Learned Helplessness, the true oppressor of mankind

I write this post in the hopes that someone who is searching for answers will find it and realize they struggle with learned helplessness, as I did. I was lucky. I had someone who loved me enough to give me a swift kick in the ass, then gently helped me change my ways. Not everyone is so lucky. Many people go their whole lives without realizing that their approach and outlook on life is distorted. They may realize something is wrong, but don't understand the source of their self destructive behavior. If you find that you do struggle with learned helplessness, seek professional help. I will give you some advice on steps you can take yourself, but it is extremely hard to break free of learned helplessness alone. You will need help, even if it's just a friend who loves you enough to give you a swift reality check from time to time.

First, it is important to define what I mean by learned helplessness. The clinical definition is full of long, scientific words. Unless you're a psychologist, the clinical definition will confuse you. That's why I will use my personal definition.

I define "Learned Helplessness" as: An outlook on life where you believe that you have little or no control over events and results in your life. If you break it down into the two words, it's an obvious concept. Learned, meaning this is a habit that is learned. You aren't born with it. It isn't a genetic or biological disorder. Helplessness, meaning a feeling of having no power. Some synonyms of helplessness are: abandoned, vulnerable, destitute, and powerless. The hallmark of learned helplessness is passing blame rather than introspection of your own actions.

This may seem a very foreign concept. But, take a moment to really think about it. When you are faced with a problem do you throw your hands up and assume the worst outcome is inevitable? Or do you examine the problem, consider solutions, and take measurable steps toward a resolution? If you throw your hands up, you've been conditioned to learned helplessness. If you examine, consider, and act, you probably don't have learned helplessness.

Examples of Learned Helplessness:
Learned helplessness manifests itself in varying degrees. Below are some examples:

• A person who is overcome with defeatism, and throws in the towel immediately when faced with a problem. 
• Someone who makes some efforts toward resolving the problem, but gives up as defeated when confronted with a minor obstacle. 
• A person who always avoids problems, or runs away from problems, rather than facing them.

If there's anything to learn from this article it is this: You can overcome learned helplessness! It is really a matter of changing how you look at life, and especially changing your internal dialogue. The truth is, you become what you think about all the time. If you think about failure and hopelessness, you will become those things. You have to change the way you talk to yourself in your mind.

Let me give some background into learned helplessness. Then, we'll get into steps you can take to exorcise it from your life.

Background of Learned Helplessness:
In 1967, psychologist Martin Seligman was studying depression. In some cruel animal experiments, he realized that a dog could be conditioned (taught, learned) to exhibit helpless behavior.

The experiment went something like this:
Two groups of dogs were given electric shocks. In group A, the dogs could avoid the shock by pushing a panel with their nose. In group B, the dogs received the shock regardless of what their actions. After a while, group A mastered avoiding the shocks. However, group B had become listless, unmotivated, and would make no effort to avoid the shocks.

Once the conditioning was complete, the conditioned dogs were put into a box with a low barrier in the middle. To avoid being shocked, they only had to jump over the low barrier to the other side of the box. The hypothesis was that group A would learn quickly and jump to the other side, but group B would exhibit the same helpless behavior and stay in the side with the shocks.

The hypothesis turned out to be true. Despite watching other dogs successfully avoid shocks by jumping to the other side of the box, 6 out of 8 dogs from group B did not take any steps to avoid the shock.

Conditioning in Humans:
You may be thinking: This is all fine and good for dogs, but what does it have to do with me? The truth is, psychological conditioning has the exact same effect on dogs as it does on humans. Just like Pavlov's dog, people can also be conditioned to salivate when hearing a ringing bell. Conditioning is used in advertising all the time. It's the reason you feel hungry when you see a commercial for your favorite restaurant.

In the case of learned helplessness, your conditioning usually begins in your childhood. Sometimes it is the result of neglect and abuse. Sometimes you simply learn it by watching your parents exhibit the same behavior. It's usually a combination of neglect, abuse, and watching your parents. Aside from the neglect and abuse, don't be too hard on your parents. After all, there were probably circumstances beyond their control that led to their conditioning. Blaming others is also a serious problem for those who struggle with learned helplessness, so placing blame should be avoided. Remember, look at solutions rather than looking for someone to blame.

Every child is born with naivete and blind faith. Children are taught moral lessons in very simple terms. All moral lessons are boiled down to a good vs. evil dichotomy, which is easy for young minds to grasp. Attentive parents will slowly "fill in the blanks" of the moral lessons, and teach their kids self discipline and personal responsibility.

Unfortunately, some of us are born into circumstances which left us burdened with learned helplessness. In those circumstances, very few of us have the "blanks" filled in or learn self discipline and personal responsibility. As we grow into adults, we continue to see the world in simple terms of good vs. evil, and we don't learn the lessons of self discipline and personal responsibility. We tend to look at difficulties as insurmountable obstacles rather than problems that have solutions. We learned that our efforts. prompts only superficial introspection of our behavior. Instead, it allows blame to flow to "the devil", and credit to go to God, without much critical introspection on our own actions. Whatever introspection happens, it is so superficial that it does not produce positive reinforcement of positive actions, or negative deterrents to negative behavior. It often leaves us with a deeply held belief that the world is unfair and discriminatory.

We should not be too quick to blame our parents. Very often they inherited the learned helplessness and the "Good / Evil crutch" from their own parents. Going back through your ancestors to place blame is pointless. You don't know what kinds of circumstances each of them faced while raising their own family. That's why we have generations of poverty stricken families that are unaware of the self destructive behavior they pass along to their children. Very often it isn't a matter of being lazy. It's more a matter of the learned helplessness.

I would like to caution against oversimplification in this subject. This is not the same as a believer asking "What would Jesus do". Asking that question is actually self reflective, which is the opposite of the "God / Devil crutch". People who use the "God / Devil crutch" perform very superficial self evaluation, and deflect blame to "the devil" and credit to "God" in the process.


When you mix the naivete of youth, blind faith, learned helplessness, and the "God/devil crutch" together you have an individual with massive capacity for self destruction.

In my opinion, learned helplessness is at the root of the problems that plague otherwise reasonable people. Take a look around you and realize that ONLY YOU have the power to turn your life around. Reflect on the problems you face, and use words like "I take responsibility for...". Take emotional ownership and responsibility for your mistakes, and take steps to ensure you won't make the mistakes in the future.

Once you start taking responsibility for your actions, you will notice that you are making improvements in your life. You aren't a helpless child adrift on rough seas. You are a rational adult who is capable of fixing your problems. If I can do it, anyone can do it.

Why I'm Boycotting Chick-Fil-A

Many on the religious right have complained about how "liberals" are unjustly "punishing" a "good Christian" company for believing in biblical principles, particularly as related to marriage.

As anyone who reads my blog often will know, I am a gay man. I've been in a committed, loving relationship with another man for 9 years. As a gay man, the "biblical marriage" issue is more than just an abstract political question, as it is for most people. For me, this is a serious issue. It's far more than the extra $5000 in federal taxes we had to pay for my health insurance provided by my partner. It's about my personal dignity as a person, and our ability to live our life together with legal protections.

It amazes me to hear "Christians" complain about this boycott. This is no different than the "One Million Moms" group boycotting Starbucks when the company came out in favor of keeping the Washington state gay marriage law (opposing the ballot initiative that would overturn the law). The fact is, these politically motivated boycotts only serve to boost business from the opposing side. I usually don't drink coffee, but I bought a Starbucks caramel malchiado the day I heard of the OMM boycott. The same is true for Chick-Fil-A.

I only went to Chick-Fil-A twice when I lived in Atlanta. I was a little surprised to find them closed one Sunday, so I looked them up online. I found that their "closed sundays" policy is motivated by the owner's strong Christian convictions. Being a respectful Atheist, I thought: Good for you! I then moved on with my business. I later heard stories in Atlanta of Chick-Fil-A harassing and firing "homosexuals" who were "discovered". I also heard of them firing single women who were pregnant out of wedlock. I called their corporate office and spoke with their PR guy. When asked about firing gay people, he told me there are no laws against that in the state of Georgia. When I pointed out the gender discrimination of firing pregnant women, he abruptly ended the conversation and hung up. Regardless of your "convictions", firing people for being gay or pregnant is absolutely unacceptable in my book.

That's why I've had a boycott against Chick-Fil-A since 2006. It has nothing to do with the owner's "religious convictions", or discriminating against "Christian values". It has everything to do with their discriminatory employment practices.

I also have a standing boycott of Walmart over their employment practices and the fact that they push manufacturers to move manufacturing jobs oversees. It also has to do with the devastation left behind in local retail when the company moves into an area. My mother also works for Walmart, and there's a horrible incident that demonstrates the evil of that company. Again, it has nothing to do with the Walton's religious views.

For those of you who believe that I choose to be this way, consider this: I was born to a conservative religious family in a very religious part of the country. I prayed and fasted for years, begging god to relieve me of the burden of the "unholy urges". The church told me that if god didn't change me, this was my burden in life. They told me celibacy was my only option. When I was 18, they wanted to put me into an electro-shock therapy program (evergreen international), but I refused. I tried for years to change. My self loathing led me to very bad places. The hurt didn't heal until I accepted that I was born this way. It took years for me to re-tune my life, but I am happy now. I would probably be dead if I hadn't changed my outlook and stopped the self loathing. I don't expect you to understand. Afterall, you haven't had this struggle. I only ask you to respect the massive effort I put forward, and respect my personal conclusion that I was born this way. 

Now, let's move on to the grievances we gays have been complaining about for decades.
Here is a list of higher taxes gay and lesbian couples have to pay:
Health Insurance (if provided by same sex partner's employer)
Gift Tax
Inheritance Exemption
Dependent Credit (if one partner is dependent on the other)
Married vs. Single Tax Differences
Many others, depending on the state.

In the event of hospitalization, a host of paperwork must be filled out for "visitation rights" which married couples have automatically. Even if your paperwork is in order, the hospital can still deny visitation.

In the event of death and inheritance by the surviving same-sex partner, there is no exemption on the inheritance tax. Married couples have a very large exemption which eliminates the vast majority of inheritance taxes. We have half of our estate taken away by the government when one of us dies.

In the event of death the deceased's family can (and often does) sue the surviving partner for their relative's assets. Even if they have all the legal maneuvering completed to form trusts and wills, the deceased family can hire a good lawyer and take everything the couple spent their lives building. Even if the family does not prevail, it is a massive expense to defend your property against homophobic family members who didn't care enough to come around when your partner was alive!

My partner is a brown person. As such, he is always stopped by TSA and searched. Invariably, I stop and wait for the unconstitutional search to finish. The TSA agent (seeing my size and annoyance) orders me to "move along", and they hassle and threaten us with detention when I refuse. I'm not about to leave my beloved at the hands of the TSA thugs. I will always observe their mistreatment of him, even if I am powerless to stop it. We can't even fill out the same customs form when we enter the country.

These are just a few examples of how same-sex couples are mistreated and our dignity violated. These examples show why we need legal protections far beyond contracts, wills, and trusts. We need legal equality with married straight couples. If that equality can be brought about by having a "separate but equal" institution, I am fine with that. The problem is, there are organizations who are so opposed to our very existence that they work tirelessly to hollow out the equality in civil unions and domestic partner registries. An "unintended consequence" of many of these "marriage amendments" is to eliminate civil unions and domestic partner registries that have nothing to do with marriage. That's why we push for full marriage.

We aren't trying to take away from the institution of marriage. We are seeking legal protections and equality. We seek human dignity. Nothing less will be acceptable, nothing more is expected.