Hey, I'm someone with actual Learned Helplessness (and it's a thing I have talked about in therapy). And I love projecting that onto Jon. Please continue. You're doing great.
Okay 💗 yay 💗 (I’m gonna be honest when I saw the beginning of that ask I thought you were gonna tell me to kms so this is a pleasant surprise)
Anyway, since this is not something I myself have experience with, and the information about it that I do have is very limited, then I might as well be wrong. But here is how I see it:
Every single time Jon tried to do something with good intentions, it either didn’t change anything at all or made things worse. Trying to get rid of NotSasha resulted in freeing a dangerous entity from its imprisonment, got him falsely accused of Leinter’s murder, and cost him his job and apartment. The first statement giver whose story he directly acknowledged as true, Helen Richardson, didn’t even get to leave the Institute’s building before getting “eaten” by the same door that had been haunting her. He tried his hardest to stop the Unknowing only to find out it would’ve collapsed on its own, and that Tim sacrificed himself for nothing. There are probably more examples but I can’t really recall any more rn
Anyway, after trying his best to change anything then repeatedly failing, plus (in the later seasons) being hated by literally everyone he knew, I imagine Jon developed a belief that nothing he could do would ever change anything, and so he stopped trying entirely. I don’t really remember any of the s4 metaplot but I think this best applies to the Jon from that period.
Of course later he found out that every singe action he had taken was influenced in some way by his boss or some cosmic being and that none of his choices were truly his own and that trying to fix things caused him to be the main sacrifice in a world-ending ritual. (There was also something in s5 about Martin insisting that they help the people trapped in domains and Jon refusing because it’s impossible/it wouldn’t change anything but he was implied to Know™️ that through the Eye so I dunno)
This is probably all wrong but I don’t feel like digging through the transcripts right now so just take it