Helpless
Feeling helpless means sensing that nothing you do can change what's happening. It often follows a long stretch of trying, or a situation truly out of your hands, like a parent's illness. The researchers behind learned helplessness later concluded that going passive under long stress is the default, and that what gets learned is control.1
- On the wheel: Sad, then despairing, then helpless
- Next to it: Hopeless
- Nearby: Vulnerable, despairing
- Often points to: A long stretch of stress where nothing you did seemed to count
"There's nothing I can do"
Sometimes that's partly true. You can't make your father's illness go away, stop the layoffs, or make your teenager talk to you.
The trouble is that the feeling spreads past those real limits, until even the things you could do seem pointless. You know you should act and can't pick where to start. The problem looks huge and you feel tiny beside it. Things happen to you, and you watch.
"My mom's in the hospital and the doctors talk to each other, not to me. I sit in the waiting room with my coffee going cold and feel like a piece of furniture."
The theory that got it backward
In the 1960s, Steven Maier and Martin Seligman found that animals given shocks they couldn't control later stopped trying to escape, and they concluded the animals had learned that nothing they did mattered.1
Fifty years later, the same two researchers wrote that the original theory "got it backward."1
Brain research had shown them that passivity isn't learned; it's the default response to long, bad experiences.1 What gets learned is control. Noticing that your actions make a difference is what switches the passive response off.1
Read that way, going still under long stress is the normal starting point, and no sign of failure. The way out runs through experiences of control, and the small ones count.
Helpless, hopeless or vulnerable?
| Feeling | The doubt is about | Sounds like |
|---|---|---|
| Vulnerable | Being exposed to harm | "I could get hurt here." |
| Hopeless | Whether things will improve | "It won't get better." |
| Helpless | Whether you can do anything | "Nothing I do matters." |
The three often travel together. If the future feels closed, read hopeless. If hope has gone from your whole life, read despair.
One thing in your hands
- Draw a line down a page. Out of your hands on the left, in them on the right. The right side may be short.
- Circle the smallest item on the right. Ask the nurse one question. Make one phone call. Drink a glass of water.
- Do it, and register that you did. Detecting control is the part Maier and Seligman's work points to.1 Say it to yourself, out loud if you can: "I did that."
- Take the next small thing. Control comes back one step at a time.
What part of this, however small, is in your hands? Write it down, then write the first step you could take in the next hour.
Answer this with JoyWhen it's more than one bad week
The National Institute of Mental Health lists helplessness among the signs of depression, alongside guilt and worthlessness.2 If it has settled over most of your days for two weeks or more, see a doctor. The hopeless page covers how depression is assessed.
Helplessness that comes with feeling trapped, or with thoughts of not wanting to live, is on the NIMH's list of suicide warning signs.3 Call or text 988 in the US, or your local emergency number, today.
Questions people ask about feeling helpless
What are the signs of learned helplessness?
In everyday speech, people mean giving up fast, not trying things that might work, and expecting effort to fail. In the lab it started as animals no longer escaping shocks they could have escaped.1 It began as a research idea and stayed one; it isn't a condition a doctor would name.
Why do I feel helpless when someone I love is sick?
Because so much of it is out of your hands, and the part that isn't (the questions, the visits, the meals, the paperwork) is easy to overlook while you're scared.
Who can I talk to when I feel helpless?
Anyone who'll listen without fixing: a friend, a sibling, a chaplain at the hospital, a counselor. Another person may also see options you can't see from inside it.
Related
- Hopeless: when the future looks closed.
- Despair: when hope feels gone.
- Vulnerable: when you feel exposed.