Emotional resiliance, the causes, and the effect upon your behavior.

[colditz]

Some people are more emotionally fragile than others ... are devastated for weeks by a gang of teenagers shouting something at them. Others would just think 'Twats' and move on. Others would shout obscenities back, and fume for days ... and still others wouldn't even notice.

Why is this? What causes these huge gulfs between people's personalities? How can we raise our children to be resiliant? How can we become more resiliant ourselves?

I think it's okay to allow a period of mourning/musing over things that have cocked up. The problem arises if you get "stuck" in that kind of thought.

I say all this, without really connecting the thought that I have suffered from PND and am on AD's.........

I appear to have disassociated my "usual" self with the feelings I had with the PND. I dont think I'll ponder that one

grief and wallowing aren't the same either though.

tbh, i'm not sure i believe in wallowing.

when we're stuck there's a reason.

pull your socks up young woman doesn't really work i don't think, it sends the feeling underground....and what the mind will not allow, the body will carry innit.

Perhaps rather than saying 'no wallowing' I should say I've been taught how to be 'matter of fact' about life's problems. Which doesn't mean you still don't cry and feel shit or have difficult days, but that those don't stop you dead and take over. There are things I avoid (e.g toddler groups of NT children- didn't go near one with either ds2 or ds3 as I knew they would make me feel really bad), but I guess it would have been worse to think I 'should' be able to go then have gone and come home floored iyswim.

Rambling now, but I think I've learned a lot (and surprised myself) about resilience over the last 10 years. I think growing older helps as well.

I agree Soph, but sometimes that reason is situational; coming from those around you who want to help but in fact are keeping you in the maelstrom going round and round and round...

yurt, I think you're right, about the unconditionality (is that a word?). I think I suffered from precisely not having a feeling of unconditional approval and support (want to avoid the word 'love' because my parents definitely did love me, just with sometimes very odd and very damaging manifestations). I am seeing more and more of my mother's - what shall I say? issues? - coming out in me and really hate it, but at the same time I am fundamentally different from her and have managed to break a damaging cycle that has been going on, AFAIK, for at least two generations of my family. dh's theory is that my very, very early experiences - very severe case of congenital hip dysplasia with hospital stays and operations - somehow hard-wired me differently and, fundamentally, resiliently, although I remember very little about any of it. I'm often utterly, utterly crap about relatively little things but surprisingly 'good' with the bigger ones.

Have been having a very bumpy few days with dh. This evening, after another row, I was thinking about our situation atm and the thought 'his father's crap at marriage, too' flashed through my head. Immediately followed by 'Well, so was your mother'. Nature or nurture? I would say predominantly nurture - we experience patterns being played out and have to make a conscious, sometimes Herculean effort not to repeat them (if they are damaging). I do hope my dses are going to be alright.

I agree Soph, but sometimes that reason is situational; coming from those around you who want to help but in fact are keeping you in the maelstrom going round and round and round...

Soph: I think it's pretty difficult to assess (whether for yourself or someone close by) at exactly what point grieving becomes wallowing. I don't think there's a set time liimit but maybe when a person is still going over and over the same loop years down the line from the traumatic event then some sort of intervention might be needed.

Oops -sorry about that!

That's another thing for the list, Soph! I think we had hedgehogs and shit food, thus far

yes, I think that's what I've learned soapbox. But I think now I spend my time with people who are dealing with such awful heartbreaking situations with their children I would find it hard to think 'why me' anyway. Again I guess it comes doown to being round people in the same situation. It was much easier to be 'poor me' when watching ds1's first (and only mainstream) nativity play for example. Probably being around other people at the same stage as you might have helped as well. You get to moan then and release it, but not wallow as you have the other person's stuff to listen to as well.

yurt, I think you're right, about the unconditionality (is that a word?). I think I suffered from precisely not having a feeling of unconditional approval and support (want to avoid the word 'love' because my parents definitely did love me, just with sometimes very odd and very damaging manifestations). I am seeing more and more of my mother's - what shall I say? issues? - coming out in me and really hate it, but at the same time I am fundamentally different from her and have managed to break a damaging cycle that has been going on, AFAIK, for at least two generations of my family. dh's theory is that my very, very early experiences - very severe case of congenital hip dysplasia with hospital stays and operations - somehow hard-wired me differently and, fundamentally, resiliently, although I remember very little about any of it. I'm often utterly, utterly crap about relatively little things but surprisingly 'good' with the bigger ones.

Have been having a very bumpy few days with dh. This evening, after another row, I was thinking about our situation atm and the thought 'his father's crap at marriage, too' flashed through my head. Immediately followed by 'Well, so was your mother'. Nature or nurture? I would say predominantly nurture - we experience patterns being played out and have to make a conscious, sometimes Herculean effort not to repeat them (if they are damaging). I do hope my dses are going to be alright.

i think a lot of people have no choice but to become emotionally resilient.

it's literally do it or die - however slowly you chose.

my mother never had to be very resilient, she has the best luck of anyone in the world i have ever met and has literally sailed through it with very little in the way of huge loss or hardships.

she couldn't have taught me to be resilient if she'd wanted to because she was never tested.

consequently, i've learned to lean a lot more on my friends in times of real trouble when i need to talk, because she just doesn't get it and doesn't know what to say or do.

it's awkward for both of us and pointless so i don't bother - i've got some pretty good friends in life for that who savvy.

oh berolina - but you have insight- which is wonderful thing for change. You could be right about the hospital stays as well. DS3 had a one night hospital stay - I was there the entire time - and he was incredibly clingy for months afterwards. It triggered a massive change in him (now seems back to normal, but I can imagine repeated stays would have had a longer effect).

100% agree with yurt Fri 30-Nov-07 22:39:41!

no man is an island!

'she couldn't have taught me to be resilient if she'd wanted to because she was never tested.

consequently, i've learned to lean a lot more on my friends in times of real trouble when i need to talk, because she just doesn't get it and doesn't know what to say or do.'

expat. christ....in the most gentle way....you don't get taught to be resilient, it is something that grows out of being with someone that loves you, and modelling their behaviour.
the fact that you can't lean on her tells it's own story about why you've struggled.

Oh I agree soph. there is, what I consider to be a reasonable period of reflection/mourning/grief or whatever. If it extends to the point that like you say - a person is "stuck" - then obviously this becomes an issue and needs dealing with.

I dont think any feelings should automatically be dismissed as wrong or inappropriate. At least not without pondering why they might be there, and, whether their validity relies on the situation itself, or, something else.

That's really interesting yurt. I know for a fact my mother wasn't always (able to be) there with me. I have very small snatches of memories of it all, none of them of themselves particularly traumatic, but I do think it must have had some effect.

I agree, insight is a great thing and knowing I have it has saved me at times, but (or rather and) can be dreadfully hard-won though, can't it?

Soph - do you mean that learning that you cannot rely on anyone except yourself is entirely different from being emotionally resiliant?

Coz i think I agree with you - but I'm not sure if that's what you mean

see, i disagree, soph. i don't think it grows out of being with someone who loves you.

i think, for everyone i know who is so reslient it's shocking, it's basically having had their ass against the wall and it was either sink or swim.

it's far less psychological and far more survival instinct - as my ex h's father used to say about his experience in VietNam, 'i'm just a dogface with a knack for survival.'

I think when it comes to boosting your DCs emotional resilience it can be quite hard to accept that they will get help from people other than you - but it's important for them to have people other than you to confide in and seek support from. And that a person (adult or child) undergoing trauma or recovering from it might get the best help from a combination of people ie a mix of briskness and sympathy.
I am partly basing this hypothesis on remembering DS birth (which was not any kind of dreadful event, just a first labour etc) and how I had a friend who was very sympathetic and 'poor you, there there' and my mum who was very 'come on, stop being silly' and how I had sort of chosen to have them both there because I knew that was what each one would do. Similarly I have found when dealing with unhappy friends that a bit of a mix of 'get a grip' and 'poor baby' works better than undiluted one or the other.

i would totally agree with you there, madamez.

that's what i mean vvvqc

expat, we disagree.

fwiw, i think i lack some emotional resilience. and i cover it up with some very very effective dismissive defences.

a lot of people think they don't have emotional resilience. and they say, 'it's all a big facade and i just mask it'.

but isn't that their demonstrating resilience?

we all carry on differently.

we all get through things differently.

some self-destruct and they die. they kill themselves, however slowly. i've known people who are literally walking ghosts, they're that dead inside.

but not self-destructing, that's resilience at its core there.

I think a certain amount of strength can be gained from having someone who loves and cares for you who can give you an alternate or conflicting point of view to make you consider your own responses or feelings.