Jul 30, 2026 · 15 min · 9 segments
Why won't he do his exercises or try to talk anymore? If your husband has aphasia after a stroke, here is why he stopped trying, and it is not laziness. You thought leaving would be easier. You…
Genevieve RichardsonHostThis lived experience is something that my mentor and I call learned helplessness.
And where does it come from? This is one of those interesting things that you don't see it until a person is usually a year or more after rehab.
For the last 11 years, I have worked exclusively in this chronic aphasia space via telepractice, and I have talked to so many families, and there is a theme.
And I started looking into why do people stop trying? Let's go back before we can go forward.
In the early days of rehab, there are dozens of people involved, and you and your survivor are just being told what to do, how to do it, and when to do it.
But as your person moves through rehab, that help and support and telling you what to do, that gradually fades.
And in some rehab circumstances, the therapist and the physician do a really great job of empowering families to start picking up the slack, to be taking on more of that responsibility.
Heavy health early on in rehab that fades the further you get through the rehab process until when you're discharged from outpatient therapy, You and your person are on your own.
But what has to happen during this process of declining support from the professionals, you and your person have to take on more responsibility.
And sometimes, for whatever reason, it could be multiple reasons, You were never handed the keys to the car.
You were never passed the baton to be picking up the slack to doing those things that you're supposed to be doing.
And then you get to discharge and then the couple of months that followed discharge when the house is quiet and the dust is settling and you look at your survivor and your survivor looks at you and you start thinking, now what? This is where learned helplessness kind of festers and it grows because you may not know that you have the tools or you may not have been taught the tools or you may not have learned the motivation to go and figure it all out on your own.
This lived experience is something that my mentor and I call learned helplessness.
And where does it come from? This is one of those interesting things that you don't see it until a person is usually a year or more after rehab.
For the last 11 years, I have worked exclusively in this chronic aphasia space via telepractice, and I have talked to so many families, and there is a theme.
And I started looking into why do people stop trying? Let's go back before we can go forward.
In the early days of rehab, there are dozens of people involved, and you and your survivor are just being told what to do, how to do it, and when to do it.
But as your person moves through rehab, that help and support and telling you what to do, that gradually fades.
And in some rehab circumstances, the therapist and the physician do a really great job of empowering families to start picking up the slack, to be taking on more of that responsibility.
Heavy health early on in rehab that fades the further you get through the rehab process until when you're discharged from outpatient therapy, You and your person are on your own.
But what has to happen during this process of declining support from the professionals, you and your person have to take on more responsibility.
And sometimes, for whatever reason, it could be multiple reasons, You were never handed the keys to the car.
You were never passed the baton to be picking up the slack to doing those things that you're supposed to be doing.
And then you get to discharge and then the couple of months that followed discharge when the house is quiet and the dust is settling and you look at your survivor and your survivor looks at you and you start thinking, now what? This is where learned helplessness kind of festers and it grows because you may not know that you have the tools or you may not have been taught the tools or you may not have learned the motivation to go and figure it all out on your own.
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