Do you consider yourself resilient?

[cafe]

I've experienced a fair amount of trauma and manage to have a pretty functional and happy life, but I don't think I bounce back super-quick and things that I can't resolve can preoccupy me for quite awhile. I don't ask 'Why me?' This planet is full of tragic happenings and I'm not some special person who should be exempt from the human condition. I do ask 'How can I fix this or prevent it from happening in the future?' and 'How can I help others who are having this experience/How can I help prevent other people from going through this?'

 

[sciski]

Is understanding, knowing, or even being concerned about why the trauma occurred or is occurring and its effects on you and those around you important to being a resilient person? Basically, do you have to understand why ("Why me?!?") in order to be resilient?

I'll answer this in a more general sense--I don't think understanding is required for a person to be resilient.

The mark of resilience is the person who gets up (and keeps getting up) after being knocked down by circumstances beyond their control. Understanding is not necessary for the person to get up. The person may be resilient through pride, stubbornness, ignorance... any number of things.

Is dwelling on why something traumatic occurred a hindrance to resilience

I think there is an exception for those who absolutely need to understand a situation before they can move on. In these cases the 'dwelling' time is used as a tool to enable a person to move on. The person is consciously trying to achieve resilience through understanding. In this case it's not a hindrance.

However, if the dwelling time is unproductive and merely consists of the continuous reliving or reanalysis of the event, with no learning or development, then that is a hindrance to resilience. Because the person is ultimately stuck in the circumstance (by dwelling) and not getting on with their lives (thus not achieving resilience). Thus dwelling, in this circumstance, is a hindrance to resilience.

is there something out there like resilience that factors in time necessary to process adversity and tribulation and still emerge favorably?

It sounds like you're getting at some sort of standardised scale of trauma/adversity and a prescribed/recommended amount of time that an average human should take to get over trauma/adversity, depending on its severity on the scale... Basically, no.

If you remove the time variable in resilience, i.e. instead of rebounding relatively quickly and consistently (let's say about a year from onset of event) to rebounding around 5 - 10 years after onset of a traumatic event would you consider that resilient or something else?

Removing the time scale seems to make the question of resilience easier to answer--if they weren't actually overcome (ie physically or psychologically altered for the worse) by the adversity, doesn't that mean they're resilient? They just took their time to get over it.. but get over it they did.

Interesting questions... good for thinking about at 2am my time.

 

[_Violence_]

I want to answer yes, but I will say no.

Because only by doubting ourselves will we feel a need to toughen our resilience.

And as a result, become more resilient.

 

[FDG]

Nah, not really resilient here, especially emotionally.

 

[Saslou]

Yes sir.

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger .. And i am definitely stronger

 

[SillySapienne]

Generally speaking, very much so.

But there are times when I just want to cave into myself, implode, disintegrate, give up, or give in.

 

[ceecee]

Very much so. One reason is that is simply my personality. The other is that I seriously doubt anyone around me would allow me to not be resilient.

 

[Bubbleboy]

Resilience is:

From wikipedia

As resilient attitude can be:

It seems to me that the a major component emotional and psychological resilience is time-dependent; the turnaround between the trauma and the rebound is relatively short, i.e. the beginning of a traumatic event or episode and maybe a year from onset even if the event is still happening resilience has kicked in.

Is understanding, knowing, or even being concerned about why the trauma occurred or is occurring and its effects on you and those around you important to being a resilient person? Basically, do you have to understand why ("Why me?!?") in order to be resilient?

Is dwelling on why something traumatic occurred a hindrance to resilience or is there something out there like resilience that factors in time necessary to process adversity and tribulation and still emerge favorably? If you remove the time variable in resilience, i.e. instead of rebounding relatively quickly and consistently (let's say about a year from onset of event) to rebounding around 5 - 10 years after onset of a traumatic event would you consider that resilient or something else?

I don't believe being stoic is an admirable trait. It can leave you desensitized, and it helps hide problems instead of solving them. Being resilient never did me any favors.

 

[Stanton Moore]

I used to think I was pretty resilient, but there are limits to everything, you know?
I think truly resilient people are emotionally honest with themselves. They are less likely to repress bad experiences, so they cope and adapt more quickly. Those of us who have pushed away emotional pain (for example, from the death of a loved one) still have the piper to pay, and he will call in the debt at some unspecified future time.
So, I guess resilience isn't a personality triat so much as a result of letting painful experiences find a path to the surface...imo.
So it can be learned. OR so I'm told.

 

[WoodsWoman]

Yes - I'm not dead yet.

 

[Lurker]

No, not really.

I was more resilient when I was younger.

 

[King sns]

Yes. I'm a fairly resilient person. Not naturally, though. Naturally I was easily discouraged and prone to becoming overwhelmed. Over time (sick of being unhappy), I think i've developed good coping and resilience. I still need to remind myself on how to cope with things these days, though. What helps, what doesn't.

 

[nomadic]

yeah stuff doesn't really faze me and i don't really get depressed...

the one time i had depression was when I almost died falling off a cliff boarding, broke my foot, recovering from surgery, me and my gf of 4 years broke up(living together), my grandmother that lived with us growing up died, I got laid off from my job. All that happened in a span of 1 month. I was pretty depressed so i'd smoke out with my friends like every day for a few months to forget about all that stuff. this italian girl i dated totally brightened my day back then eventually...

 

[Ghost of the dead horse]

So, I'm the first so far to admit lack of resiliency in some aspects? It might well be the case - I feel I've been down in some situations where many have just kept going.

 

[Amargith]

No..not really
It's one of the qualities i admire greatly in for instance NTJs and STPs

 

[Ghost of the dead horse]

Some mishaps have been able to take my confidence down in a situational aspect, but almost never in a total, all-encompassing manner. Some of those situations have forced me to set my goals elsewhere. I've sometimes continued to feel a loss and depression related to the original goals, but most often I have been able to work fully towards the new goals with a good spirit and confidence.

Perhaps that counts as resilience, and I should give more credit to myself. Not everything can be accomplished at all times. Yet - even though I might be hugely bothered by failing in something after some time, I do remember the occurrences for very long time.

 

[Halla74]

No..not really
It's one of the qualities i admire greatly in for instance NTJs and STPs

I love disasterous circumstances.
They are soothing somehow.

This is where having very poorly developed emotions helps out alot.

Because we do not feel stressed out, we are able to remain calm and think through the best way to mitigate the situation at hand.

But if you ask us what kind of cake we want on our birthday we'll have to build a spreadsheet and calculate that out. :yim_rolling_on_the_

 

[Biaxident]

I love disastrous circumstances.
They are soothing somehow.


Because we do not feel stressed out, we are able to remain calm and think through the best way to mitigate the situation at hand.

But if you ask us what kind of cake we want on our birthday we'll have to build a spreadsheet and calculate that out. :yim_rolling_on_the_

Holy crap!

That's it exactly. The minor stuff makes me insane. Just make me a cake, you should know what I like. Unless it's frosted with anchovy paste, I'll appreciate it.

When it's life or death, or a major life changing event (other than say...a divorce) it's like emotions get put into a box, to be saved for later. Then after the blood is done spraying, the gore has been mopped up, and someone has filled in the holes in the concrete. I'll let them back out, and work through the emotions.

 

[Charmed Justice]

Eh...
I have been mostly resilient in the past. People often depend on me because of that. I've always been naturally calm and collected under high stress and have bounced back relatively quickly.

I don't know these days though. I guess everyone has some sort of breaking point. I've experienced so much loss in the past few years, and while I've still plowed through and most people who are close to me still find me strong enough to lean on, I can't honestly say I'm over most of it.

 

[nolla]

Is understanding, knowing, or even being concerned about why the trauma occurred or is occurring and its effects on you and those around you important to being a resilient person? Basically, do you have to understand why ("Why me?!?") in order to be resilient?

Hmm... Well, the latest situation that I was resilient in was when a guy beat me up some months ago. This is maybe not exactly what you mean but anyways. My response to what happened was that I took the situation and turned it around in my mind. I had been worried if I would snap when someone pushed me too far, and after this beating I could safely say that I will not snap. So in a way it was a good lesson and gave me confidence. The other thing that I learned was that I had changed since the last time I was threatened with violence. Some years ago I was in a similar situation but managed to get away before the beating began. The difference between then and now is that now I don't feel like a victim. So, I would say that I am now resilient in a way that you can't threaten or beat me up and make me a victim anymore. The rebound time was short, I was ok in a few hours.

About the "Why me?". I did ask this question from the assaulter, and did it in a quite noisy manner, but I saw that he was just another asshole who can't control his temper. After that I don't think I asked the question from myself, it was more like, "What can I learn about this?". I think I have a similar attitude to many problems.

I'd like to add that the descriptions of resilience don't really fit me. Especially the control stuff. I don't believe in controlling life. I have a resilient mind, that's all.