Powering Past Helplessness in Post-Pandemic Life
By Halley Weinberger
It’s a Tuesday in 2020. Your alarm clocks echoes repetitively in your room. You sigh and roll over, shutting off the alarm. Another day of feeling defeated, like the battle is lost before you leave your bed. Imagine you’re a college student, and your life has been flipped upside down. Classes are online, your place of employment has closed, and your social life has disappeared. Or maybe you’re a teacher. You’ve tried to plan interactive lessons on zoom, but it’s difficult. The kids aren’t engaged, they don’t have their cameras on, and you spend hours trying to meet the requests of your district just for them to change the guidelines. Or you might be a parent. You keep trying to come up with ways to get your work done while also giving your children attention, but every time it ends in your list of tasks going unfinished.
As a college student, teacher, and parent, no matter what you do, it’s never enough. The pandemic has made you feel like you have no control over your life. You feel you can’t improve the quality of your social interactions. You feel you can’t meet the demands your district has placed on you. And you feel you can’t find a way to do work undisrupted. So, two years later, as the world begins to transition back to in-person gatherings, school, and working from the office, you find yourself feeling just as defeated as before. You don’t go out, even though you can. You find yourself anxiously awaiting the newest demand your principal will throw at you, even though they have settled on one guideline. And you don’t get work done in the office, even though there are no kids around.
But why? Why do you still feel so defeated? Why do you sit idly by when the opportunity to do what you’ve been wanting to do for the past two years is presented to you? According to researchers, when people experience uncontrollable events in which their efforts have no effect on their situation, they experience something called learned helplessness. Learned helplessness was first described by researcher Martin Seligman. Psychology Today notes how Seligman delivered electric shocks to dogs, with one group of dogs having the ability to escape the shock and another group of dogs unable to escape the shock. Dogs that learned they couldn’t escape the shock stopped trying to escape. Even when it became possible to escape the shock, the dogs did not try to escape. The dogs came to feel that the shock was out of their control—that their actions didn’t matter, and that they should just accept the pain.
In the post-pandemic world, we behave similarly to these dogs. At the beginning of the pandemic, people were subjected to shocks that they could not escape—the shock of lockdowns, the shock of digital learning, and the shock of children and work coinciding. We tried facetiming our friends. We tried zoom calls. We tried letting our children watch TV so we could get just ONE thing done! And yet, despite our efforts, it was impossible to escape the shocks. Now, two years later, as many pandemic restrictions are lifted, we are able to escape the shocks. But just like the dogs who, after gaining access to escape shocks, laid down and accepted the shocks because they learned it was just how it was going to be, people have learned to accept the pain of pandemic living even when there is an opportunity to change their lifestyle.
So how do we escape this? How do we move from feeling trapped to feeling empowered? Well, there are a few specific things that we can do to power past pain in post-pandemic life.
Acknowledge the loss that occurred in the pandemic. It’s important to recognize that the pandemic was a major event in all of our lives. It changed our behaviors, the way our country functions, and in many ways, the way we understand life. It was traumatic and anxiety-producing for many people, and for these reasons, it’s normal to feel a sense of loss. Therefore, the first step in transitioning out of pandemic helplessness is to acknowledge that it was a difficult time. Understand that your feelings of sadness, anxiety, and grief are normal. By acknowledging how the pandemic made you feel, you can move past these emotions without shame, allowing yourself to enter post-pandemic life with openness to new emotions like excitement, hope, and joy.
Change your thoughts. When we view our actions as insignificant, it makes sense that we would stop acting. Przeworkski (2014) suggests that changing how you think about your ability to influence your situation can literally change your situation. Though it may be difficult, allow yourself to believe that what you do matters. Remind yourself that your choice to attend class in-person instead of on zoom has real implications. That walking into the classroom doesn’t mean it’s automatically going to be a horribly overwhelming day as a teacher. That your kids are fine at school, and that you can do work in the office. Put some power back in your own hands: you have the potential to initiate change in your life!
Therapy. Many times, we try to change our thoughts on our own. We tell ourselves today is going to be a good day, but somewhere between our morning coffee and our drive to work, we forget and fall back into helplessness and defeat. This can lead to guilt over feeling like you can’t control your own mind, continuing the downward spiral of powerlessness. Instead of trying to battle your thoughts alone, find someone to help you change your thoughts. Therapy, specifically cognitive behavioral therapy, focuses on modifying dysfunctional emotions, behaviors, and thoughts by confronting negative or irrational beliefs. Working with a cognitive behavioral therapist can help you reframe your thoughts in post-pandemic life and learn how to remove yourself from the shocks you feel trapped in. You don’t have to tackle your mind alone.
Escaping helplessness learned during the pandemic is no easy task, but my hope is that when your alarm clock rings tomorrow, instead of feeling defeated, you feel empowered. As a student, you decide to attend the in-person class. As a teacher, you decide to enter the classroom with optimism and hope for a joyful day with your students. As a parent, your kids get on the bus for school and you go to the office, accomplishing your to-do list for the day. You feel capable and know that your actions matter. You’re powering past helplessness in the post-pandemic world.
References
Cemalcilar, Z., Canbeyli, R., & Sunar, D. (2003). Learned helplessness, therapy, and personality traits: An experimental study. The Journal of Social Psychology, 143(1), 65-81. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00224540309598431
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. (n.d.). Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/cognitive-behavioral-therapy
Learned Helplessness. (n.d.). Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/learned-helplessness#the-research-on-learned-helplessness
Przeworkski, A. (2014, February 27). When you feel like giving up. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/dont-worry-mom/201402/when-you-feel-giving