How does helplessness feels like?

I’d refused to follow the rules and the system had targeted me and shut me down. The worst part was, there was no one to fight back against. No police squad had burst through my door and dragged me off to sit in jail or be deported. The state bureaucracy had simply wrapped around me like a boa constrictor and squeezed until I was isolated, ineffective, and demoralized.

--Sam Tranum