What makes us resilient?

[MakeMineALarge1]

I am genuinely interested in this topic
As someone who has worked exclusively in covid for 12 months I have seen a lot of my colleagues go off sick with stress, but others haven't - what is different?

Why do some people cope and not others.

This is not intended to be a goady thread - I hope I have worded it in a way that promotes discussion not judgement

What makes someone get PTSD from the same experience, but someone else doesn't.

Early life experiences have a big impact.

I guess its just the way we're made.
Some folk crumble under stress others thrive.
Some folk cry easily and wear their hearts on their sleeve, others are all buttoned up.

Viva le difference

Because I have no choice

I learnt at a young age to be self-reliant. It has its advantages but it means I’m chronically incapable of asking for help, even from family.

Failing in certain ways can make people hugely resilient. Teaches you to deal with failure. I always liked my kids doing Judo because at its best, it taught my kids to keep trying and to hold their heads with pride even if they lost every match.

And enough sleep. Hard to be resilient if you're exhausted, haven't slept well.

NOT experiencing trauma (as is so often purported on here ).

I think it’s a really personal, individual thing and there’s no formula. Sometimes previous life experience helps, or if you’ve had stable help/support, or if you’ve been able to create effective coping mechanisms etc, but it really varies.

But also everyone has a breaking point and only so much they can take when it comes to stress/hardship, nobody is immune to that but we all experience things differently.

I think it depends on what else people have experienced previously, the coping strategies and support mechanisms that they have, and what else is going on for them in the present.

Mental health is a bit like a bucket of shit...everyone can take so much, but if you keep piling on more shit, the bucket will eventually overflow. Some people have bigger buckets. Others just have more shit in theirs to start with.

I would say early life experiences set you up then as an adult developing postive coping mechanisms, having support at home and in work. I work in a very stressful job where people often burn out in the first two years - I realised early on that I needed to find ways to deal with the stress of it at work particularly with support from colleagues and manage to leave it at work. When I’ve had a supportive team around me and a supportive manager it has been much easier to cope with.

lots of interesting thoughts, thank you .

I don't think there is any one reason reason but more a combination of factors

• previous experiences
• what else is going on in that person's life
• upbringing
• genetics
• character
• coping mechanisms

I'm not sure, but I think it has something to do with vastly differing experiences of the pandemic. Personally I'm healthy, my loved ones are healthy, I haven't lost my job and am financially sound. I know people who have lost close family members and are in massive debt from being on furlough for an eternity.

"I don't think there is any one reason reason but more a combination of factors

• previous experiences
• what else is going on in that person's life
• upbringing
• genetics
• character
• coping mechanisms"

I agree, I also think some are more optimistic or better at seeing the positives but most have a breaking point.

A certain amount of adversity breeds resilience because it teaches you that if life is sometimes difficult or doesn't turn out the way you planned the sky won't fall in, you'll pick yourself up and carry on. I would imagine the support you receive when dealing with adversity when you are young plays a big part.

I also think that the pace and intensity of adverse life events determines whether it crushes you or makes you stronger, we all have limits and one devastating event after another with no time to recover or a relentless slog to keep your head above water with no respite will deplete most people leaving them without the emotional resources to call on when just one more thing happens.

What a really good question.

I often wonder this too.

As a very hard faced, strong headed, strong minded individual who has gone through, personal horror & witnessed God awful horrific situations first hand and repeatedly, not a lot gets to me.
Not a lot brings me down, I bounce back extremely quickly and crack on.

However I recently experienced burn out. Combination of COVID, my job & a most fucking horrific event which I still cannot verbally explain without severe distress happened within a short time.
It floored me completely and like a switch had been thrown, I was pushed over a cliff of utter blackness.

I read about and know people who have not experienced even a fraction of the things I’ve come through who just don’t cope & I’m genuinely curious why?

I thought I was resilient. I managed to get through a good number of stressful events with a smile and little impact on my life.
Then within six months we had a series of really traumatic events the worst being the loss of our youngest DD.
Since then I just struggle with stressful events it is like my cup is already too full to stay with. I wish I could go back to who I was I miss the happy ho luck person I used to be.

@IHateCoronavirus, so sorry for your loss.

Sometimes an ability to (healthily) forget things that you see as having been done wrong to you. Someone once described this to me as a "fuck it bucket" put what is in it and toss it out.

I agree with the mix of reasons but lean towards necessity primarily, and then how that initial ‘necessary resilience’ is internalised for future times of need.

To me it doesn’t mean you can’t/don’t have PTSD, in that the depth/length of the adversity itself is not what makes a person resilient, rather the attitude developed early on (through necessity) and how we use that in future.

The ability to not dwell on things.

Hmm - it is an interesting question. How you're taught to deal with failure or things not always going your way, etc must play a part. The ability to either find an alternative you can settle for or to think something is meant to be/not meant to be rather than feel defeated or hard done by is something I learned growing up.

I find I can rationalise lots of things, but if I see something has upset someone else it upsets me in a way I wouldn't have been without seeing their upset, if that makes sense.

In the past I've had some CBT which definitely has helped me not to put too much pressure on myself.

Learning how to fail and how to deal with emotions.

Scouting and guiding is proven to teach resilience.

Being taught the tools to manage anxiety, recognise the things that stress you out and knowing when to ask for help.

So for example my DD is an anxious child.
Whenever her anxiety triggers we always go through what's causing it, what the worse case outcome could be and what she can do to change that.

We never automatically let the kids win every board game, we let them learn from mistakes.

The bucket of shit analogy is a good one, and is one I use (well, with stones instead of shit! in my job.) Everyone struggles sometimes, but the way to manage better is to a) increase the size of your bucket and b) create a release valve at the bottom of the bucket. You do that by a combination of maximising your physical resilience (exercise, healthy eating, sleep) and your emotional resilience (connecting with friends and family, self care, fun, relaxation, yoga, meditation, whatever works for you) and finding ways to reduce the pressure of the shit/stones going into the bucket (sharing problems with colleagues, delegating some things, disconnecting at the end of the work day etc) The more successfully you can do these things, the more resilient you can be.

@IHateCoronavirus Im sorry.

Work out what you want from something and then alternative ways to get that so the purportrator loses power over you.You have got what you wanted but another way. I have managed to get X this way be doing A and B rather than C and D as originally planned. I guess I am saying having alternative plans to help you cope.