In my previous post on Grit (see Grit (II)) I talked about how important it was to be able to FEEL a sense of empowerment. Duckworth talks about learned helplessness at one point during Grit, and I think this point really struck home for me.
See, when I was 14, I started playing with my split ends a lot. In a way that caused a teacher to call me out in front of the class to stop. Boy, was that embarrassing!
Being called out on body-focused repetitive behaviors like peeling and playing with split ends does pretty much nothing to stop them: I just hid the habit by pulling out individual hairs and playing with them under the desk. Obviously, this made the situation worse because pulling hair out is somehow more shameful (societally speaking) than is playing with split ends.
Pulling hair out also happens to be a physiological (aka: bodily) response to stress/strong emotions/overwhelming stimuli. It's the grooming behavior you see all sorts of animals do, but taken to an extreme. And trichotillomania also happens to be the oldest psychological condition on record (probably because of how it relates to our animal bodies and minds, evolutionarily speaking).
Some people are able to will themselves to stop pulling out their hair. Others are not. Those who cannot develop a sense of learned helplessness--that this condition controls them, that there is nothing they can do to stop.
That's patently untrue. However, it's only very recently that advances in clinical psychology have inched closer to providing some relief for certain individuals. Periodically throughout this year in Madrid (probably in a weekly post on Tuesdays), I'm also going to explore my experiences in recovery from pulling out my hair, addressing the grit I've found by tackling what I've always considered to be my greatest flaw and my most helpless self.
See, when I was 14, I started playing with my split ends a lot. In a way that caused a teacher to call me out in front of the class to stop. Boy, was that embarrassing!
Being called out on body-focused repetitive behaviors like peeling and playing with split ends does pretty much nothing to stop them: I just hid the habit by pulling out individual hairs and playing with them under the desk. Obviously, this made the situation worse because pulling hair out is somehow more shameful (societally speaking) than is playing with split ends.
Pulling hair out also happens to be a physiological (aka: bodily) response to stress/strong emotions/overwhelming stimuli. It's the grooming behavior you see all sorts of animals do, but taken to an extreme. And trichotillomania also happens to be the oldest psychological condition on record (probably because of how it relates to our animal bodies and minds, evolutionarily speaking).
Some people are able to will themselves to stop pulling out their hair. Others are not. Those who cannot develop a sense of learned helplessness--that this condition controls them, that there is nothing they can do to stop.
That's patently untrue. However, it's only very recently that advances in clinical psychology have inched closer to providing some relief for certain individuals. Periodically throughout this year in Madrid (probably in a weekly post on Tuesdays), I'm also going to explore my experiences in recovery from pulling out my hair, addressing the grit I've found by tackling what I've always considered to be my greatest flaw and my most helpless self.
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