Avoidant Personality Disorder & learned helplessness

Today I quickly talk about learned helplessness - a new term to me that's helping me to understand why my life felt so out of my control for so long, and that it doesn't have to stay that way. Thanks for watching, and have a good long weekend (in the US anyway.)
I'll see you next week. :)
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[@jenniferwaller45]

This is a great topic. I definitely experience learned helplessness due to my inability to finish tasks. I always used to get excited to work towards a goal or creative project, spend a bunch of money, and then walk away once the initial excitement wore off. The more I observed this pattern, the more shame I felt. Eventually, I stopped trying altogether. I shut down quite a bit. I know that avoidant part of me is trying to protect me from further shame and failure. But I'm ready to embrace the creative process again, even if I'm not conventionally successful. It just takes a long time to trust that I'm safe to be authentic and try again now that I'm older and more self-aware. I think learned helplessness goes hand-in-hand with shame. Because, initially, there is a real source of helplessness, but we might not even be aware of what it is. We see others doing things we can't do, and then we internalize that we must be defective. I just need to go back and let that younger self know that we weren't defective, just unknowingly working with a divergent brain. We can work around that now that we have more information and life experience (or so I try and tell myself 😆).

[@anxious_and_avoidant]

THIIIIIIIIS I am the *queen* of abandoned hobbies and used to feel so freaking awful about it that I got to the point where I’d think “what’s the point of trying if I know I’m gonna give up.” Same with diets (which I’ve changed my whole perspective on in a different way). Now that I’ve learned about ADHD and understand why I pursue hobbies the way I do, it’s changed the way I look at them. I allow myself to try new things while also not investing my lack of life savings into them lol and think of it as something new for me to learn, knowing that it may not be my thing forever. But at least now I have all these fun random skills and the accompanying equipment so that if I want to pick it back up again someday (which I’m actively working on doing with several of them) then I can easily do that! Learning to accept and accommodate my neurodivergence has been *instrumental* in me having any chance for self-acceptance and moving past the overwhelming shame.

[@kgreene460]

Thanks Maxine, I hope you and everybody here has a happy holiday season. Sigh. Cause it's here. The holiday season. Yup.

[@anxious_and_avoidant]

❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹

[@alienoverlordsnow1786]

HI Maxine, Happy Thanksgiving! Very good pointers and I have one thing to add: The opposite of learned helplessness is self-efficacy: the strong belief that we control our own future and that we can manifest any destiny that we choose, simply by taking baby steps toward our goals, every day, just as you have suggested. I was struggling with helplessness too, but for a couple of days, I have felt better. Also, I found a new affirmation angle that might help you enjoy your thanksgiving even more than usual! It may seem untrue or absurd at first glance, but if we allow ourselves to believe it, it is a very powerful mindshift. Hope you like it!! My life, I hold dear. I have nothing to fear. Everyone forgives me, Everyone loves me, Everyone just wants me to have happiness. Everyone allows me to be my authentic self, without judgement. I love being with such lovely beings, I feel relaxed, I feel at peace, Whatever they do, it seems loving to me, and it reminds me to remember that I love myself unconditionally! Peace, Maxine!

[@anxious_and_avoidant]

👏👏👏

[@anxious_and_avoidant]

Also thank you because I knew “optimism” wasn’t really the word that felt right but it’s what was in the article I read, but self-efficacy is much better!

[@alienoverlordsnow1786]

Yes, its not a commonly used term. I found it when researching how I could cure my 84 problems. Self-efficacy could be defined as optimism about our ability to create the future outcomes that we desire, but its stronger, because it is the belief in our innate ability to actually do it. Cheers!

[@staleyexplores]

So many good nuggets here I can't list them all. Ty and happy holidays friends if that's your kind of thing.

[@markaoslo5653]

_"Friends-Giving"_ nice! Thank you again, Maxine. Cheers-

[@allEyezOnDelphi]

Hi :-) I just found your channel and have been catching up on videos. I'm a 42 y/o male and hearing you describe your avoidant disorder sounds like you're describing me and it just makes me feel better to know someone understands. All the way down to the seemingly random "serial monogamist" comment😂 Thank you for doing what you're doing

[@phil8742]

Very good advice.

[@friarpesel5646]

I hope you have a good time 🤗

[@rolf7135]

Learned helplessness is an interesting concept. I found that it is useful to have someone who could challenge/question repeating thoughts that kind of had developed into learned helplessness. I followed a course series on Coursera about Positive Psychology that was interesting. I especially liked the course on resilience; it explained explanatory styles(permanent/temporary, global/local, internal/external) and some thinking traps. I had Coursera Plus but did not do the questions/tasks as I found them somewhat too personal (and I think it is free to just follow the courses). Happy thanksgiving!

[@anxious_and_avoidant]

Definitely, I think that’s probably the most useful part of therapy too! But I am my own therapist so I’m learning how to do it myself. 😅 I may check out those courses though!

[@rolf7135]

@@anxious_and_avoidant Agree, it is best to have the tools to fix it yourself 🙂

[@markaoslo5653]

💟 🤗 👍

[@HannoverDaz]

Do you think we struggle, genuinely more than others, just at being? I think I do. I'm absolutely convinced that the majority population do not deal with the existential levels of loneliness, shame, self doubt (I guess that's what it is), shyness and fear that I have of not being liked. But as internal as all that is, I've never once heard anyone say that they're proud of me, or that I'm beautiful.. or pay me a compliment like they seem to do with others. One ex friend, an American guy, when I opened up a little to him about my internal battle, asked me if I was possessed by demons!?! 🙄😛😆 So... either all my doubts and fears are TRUE or, I'm just doing something really really wrong to the extent that someone would actually think I'm possessed. 😂 Being this misunderstood is both tragic and funny in equal amounts, and I seem to be totally unable to work out what the discrepancies are because all I have is my internal world... and it's hard work in here sometimes. 😅

[@anxious_and_avoidant]

I am definitely not truly understood by those around me and I definitely struggle to just exist more than most, but I do know that I’m absolutely done trying to convince other people of basically anything at this point lol - I’m only trying to prove my worth to myself. But yeah, it’s lonely… ❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹

[@mobomba6206]

Yes we do have it worst that most because the symptoms of our condition are mostly all shunned by society and the majority of people show us hatred over things we battle with 24/7.. avpd is definitely a sever disorder because our culture teaches people to pre judge and think of people with our condition as weak when the issues do not even arise do to weakness and I could go all day sitting here proving that I'm actually stronger than the average person yet still have this disorder to deal with. It's tough

[@HannoverDaz]

@@anxious_and_avoidant Because none of them... seemingly none of them at all... want to pursue, or are even really capable of pursuing a deep and meaningful friendship or relationship, to the same level of with the same emphasis as us, it seems. At least, that's how it feels to me.

[@HannoverDaz]

@@mobomba6206 it's a weird internal struggle for sure, full of contradiction and a million shares of grey, where everyone else sees only black or white. 😄

[@Ali-20244]

Well . I'm drunk,sad and depressed felling totally alone listening to NF( the search) . Commenting here to something I related to same problem sorry if I didn't cheer you up😢

[@anxious_and_avoidant]

❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹

[@Ali-20244]

​@@anxious_and_avoidantdid you think to make chatting group to share our daily experience and get support from each other

[@anxious_and_avoidant]

I’m starting to get requests for something like that, so I’m gonna look into making a discord. ☺️

[@Ali-20244]

@@anxious_and_avoidant that's will be great I'm waiting thanks

[@alexlogan202]

The cadence seems like Shannon Watts. Or someone that's pandering mlm

[@anxious_and_avoidant]

Ok, well I’m not. 😅 Just how I talk hahahaha. What I am “pandering” is trying to get better, so if you’re resistant to taking responsibility for your healing, then I could see how it might feel that way though. ❤️‍🩹

[@NyteRazor]

🦃🥧😋