"The CIA officially phased out their MKultra program in 1967, but that was the year that Martin Seligman, at the University of Pennsylvania, popularized the idea of "learned helplessness." He found that when an animal was unable to escape from torture, even for a very short time, it would often fail to even try to escape the next time it was tortured. Seligman's lectures have been attended by psychologists who worked at Guantanamo, and he recently received a no-bid Pentagon grant of $31,000,000, to develop a program of "comprehensive soldier fitness," to train marines to avoid learned helplessness.
Curt Richter already in 1957 had described the "hopelessness" phenomenon in rats (โa reaction of hopelessness is shown by some wild rats very soon after being grasped in the hand and prevented from moving. They seem literally to give up,โ) and even how to cure their hopelessness, by allowing them to have an experience of escaping once (Richter, 1957, 1958). Rats which would normally be able to keep swimming in a tank for two or three days, would often give up and drown in just a few minutes, after having an experience of "inescapable stress." The dark side of stress (learned helplessness) - Ray Peat
The active thyroid hormone T3 (tri-iodothyroinine) has been identified as a substance that can help reverse learned heplessness.
Recovery from learned helplessness with thyroid hormone (T3) - a comment from Facebook.
โAfter a bout of thyroiditis last fall and subsequent thyroid crash in March my T3 was in the toilet (and realized I had low normal T3 my whole life). The depression and hopelessness was overwhelming the last few months.... and looking back now, I can see while I didn't struggle with depression as a child or adult, I did struggle with "learned helplessness" from my upbringing. Beginning Cynoplus (with extra T3 to a 3:1 ratio) has been the most life changing thing I have ever done. The depression lifted, fast....and remarkably there is an initiating creative force within that is emerging that could never come out fully before. T3 and thyroid in general is life transforming, and SO many (particularly women) are struggling with inadequate T3 levels and never get access to T3 and the chance to optimize their soul force....because that is what it is.โ