Schools will often say that kids these days don’t know how to be resilient – and I’m so frigging relieved they don’t.
I wish I’d never learnt how to take a punch and get back up – I wouldn’t have fibromyalgia today if I’d been taught how to take care of myself instead.
Resilience is about learning how to live in a world that harms you – but to be okay with that. That’s what resilience means. Why would any human being want to learn that???? How f&^#ed up is that???!!!!!
What schools sometimes inadvertently mean (I think) is that children don’t hide their pain like previous generations anymore. That these new generations want and expect a better life than their parents received. They want to not have to live with trauma forever. And what’s wrong with that?
I think schools are delusional and cruel in this aspect.
Children say they are being harmed by something – and the response adults give them -is inferring all of the below; when they respond with “you need to build resilience”:
· “stop complaining, I had it worse”
· “buck up, it could be worse”
· “I’ll give you something to complain about”
· “you need to learn to put up with it”
· “you are the problem here – you should get used to being abused, because that’s what life is all about”
· “you need to rebound when someone hits you – so that they can hit you over and over again without knowing how much they’ve hurt you”
· “you are broken – everyone else hides their pain and develops mental health issues until they commit $uicide – that’s what society expects- get on board or piss off”
· “mental health problems are the ‘norm’ these days – why are you complaining?”
· “shut up and take it 8itch!”
· “I learnt to take it, so should you”
· “I’m mentally damaged, I want you to be too, so I feel better”
· “I never learnt to stand up for myself and fight back against that crap – so you don’t get to either”
· “if you indicate you are not ok – people won’t respect you or fear you”
· “I’m preparing you for the ‘real world’ – where you will be abused like this all the time and have no recourse available to you because the law and human decency doesn’t matter”
· “if you show pain, you will be a bigger target for bullies like me”
· “don’t ask for help – or you’ll be labelled a ‘pussy’”
· “don’t ask for help, society segregates and rejects people who need/ask for help”
· “don’t show weakness, mental health issues are a weakness to be shunned and bullied like I’m doing to you right now”
· “you are broken and inhuman because you showed me your heart, and I tread all over it (which actually shows my inhumanity – but I’m deflecting because someone saying the same thing to me as a child broke me too)”
· “I’m a heartless bastard and don’t want to hear your problems”
· “I don’t care about you I only care about you not being a bother to me”
Read that list again and PROMISE me that you’ll never ever tell someone again to “Build Resilience”. And if you do – I hope you realise what a &^$% you are being. To do this to a child who is still trying to learn;
who is safe in their life,
who is kind,
who is a role model,
who is a real ‘teacher’ to admire,
what to do and how to behave in life to be a good human
– you’re being a dick… you are teaching them that you are not a good teacher, not a good human, and that you only teach children unkindness and how to be a dick when they grow up. I’m not being kind with this blog, because I’ve was told that I had great resilience – until it literally broke me, in more ways than one. I don’t want any other children to end up like me. I have massive trauma, PTSD and cPTSD from being told to be resilient – and doing it.
So, I’m being direct and clear here –if you tell people to build resilience, then I will tell you to f off as harshly, or as often, or in as many different ways that you need – until you get it. Don’t be a dick!
Help them to build strategies to learn to take care, to ask for help, to accept all people – and normalise helping others with mental health issues, to normalise “it’s ok to not be ok” – after all, the world has adopted a specific day to celebrate this concept (in Australia this is celebrated on the second Thursday of September: “Are you OK” day)… but they haven’t created a day to celebrate “building resilience” and there’s a damn good reason for that.