Cuban writer Lien Estrada describes in her diary how the concept of learned helplessness resonates in her life and Cuban society. She identifies it in everyday situations like blackouts, piled-up garbage, and economic shortages. Yet, she sees signs of a possible awakening through protests and acts of resistance.
In an article published in Havana Times on November 14, 2025, Lien Estrada explores the concept of learned helplessness, a situation in which a person or animal, after failed attempts to escape their reality, becomes convinced they cannot change anything. Estrada recognizes herself immediately in this idea, seeing it as a first step to overcoming it.
She describes how this phenomenon affects Cuba: during a blackout, when complaining to her family and neighbors, one responds: “don’t protest, you’re the one who gets hurt,” as if the darkness were only hers. On streets piled with garbage, three times worse after a hurricane, comments are heard like: “we’re in pretty good health, considering what we have to live with.” Despite no house without someone sick from circulating viruses, and entire families seeking remedies to endure it.
Estrada mentions long lines at pharmacies for nerve medication, young people buying horse tranquilizers in parks, and visible levels of alcoholism under constant tension. Banks without money packed with pensioners collecting sums that last only a few days; workers and professionals heading to jobs with symbolic salaries unchanged since they started; students emigrating with the intention of settling abroad.
Yet, Estrada perceives an awakening: news of spontaneous protests, and the case of a CDR president refusing to collect dues because she finds it disgraceful nowadays. She concludes that not everything is lost, and strength will emerge to create free, conscious, and responsible individuals, despite conditioning from hunger, fear, and oppression.