Acquired impotence is one of the most painful states in which we can fall, it is the best breeding ground for the development of symptoms of anxiety and depression, besides it is consequential and, at the same time, cause of lack of assertiveness ( ?Why provoke conflict by expressing our opinion or our tastes if it is useless ??), turning us into empty bodies with a drunken soul.
This condition could be summed up as “whatever you do, you’re wrong. Or whatever you do, whatever it is, you won’t solve anything. The result will always be the same. This is where the acquired impotence arises. The helplessness we learn”. testing different ways of acting and proving that they have no connection to the result we get, so it is not simply a set of answers turned off, the initiative to respond ends up disappearing.
- You may have seen yourself in such situations.
- At work.
- As a couple or in an environment where you live.
- In that environment there is a person who judges that what you do is right or wrong.
- There is no common sense.
- There is no consistency.
- Whatever you do.
- In any case.
- It will almost always go wrong and sometimes.
- When everything is okay.
- You will have no idea how or why it is okay.
- So you can not repeat it.
- No matter how hard you try.
One way or another, behind this attitude, we hear something like “I’m the one who judges what you do. I say my own laws. Now, not now, why did I say?. The people who cause the acquired impotence are the ones who, influence the other, make a value judgment (good or bad), without explaining it.
So what reading does a person make when they get all this?, that it’s not worth striving for a result that, in your eyes, is almost random, the feeling is that no matter what you do, you can’t increase control over what’s going on.
This lack of control over what’s happening to us is agonizing and very limiting because, apparently, we can’t fix it. For example, it is the seed of many emotional abuses. ” I decide how you’ll feel. You don’t decide you have no control, do you?
Martin Seligman discovered this phenomenon in the 1970s, in an experiment that could not be conducted today because of its ethical implications (like many others in the history of psychology), showed that dogs, subjected to shocks, whatever their escape attempts, ended up adopting a passive attitude towards them and resigned themselves to suffering in silence.
In this phenomenon, a parallel was quickly observed with the causes and attitudes of many people falling into the abyss of depression: anxiety, depression, an absolute lack of motivation eventually control the attitude and behavior of the person, leading to a more absolute passivity.
So if an opportunity seems to change the course of the situation, they won’t see or cross it, their faith and hope fade because they feel like they’re doing what they do with the helm, choose the direction they choose, they’ll still not see. the earth.
This psychological phenomenon is very powerful because it totally diverts our ability to act, diverts our creativity to generate other alternatives and solve problems, this makes us unable to see solutions to our problem, although they are obvious solutions, how to try to escape one?The place where we were hurt.
As a result, many people feel unable to get out of a situation that hurts them, because they are totally conditioned by that helplessness they have learned, the helplessness that takes over the thoughts, behaviors and emotions of those who internalized it.
To break this spiral that is getting deeper and deeper, we must go to the root of the problem, we cannot stay on the surface and solve the small consequences of this phenomenon.
The person doesn’t want to feel that way. She didn’t try to feel that way, so this person must understand what led him to think like that, how he ended up giving up control of what happened to him, the goal will be to give you power, give you back control of your own life.
A control that you lost a long time ago, who gave it to destiny or who mistreated it, with its double messages loaded with inconsistencies and lack of common sense, but this control over your own life belongs to you and we have to work to do it. Understanding what happened and accepting it is the first step on this path, a path in which each one becomes their own owner, of what they left in hands that were not their own.