"Hope is a double-edged sword", she said.

Isn't it better to just be hopeless?

This post was inspired by a dear conversation I had today.

Someone who was feeling a little bit hopeless, because life hasn't been too good lately.

And fair question, because they asked - "What's the point of being hopeful?"

"Won't being hopeful just lead me to get hurt again?", they said.

--

I'm not sure if you've heard of this before, but there's a concept in psychology called "Learned Helplessness".

To illustrate this, don't mind if I share a little experiment that was done with Dogs in the 60s.

It's pretty mean, but somehow at that time acceptable, but dogs were placed in 3 types of situations.

1. Put in a cage and given electric shocks. But with a button the dog could press to make it stop.

2. Same, but no button to make it stop.

3. In a cage, but with no shocks at all.

The researchers then put those dogs into a new environment, one where there were electric shocks but with a barrier that they could jump out of and escape the situation.

Guess what happened?

Dogs from 1 and 3 - they all jumped out.

But dogs from group 2, just sagged and lay down, surrendering to getting shocked and shocked again.

--

Unfortunately, this is such a relevant metaphor for those of us who have gone through repeated trauma.

We lose hope, slowly but surely.

Over time, we stop trying.

Because hopeful times don't seem to last - hopelessness reigns instead.

And that's totally fair, as all experience points to that as the truth.

--

To you out there, I hope you know you never deserved to go through such an experience.

Life dealt you a bad hand, again and again.

But you, yes you, still deserve hope too.

So please don't give up. Keep trying.

The things that made you powerless before don't have to make you powerless now.

You can and will make things better for yourself.

That's the very least you deserve.

But if you're tired and hopeless today, know that's okay too.

Rest.

And when you're ready, let's try again.

Take care,

Hernping

🌟

P. S. Thank you K :) thanks for inspiring this post.

#learnedhelplessness

#martinseligman

#hopeless #keepgoing #complextrauma