5 ms·

'Resilience', in this sense, is usually presented as a positive personal trait to be proud of. However, (after a lot of therapy), I see it more as a simple ref

'Resilience', in this sense, is usually presented as a positive personal trait to be proud of. However, (after a lot of therapy), I see it more as a simple reflection of the undue trauma I faced and was required to handle.

majormajor 6y ago
If you are saying you don't think your own resilience is anything to be proud of, I think you are failing to consider those who faced trauma and failed to handle it. I too know the "what the fuck else am I supposed to do" feeling in response to people saying stuff like "how did you deal with something like that?" or "you're so strong" but I think it does a disservice to yourself to ignore that crumpling under the pressure was a possibility, and one that was avoided if you're still here.
- psychtrauma 6y ago
  > I think you are failing to consider those who faced trauma and failed to handle it. I would have previously agreed with you, and I think that is an important viewpoint that is useful to contemplate deeply. But, I now wish to reject the point of view that I should be proud because I faced my individual trauma somehow 'better' than those other people. Those other people shouldn't have faced that trauma either.
  - GenerocUsername 6y ago
    Trauma is the natural state of the universe. To think life should be free of trauma is a hyper-modern and sheltered view of the world enabled by our extreme comfort provided by modern technology and the invisible labor from less privelidged people and those who lived and died before us. Trauma is the natural state, and our resilience has and always will be a defining characteristic of successful people... Of whom we are descendents.
    - wiggumspiggums 6y ago
      I'd recommend checking out a book called "The Body Keeps the Score". It talks about how people's minds and bodies can stop functioning normally due to traumas like sexual abuse, war, etc. I would have thought that since traumatic experiences have been around forever, humans would have adapted to dealing with those better by now. And yet the medical evidence laid out in this book seems to show that healing from traumas is difficult. To me, that means there is something "unnatural" about trauma (or at least the most awful cases). I'm probably not doing the book enough justice. Here's the goodreads profile for anyone who wants to explore further: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18693771-the-body-keeps-the-score https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18693771-the-body-keeps-...
    - haswell 6y ago
      > Trauma is the natural state of the universe. As a survivor of sexual abuse on a lifelong journey of survival, it’s difficult to communicate just how strongly I disagree with (and am repulsed by) this statement and the sentiment behind it. It lacks awareness of the many kinds of trauma, and trivializes the experiences of those who’ve been subjected to things that are anything but natural. Do not mistake the prevalence of something for being “natural”. Trauma, by definition, is the opposite, prevalent though it may be. And even if you could lump all kinds of trauma into the same category, my conclusion would be very different than yours. If trauma is the natural state, then we should be doing everything to change that state, not throw up our hands and conclude “oh well, that’s just the way things are, and the best survive”. Imagine taking this stance on slavery, or more broadly: racism.
      - Dudeman112 6y ago
        >Trauma is the natural state of the universe. I agree with everything you said. Also: fuck the natural state of the universe. The natural state of the universe is shit and we should seriously fight against it. There is no fairness or justice or good in the laws of the universe. Nature is a bitch. But that's not so bad, because we can be fair and good and make the environment better.
    - KittenInABox 6y ago
  - gonetherapin 6y ago
    hi, made this throwaway (or maybe one to keep?) to agree with you. i'm not happy or pleased that my therapist calls me resilient. she uses the word as something positive but i'd rather not be "resilient" at all. the experience and effects of trauma are something i could do 1000% without. and i'm sure most people who have survived such an ordeal can attest to that fact.
    - akoncius 6y ago
      contradiction: I have a personality type which crumbles on every occurrence of some challenges in life, and I’m havin nearly panic attacks about almost everything. part of that emotion is “why me, I don’t want this problem in my life”. and frequently for short periods of time I’m on the verge of giving up. what my therapist is trying to teach me that all events in my life are kinda inevitable, and it’s up to me to decide how to handle them, and I thing therapist is trying to develop some resillience in me by explaining that some trauma in my life is just unavoidable. getting older is unavoidable. diseases (albeit preventable) unavoidable. economic crisis inevitable and so on and so on. so having resiliency is a good thing, regardless if you prefer to have that trauma or not. and you should be proud that you handled it well.
    - akoncius 6y ago
      on the other hand: you said you would rather not be resilient at all.. so how would you prefer to react to the exact same trauma you experienced previously? assuming that you cannot choose to not have that trauma at all.
      - watwut 6y ago
        The person you are responding to would prefer to never having to go through trauma and would be fine with never building that additional resilience. That trauma is not good price for the supposed resilience he got. And I can add that another benefit for him would be time and money saved on therapist. Therapy takes time and a lot of money. Being in situation where you don't need it is better, even if you lose on tiny bit of resilience.
  - majormajor 6y ago
    Perhaps this is a difference of trauma types. "Shouldn't" is an interesting word for e.g. getting cancer. We would all be better off if nobody had to ever face that, but... what would "they shouldn't have gotten cancer" really mean, there? That they should be bitter over being unlucky? That would be a very different statement to make about a trauma inflicted by another human, though.
  - Fellshard 6y ago
    You reject it, sure. But you are providing no cogent reasons for doing so — merely saying 'I changed my mind' is no argument that will persuade others, unless you're expecting your prior trauma somehow credentials you to authoritatively create truth.
    - psychtrauma 6y ago
      Indeed. I have no reason to argue and no real need to persuade others - I just wish to observe and live my truth.
      - Fellshard 6y ago
        Then it is meaningless to communicate it to anyone else. But I don't think that's what you think; there's an internal contradiction there. I will leave it at that.
        psychtrauma 6y ago
        Your claim is that all meaningful communication is arguing? I can and do recommend therapy to everyone.
inglor_cz 6y ago
I tend to think of resilience as a psychical equivalent of the calluses on your fingers that you get from playing the guitar. Developing them is painful, but they give you power to try and do something bigger.
- throwawayboise 6y ago
  IOW "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger."
  - majormajor 6y ago
    This is certainly wildly untrue for many sorts of trauma. What doesn't kill you can leave you less capable, weaker, more vulnerable, etc... You might have to be resilient to deal with the trauma without collapsing, and then find that you still have to be resilient to deal with your new, permanently changed life after the fact too.
  - watwut 6y ago
    That is motivational, but inaccurate.
  - Dudeman112 6y ago
    No one ever became stronger by getting their legs crushed by a ton of metal. In fact, I'd argue they mostly became weaker.
- rzzzt 6y ago
  For me, resilience is more like bending tree branches. The green ones return to their original shape easily once force is removed, the dry ones keep their form as long as possible, but snap abruptly if too much force is exerted. Repeated bending results in microfractures, then breaking in either type.
troelsSteegin 6y ago
In the article Konnikova (and Seligman) describes resilience as a product of methods that can be taught. The framing is that resilience is an interpretive skill. The Konnikova article links to a NYTimes article [0] which in turn (in the reader comments) links to a HuffPost article [1] by a medical school specialist on PTSD. Quoting from that: "The American Psychological Association defines resilience as 'the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats or even significant sources of threat.' ... Resilience is common and can be witnessed all around us. Even better, we learned that everyone can learn and train to be more resilient. The key involves knowing how to harness stress and use it to our advantage. " The problem with resilience as a skill is that "resilience" may be a skill you don't have before you need it. How can one be expected to have total control over one's "construal"? Trauma, like grief, is personal and subjective. Emotion is immediate. We feel the way we feel. In a crisis, should one feel worse because you are not yet deploying the resilience? Resilience is not one sure trick but an interpretative mindset set that may or may not be available to you when something that you may or may not be able to understand has happened to you. One could view therapy as a process of developing over time a resilient response to experienced trauma. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/06/magazine/the-profound-emptiness-of-resilience.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/06/magazine/the-profound-emp... [1] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trauma-resilience_b_1881666 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trauma-resilience_b_1881666
throwaway3b03 6y ago
We either read different articles, or have almost contradictory viewpoints. I have deep background in developmental trauma, developmental psychology, and trauma is in fact what destroys the resilience mentioned in the article. You don't become resilient due to going through trauma, you are resilient when your body is in a certain physiological state (which is reflected throughout, from brainwaves, to vagal tone, to digestive system functioning, to immune system etc). Trauma is an event that takes the body out of that state into a state of fear/fight-or-flight. This state can become chronic if the perceived state of danger is maintained (even if the actual physical danger may no longer be relevant, the thought patterns developed could continue for the rest of person's life for instance). Some people go their whole lives with the coping behaviors developed in response to that trauma (whether it's workoholism, addiction etc). Also important to mention is that there's a window of time between birth (and even before) and the very early childhood when the brain structures related to affect regulation are developed. Trauma in that period is likely to affect a person severely for a lifetime. In other words, trauma is what makes a person less resilient. Lack of stressors does not make a person less resilient, on the contrary. Learned helplessness is an extremely common outcome of severe trauma, which is quite the opposite of resilience.
- type0 6y ago
  The impact of trauma is important, monoamine oxidase A is one of the genes that is often shaping the outcome. https://news.ufl.edu/2019/07/how-genes-resilience-affect-syrian-refugee-stress/ https://news.ufl.edu/2019/07/how-genes-resilience-affect-syr...

majormajor 6y ago

If you are saying you don't think your own resilience is anything to be proud of, I think you are failing to consider those who faced trauma and failed to handle it. I too know the "what the fuck else am I supposed to do" feeling in response to people saying stuff like "how did you deal with something like that?" or "you're so strong" but I think it does a disservice to yourself to ignore that crumpling under the pressure was a possibility, and one that was avoided if you're still here.

psychtrauma 6y ago
> I think you are failing to consider those who faced trauma and failed to handle it. I would have previously agreed with you, and I think that is an important viewpoint that is useful to contemplate deeply. But, I now wish to reject the point of view that I should be proud because I faced my individual trauma somehow 'better' than those other people. Those other people shouldn't have faced that trauma either.
- GenerocUsername 6y ago
  Trauma is the natural state of the universe. To think life should be free of trauma is a hyper-modern and sheltered view of the world enabled by our extreme comfort provided by modern technology and the invisible labor from less privelidged people and those who lived and died before us. Trauma is the natural state, and our resilience has and always will be a defining characteristic of successful people... Of whom we are descendents.
  - wiggumspiggums 6y ago
    I'd recommend checking out a book called "The Body Keeps the Score". It talks about how people's minds and bodies can stop functioning normally due to traumas like sexual abuse, war, etc. I would have thought that since traumatic experiences have been around forever, humans would have adapted to dealing with those better by now. And yet the medical evidence laid out in this book seems to show that healing from traumas is difficult. To me, that means there is something "unnatural" about trauma (or at least the most awful cases). I'm probably not doing the book enough justice. Here's the goodreads profile for anyone who wants to explore further: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18693771-the-body-keeps-the-score https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18693771-the-body-keeps-...
  - haswell 6y ago
    > Trauma is the natural state of the universe. As a survivor of sexual abuse on a lifelong journey of survival, it’s difficult to communicate just how strongly I disagree with (and am repulsed by) this statement and the sentiment behind it. It lacks awareness of the many kinds of trauma, and trivializes the experiences of those who’ve been subjected to things that are anything but natural. Do not mistake the prevalence of something for being “natural”. Trauma, by definition, is the opposite, prevalent though it may be. And even if you could lump all kinds of trauma into the same category, my conclusion would be very different than yours. If trauma is the natural state, then we should be doing everything to change that state, not throw up our hands and conclude “oh well, that’s just the way things are, and the best survive”. Imagine taking this stance on slavery, or more broadly: racism.
    - Dudeman112 6y ago
      >Trauma is the natural state of the universe. I agree with everything you said. Also: fuck the natural state of the universe. The natural state of the universe is shit and we should seriously fight against it. There is no fairness or justice or good in the laws of the universe. Nature is a bitch. But that's not so bad, because we can be fair and good and make the environment better.
  - KittenInABox 6y ago
- gonetherapin 6y ago
  hi, made this throwaway (or maybe one to keep?) to agree with you. i'm not happy or pleased that my therapist calls me resilient. she uses the word as something positive but i'd rather not be "resilient" at all. the experience and effects of trauma are something i could do 1000% without. and i'm sure most people who have survived such an ordeal can attest to that fact.
  - akoncius 6y ago
    contradiction: I have a personality type which crumbles on every occurrence of some challenges in life, and I’m havin nearly panic attacks about almost everything. part of that emotion is “why me, I don’t want this problem in my life”. and frequently for short periods of time I’m on the verge of giving up. what my therapist is trying to teach me that all events in my life are kinda inevitable, and it’s up to me to decide how to handle them, and I thing therapist is trying to develop some resillience in me by explaining that some trauma in my life is just unavoidable. getting older is unavoidable. diseases (albeit preventable) unavoidable. economic crisis inevitable and so on and so on. so having resiliency is a good thing, regardless if you prefer to have that trauma or not. and you should be proud that you handled it well.
  - akoncius 6y ago
    on the other hand: you said you would rather not be resilient at all.. so how would you prefer to react to the exact same trauma you experienced previously? assuming that you cannot choose to not have that trauma at all.
    - watwut 6y ago
      The person you are responding to would prefer to never having to go through trauma and would be fine with never building that additional resilience. That trauma is not good price for the supposed resilience he got. And I can add that another benefit for him would be time and money saved on therapist. Therapy takes time and a lot of money. Being in situation where you don't need it is better, even if you lose on tiny bit of resilience.
- majormajor 6y ago
  Perhaps this is a difference of trauma types. "Shouldn't" is an interesting word for e.g. getting cancer. We would all be better off if nobody had to ever face that, but... what would "they shouldn't have gotten cancer" really mean, there? That they should be bitter over being unlucky? That would be a very different statement to make about a trauma inflicted by another human, though.
- Fellshard 6y ago
  You reject it, sure. But you are providing no cogent reasons for doing so — merely saying 'I changed my mind' is no argument that will persuade others, unless you're expecting your prior trauma somehow credentials you to authoritatively create truth.
  - psychtrauma 6y ago
    Indeed. I have no reason to argue and no real need to persuade others - I just wish to observe and live my truth.
    - Fellshard 6y ago
      Then it is meaningless to communicate it to anyone else. But I don't think that's what you think; there's an internal contradiction there. I will leave it at that.
      - psychtrauma 6y ago
        Your claim is that all meaningful communication is arguing? I can and do recommend therapy to everyone.

inglor_cz 6y ago

I tend to think of resilience as a psychical equivalent of the calluses on your fingers that you get from playing the guitar. Developing them is painful, but they give you power to try and do something bigger.

throwawayboise 6y ago
IOW "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger."
- majormajor 6y ago
  This is certainly wildly untrue for many sorts of trauma. What doesn't kill you can leave you less capable, weaker, more vulnerable, etc... You might have to be resilient to deal with the trauma without collapsing, and then find that you still have to be resilient to deal with your new, permanently changed life after the fact too.
- watwut 6y ago
  That is motivational, but inaccurate.
- Dudeman112 6y ago
  No one ever became stronger by getting their legs crushed by a ton of metal. In fact, I'd argue they mostly became weaker.
rzzzt 6y ago
For me, resilience is more like bending tree branches. The green ones return to their original shape easily once force is removed, the dry ones keep their form as long as possible, but snap abruptly if too much force is exerted. Repeated bending results in microfractures, then breaking in either type.

troelsSteegin 6y ago

In the article Konnikova (and Seligman) describes resilience as a product of methods that can be taught. The framing is that resilience is an interpretive skill. The Konnikova article links to a NYTimes article [0] which in turn (in the reader comments) links to a HuffPost article [1] by a medical school specialist on PTSD. Quoting from that: "The American Psychological Association defines resilience as 'the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats or even significant sources of threat.' ... Resilience is common and can be witnessed all around us. Even better, we learned that everyone can learn and train to be more resilient. The key involves knowing how to harness stress and use it to our advantage. " The problem with resilience as a skill is that "resilience" may be a skill you don't have before you need it. How can one be expected to have total control over one's "construal"? Trauma, like grief, is personal and subjective. Emotion is immediate. We feel the way we feel. In a crisis, should one feel worse because you are not yet deploying the resilience? Resilience is not one sure trick but an interpretative mindset set that may or may not be available to you when something that you may or may not be able to understand has happened to you. One could view therapy as a process of developing over time a resilient response to experienced trauma. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/06/magazine/the-profound-emptiness-of-resilience.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/06/magazine/the-profound-emp... [1] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trauma-resilience_b_1881666 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trauma-resilience_b_1881666

throwaway3b03 6y ago

We either read different articles, or have almost contradictory viewpoints. I have deep background in developmental trauma, developmental psychology, and trauma is in fact what destroys the resilience mentioned in the article. You don't become resilient due to going through trauma, you are resilient when your body is in a certain physiological state (which is reflected throughout, from brainwaves, to vagal tone, to digestive system functioning, to immune system etc). Trauma is an event that takes the body out of that state into a state of fear/fight-or-flight. This state can become chronic if the perceived state of danger is maintained (even if the actual physical danger may no longer be relevant, the thought patterns developed could continue for the rest of person's life for instance). Some people go their whole lives with the coping behaviors developed in response to that trauma (whether it's workoholism, addiction etc). Also important to mention is that there's a window of time between birth (and even before) and the very early childhood when the brain structures related to affect regulation are developed. Trauma in that period is likely to affect a person severely for a lifetime. In other words, trauma is what makes a person less resilient. Lack of stressors does not make a person less resilient, on the contrary. Learned helplessness is an extremely common outcome of severe trauma, which is quite the opposite of resilience.

type0 6y ago
The impact of trauma is important, monoamine oxidase A is one of the genes that is often shaping the outcome. https://news.ufl.edu/2019/07/how-genes-resilience-affect-syrian-refugee-stress/ https://news.ufl.edu/2019/07/how-genes-resilience-affect-syr...