Avoidant Personality Disorder & learned helplessness 

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 😆).

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

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!

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

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

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

Very good advice.

I hope you have a good time 🤗

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!

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😢

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. 😅

💟 🤗 👍

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

🦃🥧😋