail that you are boring them. You still have to leave ‘white space’ or gaps for them to feel as if there is something left for the imagination to do some work and interpret on their own. You do not want to spoon feed them that YOUR creativity in that line. This should not be hard for me as I have never had an issue with this in my poetry or blogs, but in my book I am struggling because I feel added pressure.

Is this natural? Should I have the same feeling that I have when I write poetry and blogs to accomplish the book? I get that I should write prompts and practice dialogues and scenes and such more often even if not daily but are my feelings valid? I am getting quite anxious which is anything but what I wanted to feel writing this book, it was fun and now it’s kinda not as fun.

My Wonderful Followers

Posted on by Lady CAS

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Yesterday I posted about feedback in one’s writing career and depression. Who would have thought that the two topics would have seemed to merge into an overwhelming response of feedback of positive responses of support and information of how to’s, try this, similar experiences, internet hugs, and cheery smiles and messages to make me smile. The out pour of support was just so amazing. I was not expecting it and yet it was there.

I was offered free advice on how to creatively write better through daily prompts, and even offered some prompts (thank you ladies and gents I so appreciate it because I did not know where to begin and I truly appreciate it), I was offered free hypnosis (which I may take you up on this, lol), I was offered smiles and hugs which I take graciously because they are contagious and make me smile and feel so warm and fuzzy.

I enjoy the opportunity to share with you all because you make me feel like I am being HEARD! You care about what I have to say because you not only read it but some of you have been through it before and can relate to it. It makes my writing have a purpose. It makes my writing come to life. It does what I do everyday in life for my mother and brother, I advocate…I advocate for writers, for justice, for love for so many things, but I especially advocate for those who have health or mental health issues.

Thank you to all my followers who have shown me support especially during the last few weeks. Your support is one the reasons I have continued to flourish!