learned helplessness

long before I ever thought i would ever take up the study of psychology, i inadvertently discovered the principle of learned helplessness ( or rather I should say i had a horrible episode of depression and ocd and after that episode i realized in retrospect that it was due to my pathologically pessimistic thinking.)

learned helplessness can be expressed as the common phrase" damned if you do, damned if you don't" When you see that your repeated and sincere efforts are not being fruitful and this situation lasts for some time, say a 6 months , you are likely to develop the tendency of thinking that there is no point of applying effort since it will all be in vain. ( " there is no use doing this ; it is not going to make any difference anyways. ") (" anyways i am an incompetent person incapable of the simplest tasks.")

The problem with this kind of thinking is that the circumstances that brought about the period of poor performance are unlikely to persist for long. Those underlying circumstances( whether you are aware of their identity or not) for your poor performance will eventually go away.

But by now you have developed such a pessimistic attitude towards life that you fail to notice that the situation has changed and commit the costly mistake of assuming that any effort you apply will simply go in vain.

and so now you have persistently low mood ; lack of motivation for the simplest of everyday tasks ; lack of interest in things previously considered interesting . In other words , you have major depression now. And as if this wasn' t enough , you think that approaching a doctor would be of no use since the situation is out of control and you are bound to be doomed. There is little a doctor could do about it.

And frequently , as in my case you develop obsessions and compulsions too . You keep on repeating the same ( usually pessimistic) thought in your mind that you go mad. Sometimes your mind gets so tired of repeating the same thought incessantly that it resorts to repeating a single word instead of the whole sentence. Your compulsive state of mind forces you to perform the most ridiculous of rituals , and your inability to control repetitive thoughts and actions ( often weird, arising out of exaggarated anxiety) further destroys your already plumetting self esteem ( what psychologists call "ego dystonic")
But if learned helplessness ( you ' learn ' to be helpless) is the gateway to mental illness, then what is the method to prevent mental illness in adverse situations?
This issue would be adressed in another blog.