Resilience

[Passaggressfedup]

I know there have been many threads in the past about this topic and it usually doesn't end too well. So here I am starting one again!

The reason is that in the last couple of days, I had the chance to reflect on life choices that have turned out to be success stories where resilience played a significant role. It's left me thinking again about the benefits of resilience and how we go about getting to that point.

My family, on the surface, appears very mundane. Middle class, quite stable, no big drama. Behind the scenes, not as calm though. Myself: divorced parents, only child, very difficult relationship with step parents, moved schools 7 times before getting my A levels, a couple of times mid-year. Lived on my own at 16yo. All together, by the time I was 30, I'd moved home 17 times!

My kids had a more stable time in comparaison but still not easy. Separated parents before the age of 3, FT working mum, often stressed with managing everything. Father shouting his love to them but not very present at all in every day life or even when they were with him. No extended family, grand parents living far away and only contact once a year on holiday. Very difficult relationship with step parent.

Yet somehow, we've become very healthy, happy and productive adults. Before anyone questions it. Yes, really! Great jobs, great relationships, good self-esteem, no mental issues besides some very short term depression. We're not the only ones by far.

So it does make me think how much this is a result of resilience building. No severe trauma, just some life difficulties we had to face and learn from. My parents could have sheltered me. I could have sheltered my kids more, but none of us would want our lives different because of who it's made us.

I can't help, inevitably, thinking that as a whole, children and teenagers are growingly more and more sheltered from emotionally difficult events, events that teach them that in hardship, we learn that it doesn't have to hurt so much next time, even to the point that it doesn't hurt as all.

I am NOT referring to abuse. Let's make this clear. I'm talking about the many choices parents make so not to affect their kids negatively when maybe it is doing more harm by not teaching them, with a lot of love and support, that is is okay to face hardship and find the way to cope with it come out of it stronger, so that next time they face similar, they are confident about their ability to manage it.

I would say it's fairly common for people to have one or two 'small' things they struggle to cope with. I am an extremely 'resilient' person, run my own business, have two children, am financially stable, all that jazz. I cannot, for the life of me, make a hair appointment. I hate going the hairdresser and every time I need to go it gets harder and harder to do it. It annoys me mightily and I wish it weren't such a problem but it is. Put me in the middle of a major disaster, I will calmly manage everything. Ask me to make a hair appointment - jelly.

@downunder50, I was waiting for the first poster to come and say what a lot of grovel this thread was 😁

My experience is that being an anxious person ( which I am by the way) doesn't mean you can't be resilient. Resilience about facing your anxieties rather than taking the route of avoidance. It doesn't mean getting to a position of no anxiety. It helps reduce the exposure and outcome of it but doesn't eliminate tendencies to be anxious.

You cannot assume that a child/teen going through a lot of difficult situations is going to grow up to be resilient, they may learn all sorts of coping mechanisms that aren't at all healthy, they may drink, self harm, take drugs, be desperate to be loved and end up in abusive relationships, be emotionally avoidant
Unhealthy coping mechanisms are in no way, in my views, a sign of resilience, on the exact opposite!

If you struggle with a stressful situation, and your way to deal with it is get drunk, that's avoidance, ie. the opposite of resilience. Resilience would be to learn to understand the triggers, how it impacts on the person and most importantly, what can be done to make the situation okay so that next time one is face with the same situation, they don't get triggered (or not so badly) and can address worries whilst facing them.

I'm not saying they had to just give up uni altogether but I think there must have been a better solution than 'just carrying on in misery'. That's not a good life lesson in my book but perhaps that's what you've learnt to do as well?

The solutions were to take each day at the time to be better able to focus on getting better. It was to talk about the problem, and indeed, look at what little steps could be taken to make each aspects better. It was to call me to talk freely if they felt an attack coming. It was to get up every morning at no later than 9am even if everything was telling them.not to etc...what it definitely itely wasn't was to say 'what is happening is a tragedy, you couldn't possibly be excepted to cope with it, come home now and let's ignore the consequences. If he had come home after all, I'd respected that really was too much and would have supported them differently. The thing is, if I had told them to come home, they would gave done in a heartbeat. By not mentioning it, they decided to give it a bit more, even if it felt impossible. They got out of it learning that even when things look impossible, there might still be some extra strength there. It also gave them self-confidence and some reassurance that the next time they face a huge struggle, there is light at the end of the tunnel and they will likely not feel as helpless as they did then.

All the things you listed - divorced parents, moving home/schools, only child - are all far more common these days so if your theory is correct then surely children would be more resilient?

I agree that children and young adults seem less resilient than before and it leaves them less able to cope with life. Social media is full of people sharing "trauma" when actually its just inconvenience and is a disservice to people who have experienced terrible thigs.

I noticed one of DD's friends didnt look very happy coming out of school yesterday so I text later on to see how she was and apparently she'd had a bad day, its tuned out she'd been misbehaving and had been told off a few times. The mum kindly explained that if she misbehaved then she was going to be told off as that's what happens and they had a proper chat about. I'm not sure all parents take that approach.

People often comment on how resilient DD is, which I'm pleased about although I think in part it is her personality type and some of it is routed in stubbornness 😆She doesn't find the academic element of school easy but isn't scared of making a mistake and will plug away until she gets something - I hope this continues as its a useful skill to have.

My mum wasn't very resilient and I think a child goes one way or the other as a result; my sister struggles with any set back and will claim prior trauma as a reason to not function properly. One example was that she crashed her car into a road sign at 17 (no injuries or people harmed) and now at 43 is still claiming she cant face having lessons or sitting a test because of it 🙄

Like most things tough its very subjective, but good to think about none the less.

I'm not at all criticising your approach with your child OP but I will say this. When I was 26 I did postgraduate course that I ended up hating with every fibre of my being. I became more and more depressed, but being 'resilient,' I struggled through to the end. Looking back I feel so sad for my 26 year old self. All I wanted was for someone to say 'It's ok, pack it in,' but I had learned, through various experiences, that I had to show up, I had to deliver. I got a first, then I never used that qualification again. I ended up unable to get out of bed for a month, on anti-depressants. What on earth was the point of me pushing through? I can't fathom it. I am far kinder to myself these days. I don't live as if everything is a test that I have to pass for fear of being judged weak.

So what you really learnt over time was how to emotionally shut down which isn't healthy at all. Now it seems to me that you're teaching your kids to just carry on through misery until it gets emotionally shut down
I'm very curious as to why you would reach the conclusion that what my children have learned is to shut down emotionally? I can assure you that is not the case.

An example: one child is massively introverted. When I insisted that they had to get a PT job at 16, their worse nightmare was to do anything that involved dealing with the public. So they applied for a shelf stacking job. They got it....except it wasn't just staking but also to be on the till (amongst other things). Shock horror and cue to coming home and them saying they were not doing it and not going back.

I could have coddled him. Said that of they felt uncomfortable talking to strangers, they shouldn't be forced, that it wasn't their fault that they are introverted and that maybe they could speak to their manager and see if they couldn't take them off till responsibilities. Even better, I could have said that I would contact them because they were scared of talking to them.

I did no such thing. I said that he might not find it as bad as they imagined. We discussed their fears (what's the worse that could happen), that it wouldn't be fair to expect others to work more on the till when they too might hate it, that their manager might be annoyed etc...that they should give it one more chance...and another.

They did it for 5 years and got to the point of genuinely enjoying the job. Working on the till...boring but definitely Italy not distressing in any way. They were actually over the moon when they got a Christmas card from an old couple who told them they make a point of coming to their till every time because they were so kind.

So mo, definitely Italy not emotionally shut down but much happier and comfortable around strangers and with a self-esteem they didn't have before. 5 years ago, the idea of making a phone call to a stranger would have got them to procrastinate for hours, debate how to avoid it, feel sick in their stomach etc...nowadays? They don't even think about it. They pick it up, dial, say what they want to say and thays that. In such a better place then they ever were younger.

All the things you listed - divorced parents, moving home/schools, only child - are all far more common these days so if your theory is correct then surely children would be more resilient?
The above was quite specific to me, quite a rare situation at the time. Children had to be resilient about other things. Such as going to school even if they didn't want to. Tough, you learned to adjust. No such thing as home education. Bullying? Part of normal life. Sickness, if you didn't have a 40 degree temp, you went to school. Walking for 1 hour in the cold, dark, rain, snow, well yes of course, no school closures then.

Not saying that this was the 'right' way because as its been pointed out, it led to trauma for some with all the consequences that went either it.

However, it dors feel like we've gone the other extreme now and with it, an overall increase in anxiety at doing things kids are not initially comfortable with.

All the things you listed - divorced parents, moving home/schools, only child - are all far more common these days so if your theory is correct then surely children would be more resilient?
The above was quite specific to me, quite a rare situation at the time. Children had to be resilient about other things. Such as going to school even if they didn't want to. Tough, you learned to adjust. No such thing as home education. Bullying? Part of normal life. Sickness, if you didn't have a 40 degree temp, you went to school. Walking for 1 hour in the cold, dark, rain, snow, well yes of course, no school closures then.

Not saying that this was the 'right' way because as its been pointed out, it led to trauma for some with all the consequences that went either it.

However, it dors feel like we've gone the other extreme now and with it, an overall increase in anxiety at doing things kids are not initially comfortable with.

I got a first, then I never used that qualification again. I ended up unable to get out of bed for a month, on anti-depressants. What on earth was the point of me pushing through? I can't fathom it. I am far kinder to myself these days. I don't live as if everything is a test that I have to pass for fear of being judged weak
Do you think you would have felt differently of your masters had led to good things? Because there's no doubt that when you push yourself to all your limit to see nothing good coming out of it, you'll conclude it was all wasted time if it had led you the perfect job, would it have felt more worth it?

I don't live as if everything is a test that I have to pass for fear of being judged weak
And rightly so. Being resilient doesn't mean you have to systematically take the hardest route to everything. As you say, not everything has to be a test.

However, I still feel that when children are never encouraged to push their comfort zone, they don't even get to the point of having that choice because the easiest route is all they ever know.

It's a fair question and I'm not sure what the answer is. The issue is, I suppose, that it became clear early on that the course wasn't right for me. I should have just quit then but I had the mindset that I had committed to the course and so I should see it through, particularly as it had cost money. If it had been a course I really enjoyed, or something that was of benefit to me, then I probably wouldn't have felt so bad.

I agree that some children aren't encouraged to push out of their comfort zone - a friend of mine lets her 17 year old son play video games all weekend rather than pushing him to get a job. I think she's letting him down - he's going to get to 18 with no experience and have to start behind his peers. That to me isn't about resilience as such as more about bad parenting, which has always been an issue. In the past more parents probably beat their children, which has other negative consequences. My point is I'm not sure there's more bad parenting about, it's just in a different form.

I think there is some unfair characterisation here of what the OP came on to say. For what it's worth I agree with the OP and my example is more stark.

My father died by suicide in the seventies when I was four and my brother 1ish. I was packed off immediately (on my own) to stay with family while my brother stayed with my mother. We moved three times in the next couple of years and I moved schools each time. My mother married again and we were adopted by my stepfather when I was 8 and we moved again, at which time my brother started school.

I was a capable child but from the age of five I had to be independent. My mother also worked. I got a proper job at 18, went to University at 19 and moved out of my parents home fully as soon as I graduated. I bought my first home at 23 and am happily settled with a decent man and have a successful business and lots of friends. My brother was protected far more and we have taken completely different paths in life. He moved out of home at about 25 into a flat down the road from my parents. He is recently divorced and has few friends as he falls out with people easily. He still lives in the same flat at 50 and has had all manner of work issues, all things I would have breezed through. He has some mental health challenges but has not engaged with help. My parents continue to coddle him and he doesn't speak to me.

I have no idea of what your thesis is OP...

People are all individuals and react to stress and trauma in different ways and have their own strengths and weaknesses.

In my life I have gone through anything from sexual assault, abusive childhood, bullying, health issues job issues and moving to a different country on my own to get away from my birth family.

I survived all of that but it does not give me the right to look down on anyone who might be struggling or to question their "Resilience".

Instead I can say that at my lowest I was saved by mental health services and my GP. Which is why I think it takes courage too to admit you are struggling, feel vulnerable and need help.

I don't think that your "I am resilient so why isn't everyone else" attitude is either healthy or realistic frankly.

The issue is, I suppose, that it became clear early on that the course wasn't right for me
Now that is a very different situation, I totally agree. The same happened to me after 2 weeks and my parents knew, and thankfully totally trusted me that it wasn't tge right place foe and was a mistake.

Battling against what is a clear mistake is indeed likely to do more harm than good. In my youngest situation, it was heartache, change and some disappointment that triggered the disillusion, not the course itself.

@Bohemond23 thank you. Your childhood was certainly more of a mountain to climb all around, and you did amazingly making the most of each challenge. I too have a half sibling that was protected in every way who has really struggled to adjust to the emotional demand of life. Unfortunately for them, luck has not come easily as things did when they were young and my mum did everything to make it easy for them (guilt from my upbringing), and their lack of resilience has made it much harder for them. Sadly, it's going through it all in their 20s and early 30s that makes them now much stronger and indeed, so much at peace with their life.

@Greenwitchart I am genuinely happy for you that you got saved by the mental health ser ices and GP, especially considering how most struggle to get the right help. It appears that in your case, what you've experienced is trauma. I didn't. Difficult times yes, but not trauma. I would never ever look down on anyone struggling with life when they've experienced trauma in their past.

I don't look down on people who are not resilient as ne either. I just find it sad how parents think they do their best by protecting their children from any emotional challenge strongly believing it is the best for them when I think it does more damage lo get term than good.

People who don't have as much resilience skills seem to find life harder than those who were exposed to difficulties sooner in life and learn healthy coping mechanisms so that life appear overall not so frightening or hard work.

So I'm wondering now: if you think that having insufficient resilience is going to disadvantage your life as an adult, yet it is still 'learnable', 'attainable', then how do you suggest a person improves it?

Several have given various descriptions of the small things that can build resilience in children and young people when the stakes are comparatively low, when the bricks in that wall are, so to speak, of lego, not stone. Hopefully these things are recognised and supported and encouraged by parents and schools. Hopefully the larger traumas are not going to come and ruin it all, so early, even though they will enter the frame sometime.

I can see that there are lots of 'Oh, but that wasn't what I meant by resilience, instead that is (insert quality here)... And that wasn't what I meant by trauma/ abuse/ tantrums/ giving up easily/ oversensitivity/ real deprivation (or whatever).' It's interesting to spot.

My friend realised the other day as she was helping her 28 year old daughter with a problem (again) - at the same age she was already married, with two kids and working split shifts as she had no childcare and had a mortgage etc. She had no help from family and when shit happened she just got on and got it sorted. It's made her reassess just how involved she still is and how little her kids can cope with life's challenges. She's decided to take a back seat as it's time for them to become adults and learn to do stuff for themselves rather than just rely on her to sort things out.

So for you they were stressors that built resilience, but for children these days you expect it to have no effect on them?

No one knows other people’s life experience to know if they are resilient from what they’ve experienced. There’s plenty of people in my generation and older that are outwardly ‘resilient’ and successful, but experience MH and anxiety problems. What’s the basis for saying younger generations are less resilient? Older generations are more likely to take SSRI’s. Younger generations are more likely to go to university, two income households are more common, they will retire much later than previous generations, they are more likely to relocate out of their hometown - all things that require resilience. In all generations there are people that struggle to cope with life. I don’t think the constant critique of younger generations is helpful. It’s a different time with much more exposure to word events, CoL, and much more openness about MH.

So I'm wondering now: if you think that having insufficient resilience is going to disadvantage your life as an adult, yet it is still 'learnable', 'attainable', then how do you suggest a person improves it?
Exactly as its been suggested on this thread. There were some great ideas. The common ground I think is not to give in to children instinctive drive for avoidance but instead encouraging them to try/give things more time, with understanding and support of their parents.

The stage example is an example of resilience and there have been a few posts trying to get a point across to you that you're missing. Having supportive family and friends is a resilience factor. You are resilient because you have things to fall back on- supportive family, money, skills to make money and take care of yourself. Take all your resilience factors away and you wouldn't bounce back.
You may feel you've faced difficulties in life and I'm not disputing they were difficult for you, but it's nothing compared to the people you would view as not having resilience. Those people who can't just carry on, can't go to work, maybe can't get out of bed every morning, can't complete their education, those who end up in mental health wards, they all have stories of much bigger struggles than you have faced and lack the resilience factors you have. It is not struggles that made you resilient, it is the resilience factors in your life.

Apologies, I was meaning learning as an adult - either learning because that childhood and youth grounding was not optimum, or relearning because of events happening that surprised you because they actually knocked what you thought was your resilience to the kerb.

Do you see a point in striving for better resilience as an adult, perhaps from quite a low starting block? Do you believe it would be a different thing from getting a good all-round exposure as a younger person, with good predictors such as appropriate parenting, support, enough resources and fewer 'life grenade events'? Do you think the same things to hone it would apply if adult situations, and not periods where you're automatically parented or guided, are what are in question?

I do think character traits come into play too. Some people are just more sensitive than others, affecting resilience.

I’m sorry but you’re very misguided, and are clearly very lucky in the balance of things on your life.

All of the things you talk about are very complex.

Many things go into making who we are and therefore how we interact and experience the world. Resilience is simply having the capacity to cope with things thrown your way, every single person has a limited resilience capacity.

If you think of resilience like a bucket. Some people might have a big bucket, others might have a small bucket. Why they have that sized bucket could be for any number of reasons, they might have inherited that bucket because of genes, they might have been given the opportunity to make a bigger bucket because of various life events..

But no matter how big your bucket is, given enough stuff it will become full, it might get heavy and break, it might get so full you can’t fit anything in it. It might be completely empty yet someone reverses over it and smashes it. It might be empty and uncared for, time might just naturally make it crack.

some people might currently look like they’ve not got anything to fill their bucket, but unknown to everyone round them it’s nearly full to the brim with rubble from their childhood. Putting in the smallest pebble might cause the bottom to fall out.

Yes a steady stream of low level stressors can form the material to build a bigger bucket (subject to having access to the correct skills and time in the first place), but remember that bucket will always have a limited capacity and modern life fills that bucket at an ever quickening pace.

@Wellthisisdifficult, I don't think stating that I am misguided is appropriate. Having different views doesn't make the other person 'misguided'.

If you think of resilience like a bucket. Some people might have a big bucket, others might have a small bucket. Why they have that sized bucket could be for any number of reasons, they might have inherited that bucket because of genes, they might have been given the opportunity to make a bigger bucket because of various life events
I don't fully disagree with that but I also don't agree that the 'bucket' as you call it is a static size. I think our bucket expends and shrinks at different times in our lives and most importantly I think there is a huge role in learning to expand it.

Resilience is not a quality one has or doesn't have. I believe that we do have a large influence on our life events. Not all of them but many of them.

I guess your view is that external factors mainly shape who we are and who we can be. I, on the other hand, believe that life events are mostly shape by who we are and who we aspire to become.

I really disagree with your summary, both of what I’m saying and your assumptions regarding resilience. What do you think makes us who we are? I don’t think, as you suggest, it is simply external factors shaping who we are, I’m not Locke. We aren’t born as a tabla rasa. We have different biologies and there is increasing evidence of genetic trauma/intergenerational trauma as a mixture of genetics and environment. Not to mention neurological differences like ADHD, Autism, dyslexia etc

From the day we are born there is a constant interaction between our biological predisposition, economic, social and other environmental factors. As an evolutionary principle we are designed to respond to the same stimuli differently for the survival of the group. Dr Elaine Aron PhD states that 15-20% of children are born as highly sensitive. She states that similar patterns can be found across species. This is extremely valuable for example, if all the deer run into new territory because the grass looks greener and predators are lying in wait, its advantageous to the herd as a whole if some twitchy deer held back. Such differences are innate.

Different people will respond very differently to the same stimuli. In part this is down to their biology. As they develop there is a complex interaction between all the different factors already listed as time goes on experiences generally confirm our world view.

This is not to say that we can’t have an effect on the way we see the world, in fact. I understand accessing peoples subconscious through hypnosis can affect the way they view the world, but how the world view builds up is very complex and amending it is far from straightforward.

Resilience can be helpful if it is real, often it is a facade built on expectation and in that presentation can be very harmful.

Of course we can’t learn to build bigger buckets, I said this but sometimes those buckets still overflow/get damaged/destroyed.

You’re lucky that the stars have aligned to mean you have responded positively to the stressors you have faced, others, through no fault of their own will have responded differently.

Trying to simplify this to XYZ = a more resilient person is fairly harmful. All you can say is you feel XYZ has made you more resilient in your opinion.

I have never said or implied that everyone has or should have the same level or capacity for resilience.

My point is that I believe most people capacity to improve on their resilience levels. Accepting that someone with very low resilience will always remain at that level, struggle to cope and therefore should expect others to adapt to them is doing them a disfavour.

You’re lucky that the stars have aligned to mean you have responded positively to the stressors you have faced, others, through no fault of their own will have responded differently
The good old 'you are lucky'.... The assumption that I responded positively to stressors.... Neither is true. What I did though is accepted that facing the stressors would ultimately help me in the long run, despite the pain going through it provoked. The biggest enemy to resilience is avoidance. Everyone holds some level of responsibility of the outcome that comes avoidance (or those who are responsible for vulnerable people).