Dear Caroline:

You are welcome.

“Do you think I see it way worse than it would be?“- yes, I do.

“Is it not that bad as I imagine it?“- no, it is not as bad as you imagine it. In a calm, positive state of mind, you will be able to imagine it differently: seeing opportunities and possibilities you didn’t see when panicking.

“This whole idea of changing job exhausts me. I hate it about myself!“- self-hate is exhausting and otherwise bad for your health! Love yourself instead, be kind to yourself and your life will be better for it in every way.

anita

It just occurred to me (as I went back to bed, thinking that-  if it is night time where you are at you may not be relaxed enough to sleep) that it doesn’t have to be that complicated: if there are jobs available to you in your preferred hours of the day,  then refuse this job and go for a job in your preferred hours. (I will be back to the computer in about eight hours).

anita

Dear Caroline:

“It’s not that simple“- since it is complicated, I will review your first 6- page thread (Is my friend abusing me?) from Sept 28- Dec 24, 2022, a thread where we communicated extensively (We ended the thread with wishing each other Merry Christmas).

You shared almost a year ago about a friend/ co worker: “He has this habit of talking a lot and very long… He can talk for…  an hour or hour and a half… without taking any pause… He tells me everything… every detail… he again started talking about his bike, what repairs he did, exactly what, where, what day it happened, what he ate for breakfast that day, what he wore, that kind of details…  it’s too much, too long… It’s just overwhelming… he had anger issues when he was just being angry all the time and projected this on me… I was always very polite, listening patiently… Lately I got really tired with this and a bit angry…  I was tired of listening to this… I am working home office, he and only one coworker are in the office) I feel it is a trap that I fell into“-

-Notice you used the word trap in context of your workplace back then. Fast forward a year, you shared about another trap, one you are currently afraid to fall into. This one is also in the context of work. I wrote to you only yesterday: “visualizing the job, you felt trapped, so,  you got scared and you catastrophized the envisioned job situation, seeing it as way worse than it would be… Is this what happened?” You answered: “yes.. I think so“.

The co-worker a year ago talked way too much, projected his anger into you, and bullied you. Your Emotional Response was to feel overwhelmed and angry, but your Expressed Response was: “I was always very polite, listening patiently“. You didn’t assert yourself, didn’t initiate active solutions to the problem, but instead, you displayed Learned Helplessness.

bing. com: “Learned helplessness is a psychological state of passivity and powerlessness. It occurs when someone repeatedly faces uncontrollable, stressful situations, then does not exercise control when it becomes available. A person assumes that nothing is possible.. to change or alter the situation.. People that struggle with learned helplessness tend to complain a lot, feeling overwhelmed and incapable”.

Learned helplessness is a condition that often starts in childhood, as it did in my case: I was repeatedly abused by my mother, all my efforts to avoid and prevent it failed, so I concluded that there was nothing I can do when bad things happen. Fast forward, whenever I found myself in a problematic situation, I froze, didn’t feel capable of solving problems, catastrophized the situation, kept my growing stress inside for as long as I was able to endure it, felt like a trapped animal, getting more and more stressed and then, way too stressed to endure it any longer, I either exploded or I just RAN, left, was gone.

Back to your first thread, you wrote back in Sept last year: “He usually intimidates and bullies me. I regret I put up with this all these months and did not stand up for myself and now it became a trap I need to get out of“- this is learned helplessness. I am surprised that I didn’t bring up the term in your first thread.

On Sept 30, 2022, I wrote to you what applies to your current situation: ” I think that objectively, the situation is not as bad as you feel that it is. You can undo the trap and set yourself free if and when you stand up for yourself and create a new reality at work”- standing up for yourself, asserting yourself in real-life is an essential part of overcoming learned helplessness.

Do you think that the term learned helplessness applies to your life experience?

anita

* I just checked for new activity on the forums and found your most recent two posts. Thank you for welcoming me back to the forums! I will wait for your reply to the above.