Helplessness is scary and destabilizing. Helplessness evokes the need to be rescued, and excused from one’s ineptitude. It’s seen as a negative; a sham or overdramatization. Helplessness is regarded as a sign of immaturity, neediness and over dependency in our society – except when that helplessness is sanctioned as cute and or adorable when exhibited naturally by infants and or pets – who are not meant to have ‘grown out of it.’ But helplessness also has positive outcomes when used for connection and building nurturing relationships that don’t lead to unhealthy dependency. Choosing the more meaningful and satisfying way to use helplessness is the point. How if at all do we make that choice?
Helplessness – a good solution for the helpless and the helpers
Petra, a 33-year-old grocery store manager had an air about her that spelled self-reliance and independence. She had worked her way up the ladder, glad to be out of her home where her siblings fought for the meagre attention their parents proffered. Petra had been helpless to protect her younger brother Nathan from their father’s scorn. She had been helpless to get her mother to protect Nathan. She had been helpless to prod her mother to intervene when her sister Ariana was ridiculed in school due to her cleft palate.
Most of all she remembered the terror of helplessness caused by being left alone at kindergarten when everyone had gone home not knowing she was in the toilet. No one heard her desperate screams for her mother, her teacher, or for anyone. No one heard her helplessness as she banged her head against the door, until a local stray dog heard her noises and barked like crazy. Then someone came to shut the dog up and heard tiny Petra screaming and crying, helpless in her efforts to be reunited with humans who provided safety.
How did this experience of helplessness shape Petra’s future relationships? Did she vow to never be vulnerable again, or did she warm to the help of others (so different to her own parents) and let people in?
Helplessness – a good solution or a bad one. Which did Petra choose?
Petra loved to be the boss in her local supermarket. She got to be the one helping others and that made her feel like a good person (the opposite of her parents). But being strong and all the time meant that she was hard to get close to, both with colleagues and at home. Her need for control and invincibility took over, so that her early trauma would never be repeated. In fact she interfered in her children’s lives so much that they were deprived of thinking for themselves, and learning to do things appropriate for their age. Petra encouraged their dependency on her so that she could feel good about doing the right thing for them. That’s how she made use of her early traumatic helplessness.
But something was missing from her life. She didn’t feel wanted for who she was, only what she did. She often grumbled that her family treated her like a servant, and castigated them for being selfish and uncaring.
Helplessness choice #1 – entitlement to victimhood due to a righteous grievance
Petra’s early family experience of neglect engendered a sense of being flawed. There must be something wrong with her if she isn’t getting proper care as a child. So as a young adult she felt entitled to use the victim card to right the wrongs that were perpetrated on her as a child.
She found a way of being helpless that provided focused attention and care, while evoking guilt on the part of her family (the care she wanted from her parents as a little one). She injured herself in the kitchen and bathroom, including bumping into cars and cyclists on the road. None of this was conscious, calculated or strategized. It was the only way she could justify having her family drop everything and focus only on her. Helplessness in the event of an injury is ‘acceptable’ rather than needy or hyped. Her family felt bad that they hadn’t taken good enough care of her, causing her stress and therefore more prone to injury; with mental preoccupation leading to road crashes. She lapped it up because it was genuine and lasted a while until she was back on her feet. Her sanctioned helplessness brought protection, apologies from her family for taking her for granted, and a new commitment to avoid doing so again.
But you guessed it – this pattern reverted to the way it was prior to the injuries. Having satisfied her needs for care, attention, being valued and apologized to, the helplessness did it’s job. She flipped back to feeling like the good righteous person taking care of everyone else by ensuring they didn’t learn to take care of themselves. This back and forth use of helplessness is not a good solution. It swings like a pendulum from being needy to making others needy – a negative feedback loop that stagnates and strangles emotional development in both Petra and her family members.
Helplessness choice #2 – The belief that she deserves protection against life forces beyond her control.
There were times when Petra’s intrusiveness wasn’t welcomed by her siblings and their families. While Petra thought she was being angelic and sacrificial in advising her siblings on child care, they experienced it as insulting and interfering. Petra’s helplessness to get through and feel valued made her furious. She was quiet and aloof at times, and at other times in full tantrum mode, livid that her emotional wounds were not being defended by her husband. She used her helplessness to get protection, and it worked.
She was satisfied when her husband had words with his in-laws on her behalf – even though it was short lived. This time it wasn’t him who was being blamed for taking advantage of her. So he could rise to be the protector with full moral authority, making him feel good. The only problem was that Petra became dependent on him to be her knight in shining armor. Not a good solution for helplessness.
Helplessness – ramifications for Petra’s choices
Having made two bad choices to deal with her helplessness, Petra realized deep inside that she couldn’t magic it away, disguise it or pretend it was justified. She had to live with it in a way that didn’t bring shame. Injuries both physical and emotional brought some satisfaction when her family came to her rescue. But it also brought with it a resentment on the part of her husband, children, her siblings, and their families – not to mention colleagues when she used them in similar ways (like lifting a heavy box and injuring her back!).
The net result was that Petra felt even more helpless because her attempts to get protection and care were backfiring, and she didn’t know any other way of staying relevant. Her anxieties about losing the plot tightened her grip on others, pushing them away even further – until she really was alone, doing her solo performances at work and at home. She developed a sense of omnipotence – that she knew it all and others should seek her out for advice and help. Her bitterness resulted in mocking behavior, further alienating people in her life.
Helplessness choice #3: balancing the need for satisfaction with the need for protection.
Let’s revisit little Petra in the bathroom of her kindergarten with not a soul around, and the building locked. Her screams alerted a dog, whose barks brought people who rescued her in a state of genuine helplessness. While the event was traumatic, it brought connection. Her needs were satisfied, and with that a sense that others understood and empathized.
The discomfort of helplessness set off the first screams wanting to be acknowledged. But there was a secondary function. Her screams were a form of communication that brought about understanding about her dire situation, while also evoking empathy to feel the existential terror of helplessness. Petra’s desire for help made understanding and empathy possible, enhancing relationship intimacy, safety, trust, and a sense of belonging.
Petra didn’t have to feign helplessness or devise ways to get connection, feel touched, held, soothed, understood and valued. Her palpitating heartbeats were echoed by the dog and the people who found her. Their caring response was a message that being vulnerable and asking for help is a path to trust, and of shared intimacy in a trauma.
Petra could have learned a lot about the positive repercussions of helplessness from being rescued and nurtured back to equilibrium. She could have used that memory in later life to respond to genuine helplessness in others and intervene only in those circumstances with similar empathy and understanding that was shown little Petra. She could have shared her longing for care in the form of hugs, going skating or through music – attracting connection rather than guilting it out. She could have tuned into her early trauma and realized that desire to connect comes from being and expressing genuine helplessness, and it only increases with age as life’s challenges become more complex and unwieldy.
Copyright, Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D. 2025
You may also like:
How to recognize the 3 prerequisites of love and feel wanted
Expressing hurt saves relationships while anger causes relationship breakups
The power of touch in romantic relationships with insecure attachment styles
Three ways a relationship crisis benefits communication, intimacy and self-care
