Today we talked about resilience.
Dictionary dot com defines resilience as “the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties”. This was a good thing to most of the people in the room. And for the most part, I think it’s a good thing too.
But a growing feeling that I’ve spent most of the day wrestling is how incredibly unnerving the idea of “resilience” is to me.
We’re referring to “risk” in conjunction with resilience and through the lens of child development (i.e. domestic violence, abuse, neglect, and so on). And in the existence of risk in a child’s life, according to studies, there are certain factors and qualities that can help a child build resilience to overcome the risk (i.e. positive adult relationships, enough sleep and nutrition, etc.).
I felt angry when someone said that building resilience gives children the ability to overcome risks. I felt angry when they called these children strong. I felt angry when they talked about how children would eventually pursue positive paths to success.
This is a strange feeling because I finally have the words for how I’m feeling, but I sound very contradictory (and frankly, really bitter). How could I not be happy that someone – a child, no less – is strong and has persevered through so much hardship?
I caught myself in that moment thinking about the word I used to describe myself to my therapist when she asked me what I wanted myself to know after a really difficult session. I called myself resilient. And thinking about this made me angrier.
I don’t want my strength to be measured by how much pain I’ve endured.
Maybe I’m upset because I don’t really think I’m resilient, according to the definition. Or maybe it’s because my resilience as a child/teenager was merely a glorified coping mechanism that masked a lot of deep-rooted trauma that I’m having to face in the present. And facing this trauma as an adult has not been easy, nor has it been insightful. It’s painful; I feel like I’m picking at my skin to reveal what I already knew, what I had put aside and shoved away to protect myself. I have not yet recovered, and I don’t know if I will.
I had to grow up thinking my environment of risk was for my own good and that I deserved everything I had gone through. I had to grow up believing the risks in my home were risks everyone had to live with – how was I strong when I had nothing out of the ordinary to endure? I ended up dissociating and isolating myself from the people that could have helped me, but instead I was blindly resilient for 22 years. Is it ironic or just depressing that I had no autonomy and I also did not get to choose to be resilient?
I keep thinking about this pain and writing about it. It’s a bit like a bad bruise: you poke at it, even though it hurts, just to see how much you can handle. Nobody expects you to cry when you poke at a bruise, so you don’t. Your body puts the pain into perspective for you: at least you didn’t break a bone. Babies might cry because all they do is feel. Somewhere between infant and adult, we get lost and stop feeling pain in its purest form. We feel uncomfortable, but we don’t realize that it has made itself a home where your neck meets your chest as you choke up and assume it’s because you haven’t fully formed your opinion yet. My therapist practices body-based therapy and she says that when you feel choked up, it’s because you were not able to say something when it was most crucial or express yourself adequately, so it just becomes trapped in your throat. I believe her.
I caught myself getting angry at the dichotomy that the mainstream idea of resilience brings. Resilience is ‘good’, so how do we understand the lack of resilience, or resilience that takes an untraditional form? How do we measure resilience? I survived because I was afraid of the pain of suicide, not because I wanted to persevere and continue to experience trauma even though I knew I could handle it. I survived – I’m alive – but I carry with me everything I’ve persevered through. Is that a good thing? Do you have the authority to tell me that my pain has made me strong? Do you hear yourself telling me what my experience has been without even knowing what I’ve experienced? Has my resilience helped me in any way other than to keep me alive and miserable?
Forgive me – this analysis is coming from a place of distress and spite.
Featured image: Hand Bonsai is licensed under CC0.
Life, Partially Examined 