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My counselor used the word resilence yesterday, and I've been thinking about it a lot. Initially I thought about recovery. That's why some people talked about as the thing that happens after you lose a child. Recovery seems to imply some sort of return to normal though, which I don't believe can happen. Resilence has similar definitions--they refer to returning to an original form, holding your shape etc. But I prefer this word--it implies some sort of strength, which is what I'm told I have.
The counselor was telling me about a book she read in which the author was looking at how some people are able to weather multiple traumas, something I feel I've certainly done. It seems there is no one factor, that it's a combination of genetics, experience, outlook, and choices. Which matches what I've written previously and believe myself.
The important part of that to me is the choices part. The other things I don't have control over. I guess I've chosen some of my experiences and they shape me, but that's still sort of a limited thing. I can still choose how to respond to things. I wonder if someday I will choose to crumble, to just give in to things that seem to be trying to crush me. But as long as it's my choice, I don't think that will happen.
It always comes back to my daughter. Yesterday I realized that if anything happened to me--illness, injury--I would fight. I would NOT give in as I thought I would when I first lost my daughter. I wasn't able to see her grow up, but I'm sure as hell going to see my baby grow up. And myself.
I've always found resilience to be one of the most fascinating psychological constructs. Two people can go through virtually the exact same trauma, yet come out of it completely differently. But overall, I've seen that people have an amazing capacity to recover from trauma.
ReplyDeleteI'm having a hard time with the word "recovery" lately. It means a return to an original state, but that I know will never happen. And "normal" is a setting on the washing machine, so I'm not striving for that either. Functional, maybe? I'd like to not end up under my desk, screaming my head off, wondering why the world didn't come to an end that day.
ReplyDeleteI usually try to avoid using "normal" with my clients--or at least I tell them that there's a pretty wide range to what normal is (i.e., it's not a single point, like it is on your washing machine). I've never thought of "recover" that way, but it makes sense. My dictionary says "to return to health, consciousness, OR a normal state" (note that it's an OR, not an AND). But I think you can use whatever language makes sense to you; some of the synonyms listed for recover are survive, live.
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