The Dark Chasm of Disappointment & Learned Helplessness

The Friday Edition | No. 5

A quick update: The Friday Edition of HeartBalm has been changed from a podcast to a newsletter format so will no longer have an audio accompaniment.

The Dark Chasm of Disappointment & Learned Helplessness

Disappointment to the average person can be upsetting and frustrating. Disappointment to the abuse and neglect survivor and/or those with complex trauma can be devastating. It can generate a deep abyss of sadness, trigger deep feelings of loss and failure, and a painful chasm between our expectations and reality. As a child, the repetitive abuse of being let down, used, abused, neglected, manipulated, set up for failure, and tripped up for another’s benefit sets the stage for an adulthood of the same. An innocent child lives to hope and love, and even more, hopes to be loved yet for some suffering years of letdowns and disappointments by their own parents and family members is the reality. This abusive pattern can create a deep chasm of disillusionment and defeatism, and develop further into another condition called learned helplessness. This condition is a way of coping with constant and unrelenting disappointments and manifests as persistent failures, an inability to succeed, a lack of self-esteem, low motivation, cynicism, and feelings of powerlessness. This feeling of helplessness affirms a trauma history where one has little or no control over their own body or life, that nothing will change so why bother trying, and that actions to change outcomes are useless. The ups and downs of hope, expectations, and disappointment is a nauseating ride that has no equal, and the fallout and emotional pain can feel much more acute to the trauma survivor. As an adult, being disappointed can become something that devastates us totally, can bring our world to a crashing halt, and threatens to close in around us with such darkness and ferocity that we are unsure if we will ever recover.