A saying popularly attributed to Helen Keller is ‘Although life is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.’
She was one of the most famously resilient people of her time, overcoming many barriers that faced deaf and blind individuals to become an author, activist and lecturer. Her achievements were remarkable, as were the people who helped her work towards them.
A little while ago, I hosted an online event for parents of children with additional needs, the theme of which was resilience. In response to an advert for the event I received the following email:
‘My life has had to be one of resilience. Having an evening focused on resilience conjures up images of being told I have to keep going, push my feelings down and be selfless… I’m tired of keeping on going, of pushing my feelings down and being selfless. I need to stop, to let my emotions out and to be selfish sometimes. I’m learning to do this, and actually this is helping me to be more resilient.’
I get it! I am the parent of an adult with additional needs and if I’m absolutely honest, I regularly tire of ongoing parenting responsibilities that I assumed would have ended over 20 years ago. So I say to my emailer, ‘Thank you for your honesty!’ and ‘Well said!’
Looking back, I remember a long day of appointments and disappointments as our daughter’s additional needs began to unfold. She and her two brothers were safely settled in bed. Exhausted, I lay sobbing on the sofa feeling miserable, resentful and hopeless. Returning from a meeting to find me there and hearing my sad tale, my husband did his best to comfort me
‘But Nicola, she’s special.’
‘I don’t want her to be special,’ I yelled back at him. ‘I just want her to be normal.’
Wisely, he didn’t ask me to define normal. Kindly, he did not take offence at my tone. He just wrapped his arms around me and let me cry. In that moment I stopped, I let my feelings out and was utterly self-absorbed. This was not the life I expected*, and I grieved.
All these years later, do I consider myself to be a resilient person?
Yes, I suppose I do. Though when I watched Titanic, I decided that had I been on board, I would put myself and my kids to bed and wait to die rather than spend hours battling the surging waters, grappling with locked gates, (of course I would be in steerage!) and clinging on for dear life as the ship rolled and heaved and finally upended itself. So perhaps I’m not!
Are you?
Adversity is a part of life. Bad things happen, even to good people! How do we respond when the going gets tough? Do we get bitter or better? We are told that resilience equips us to face difficulties and hold on to our wellbeing. Apparently resilient individuals are better able to manage stress, anxiety and depression and are more likely to maintain a positive outlook even in difficult circumstances.
Resilience involves adapting to challenges, helps us with problem solving and promotes creativity. All good things, but how do we get it? How do we become resilient? Frankly, if I must endure lots of hard things to become resilient, I’d rather avoid them, live an easy life and be blissfully fragile!
If only it were that simple.
Some of the parents that joined me for the Just for You – Resilience event were living with challenges that no one would choose. Parent-carers to children with many and varied additional needs, loving against the odds whilst attending endless hospital appointments, filling in perpetual forms, battling inadequate provision and overstretched services.
Apparently Winston Churchill once said, ‘If you’re going through hell, keep going.’ If not particularly comforting, it is at least pragmatic, realistic and not bad advice for some.
In her book A Mind Of Their Own, Care for the Family’s Katharine Hill says that ‘resilience can really only be learnt in the context of the hard knocks of life … it doesn’t happen as a result of a mountain top, earth-shattering event, but in the grit of perseverance during the common struggles of life.’**
Yes, resilience is the ability to bounce back from difficulty, but it is so much more than that. It is the capacity to adapt positively in the face of trauma, adversity and challenge. It is not about avoiding hardship or pretending everything is OK when it’s not. There are times when putting on a brave face is needed, but there must be times to lament and sob and speak out our deepest feelings too.
To come back to the person who wrote to me about resilience – I would say, as someone who has also been in those trenches, that I get it. And like you, I also know that true resilience isn’t keeping everything buttoned up. It is, as Churchill says, going through hell – but keeping going.
References
*The Life You Never Expected written by Andrew and Rachel Wilson is a great read.
** Katharine Hill, A Mind of Their Own: Building Your Child’s Emotional Wellbeing in a Fast-Changing World (Kilfinan Press, 2024), p. 173.
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